Road Trip Oklahoma visits Wewoka

Oklahoma's Own News 9 is setting out on Road Trip Oklahoma to discover this state's small-town treasures. This time we're visiting Wewoka on March 16.

Named for the Seminole word meaning "barking water," Wewoka was founded in 1866 and serves as the seat of Seminole County and capital of the Seminole Nation. The first settlers to Wewoka, freed slaves, arrived in 1849, but it wasn't until seventeen years later, when the United States government appointed Elijah J. Brown to lead a group of Seminole Indians down from Kansas to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma, that this settlement was recognized as a town.

In the mid-1920s, Wewoka boasted an amusement park with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a carousel, a shooting gallery, and a skating rink. While that park is gone, Wewoka currently has a nine-hole golf course and is home to the annual Sorghum Festival, Cedar Street Blues & Jazz Festival, and Skyline Bluegrass Festival.

This small town is the birthplace of Juanita Kidd Stout, the first black female federal judge, and Gil Morgan, a pro golfer after whom Wewoka's municipal golf course is named. Wewoka is also home to Vance Trimble, a 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

Come along with Oklahoma's Own News 9 on March 16 as we take a Road Trip to discover all Wewoka has to offer.