True Legends That Were Real Oklahoma Outlaws

Every time I take a vacation away from Oklahoma, it never ceases to amaze me how little people know about this state.

I hopped in a cab in Waikiki when I was in Hawaii about a decade ago. The cabbie said "Where are you from?" I told him and the only topic of conversation he could muster was "So that Murrah bombing was pretty bad, huh?" but that's not even a dip in the ocean of weird Oklahoma-based conversations.

In Vegas, I literally had someone ask "Do (Native Americans) still raid settlements in Oklahoma?" It sounds like hyperbole, but I swear this is true. People just don't know much about our state. To be fair, it's a rather young state still and there's not much in the way of nationwide topics to be shared... but our history is far deeper than anyone believes.

For instance, Oklahoma was one of the first places to address civil rights, but also the last place in America to give up slavery. It's home to one of the oldest human settlements on the continent. We've had a gold rush. We've gone to war with Texas and taken Texan land. Oklahoma was the only US state to be bombed during WWII and played an integral role as the country's nuclear sponge during the cold war.

As interesting as all of that is, it gets better as history grows more recent. Specifically during the great time of America's wild west outlaws and their vastly unknown ties to this state.