Oklahoma State Nickname: The Sooner State

Boomers operated differently from Sooners. David L. Payne organized the Boomer Movement in the late 1870s to pressure the government into opening the Unassigned Lands. His followers believed the Homestead Act of 1862 gave them the right to settle on public land. Federal troops repeatedly expelled Boomers from Indian Territory before 1889. Dr. Morrison Munford of the Kansas City Times coined the terms Boom and Boomer to describe the settlement campaign. The Santa Fe Railway Company backed their efforts because the railroad wanted to develop the region. When the land run finally happened, many Boomers who waited for the legal signal discovered Sooners had already claimed the choice sections, in the same civic era represented by Oklahoma's state flag history.

Thirty-nine federally recognized Native American tribes have headquarters in Oklahoma today. Congress created Indian Territory in the 1830s as a permanent homeland for tribes forced to relocate from the Southeast. The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations endured the Trail of Tears to reach this designated land. These groups became known as the Five Civilized Tribes. Following the Civil War, the federal government renegotiated treaties and took back portions of tribal territory, labeling them Unassigned Lands. Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory merged in 1907 to form the state. Oklahoma comes from two Choctaw words meaning red people. Museums, cultural centers, and events like the Red Earth Festival keep tribal traditions alive across the state. Texas shares a similar history of displaced tribal nations along its borders — the history behind the Lone Star State includes the same era of federal Indian policy that reshaped the entire southern plains.

This earlier nickname acknowledged both the state's name meaning and its Native American population. Before 1907, the entire region was Indian Territory where relocated tribes governed themselves. Each nation maintained its own courts, schools, and laws. The Five Civilized Tribes attempted to create an independent state called Sequoyah in 1905, but Congress rejected their proposal. Federal lawmakers instead combined Indian Territory with Oklahoma Territory when granting statehood. Oklahoma's state seal includes symbols from all Five Tribes arranged in a star pattern. The nickname appears less often now, though it recognizes the forced removal that brought Native peoples here and their continued presence, while modern scale can be compared in U.S. states by population.