National Wildlife Refuge · FWS · OK · Roosevelt connection
Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge
Alerts and conditions
All clear. The managing agency, the National Weather Service and wildfire reporting show no current alerts.
History
The designation history for this site (every law, proclamation and order, and the administration behind each) is being researched and checked by the Library’s historians.
The Roosevelt connection
Protected by T.R.
- June 2, 1905: as President, Theodore Roosevelt set aside Wichita Game Preserve (national game preserve). Roosevelt turned the Wichita Forest Reserve into a game preserve, and Bronx Zoo bison arrived in 1907 to restart a wild herd.
archive.org · presidency.ucsb.edu · fws.gov · Roosevelt’s Public Lands
His proclamations and orders
- June 2, 1905: Proclamation 563, “Redesignating the Wichita Forest Reserve, Oklahoma, as a Game Preserve.” Today’s site began with this document. 59,020 acres of mixed-grass prairie and granite uplands; still home to descendants of the 1907 bison herd, along with elk and longhorn cattle.
Proclamation 563 in Theodore Roosevelt’s Executive Orders and Proclamations
What to see and do
Plan your visit
Check the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for current hours, fees and access.
Whose lands these are
These lands are the ancestral and present-day homelands of Native nations. A section on whose lands these are is being prepared with tribal review. In the meantime, Native Land Digital offers a starting point.
Pair it with
- Washita National Wildlife Refuge FWS · 68 miles
- Oklahoma City National Memorial NPS · 83 miles
- Washita Battlefield National Historic Site NPS · 83 miles
- Black Kettle National Grassland USFS · 94 miles
- Chickasaw National Recreation Area NPS · 97 miles
- Lyndon B. Johnson National Grassland USFS · 114 miles