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The Kiowa County community of Mountain Park is situated on U.S. Highway 183, three miles north of Snyder and twenty-seven miles south of Hobart. A short-line railroad, operated by the Grainbelt Corporation, runs through town in a north-south direction. The town's name honors the nearby Wichita Mountains.
The town of Mountain Park began as a trading post named Burford, near the Wichita Mountains in southern Oklahoma Territory. A post office was established at Burford in August 1901, just after the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Reservation opened for settlement by non-Indians. In February 1902, the town had sprung up around the trading post and changed its name to Mountain Park. Fires destroyed most of the wood frame buildings along Main Street in 1906 and 1908. The town rebuilt with all brick structures.
According to Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, the Oklahoma City and Western Railroad offered Mountain Park resident Sol Bracken six thousand dollars for a 160 acres (65 ha) tract on which to build a station. Bracken refused the offer as insufficient and demanded more money. Instead, company officials rerouted their railroad through the town of Snyder, two miles south of Mountain Park. As a result, 41 of the 47 businesses in Mountain Park promptly moved to Snyder.
By statehood in 1907, Mountain Park had 381 residents. In 1910, it was named the county seat of the short-lived Swanson County, Oklahoma. That county was abolished in the following year. The local economy was based on cotton and wheat production, as well as granite quarrying. The population rose to 459 by 1930. Census population peaked at 557 in 1980, then declined to 390 in 2000. The population was 409 at the 2010 census.
At the Town of Mountain Park, we are defined less by boundaries on a map than by the sense of shared values our residents hold dear. Small town values, guided growth, preservation of historical, cultural, and natural heritage are just a few of the core principles that make the Town of Mountain Park a wonderful place to call home.
