Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge
protected area in Oklahoma, United States
Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, located in southwestern Oklahoma near Lawton, has protected unique wildlife habitats since 1901 and is the oldest managed wildlife facility in the United States Fish and Wildlife Service system. The refuge's location in the geologically unique Wichita Mountains and its areas of undisturbed mixed grass prairie make it an important conservation area. The Wichita Mountains are approximately 500 million years old. Measuring about 59,020 acres (238.8 km2), the refuge hosts a great diversity of species: 806 plant species, 240 species of birds, 36 fish, and 64 reptiles and amphibians are present.
History
The Wichita Forest Reserve was established by the United States General Land Office in Oklahoma on July 4, 1901, with 57,120 acres (231.2 km2). After the transfer of federal forests to the U.S. Forest Service in 1905, it became a National Forest on March 4, 1907, as Wichita National Forest.
On June 4, 1936, the Wichita Forest designation was abolished and transferred to the Bureau of Biological Survey, a precursor to the Fish and Wildlife Service. It was re-designated the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge (WMWR).
United States Observances and Statutes Governing Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge
Description
The WMWR is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There are 13 small lakes within the reserve.
“Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge” enters the record as protected area in Oklahoma, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Wichita, Mountains and Wildlife can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q743584. VIAF identifies the subject as 315526700. The Library of Congress control number is sh85146588. Authority coordinates are 34.767, -98.700. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901, 1905, 1907 and 1936.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.