This refuge is located in southwestern Oklahoma near Lawton and has protected unique wildlife habitats since 1901. The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge is the oldest managed wildlife facility in the US Fish and Wildlife Service system.

The area of the refuge is about 59,000 acres and located in the geologically unique Wichita Mountains and its undisturbed mixed grass prairies make it an important conservation area.

The fist known geological event occurred about 550-600 million years ago (mya), when the land across the top of Texas and southwest Oklahoma as far east as the city of Lawton sank, forming a basin and filling with sea water. Then, rivers from surround lands carried clay, sand and gravel into this sea, depositing stratified layers of eroded silt forming thick sediment. Later, this area of thick sediment was uplifted thousands of feet by intrusive lava, cooled and solidified beneath the surface of the earth to form igneous rock consisting of granite, rhyolite, and gabbro. This uplifting was accompanied by erosion which removed much of the sediments and would later constitute much of the Wichita Mountain range.

The next geological event occurred about 500-550 mya during the Cambian period when lava flows at considerable depth was forced upward into the overlying gabbro and in parts of this region, reaching the surface through volcanic vents. The cooling of this lava formed a red granite which is the most extensive rock in the refuge, Mount Scott being composed entirely of this red granite.

Then during the second half of the Carboniferian Period, ¹ between 330 to 290 mya, the region was uplifted to heights much greater than at present and the uplifting was accompanied by large folds and faulting.

During the Permian Period (299-252 mya) weathering and erosion stripped the upper parts of the mountains and deposited this material as gravel deposits in the intervening flats, thus reducing the average heights of the mountains to between 400 and 1,000 feet and lessoning the depths of the intervening flats.

Through the ages climatic forces have chiseled and sculptured the mountains until all that remain of the once lofty escarpments are weather-reduced knobs and domes.

The Civilian Conservation Corps, organized by President F. D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression provided employment for nearly three million young, unemployed, unmarried men ages 17 to 26 and served to enhance and preserve the natural resources of this nation.

Corpsmen were paid $30.00 per month for their work, $25 of which was sent home to their families in an effort to relieve the burdens arising from the depression. The workers were provided housing, food, medical and dental care as well as educational training.

The CCC Program improved the lives of those who worked on the many conservation and recreational projects on the Refuge. Their unparalleled accomplishements in preserving this irreplaceable, natural resource stand as permanent symbols to the dedication and productivity of the men of the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge hosted three CCC Companies: Camp 812 - Buffalo Springs; Camp 859 - Panther Creek; and Camp 870 - Elm Island.

Work projects in the Refuge credited to these camps included dams, roads, buildings, fences, trails, and many of the recreational facilities still in use today.

The word Wichita is derived from two archaic Wichita native American words: Weets, which means man and ee-taw which signifies of the north.

The Wichitas believed their ancestors lived on the rocky points of these mountains, which rank among the oldest ranges on earth. However, the Wichitas are descendants of the Caddos, themselves descendants of the Sons of Diklah.

Arriving in Texas as early as 1686 on the El Camino de Los Tejas, Spanish traders encountered the Caddoan mound cultures in the Coastal Plains region of Texas. Further expansion of the route into north Texas and southern Oklahoma to bartered with other native American tribes for hides and other artifacts.

Marauding bands of Comanches used the mountains as a resting and hiding site after pillaging in Texas and Mexico. Then, in 1843, President Sam Houston of Texas commissioned J.C. Eldredge to make a treaty with the Comanches. Eldredge found them camped in the mountains and that is where the negotiations took place.

In 1852, Captain R. B. Marcy was directed to explore the source of the Red River, and in doing so, investigated the Wichitas. While in the Wichitas, he collected specimens of flora and fauna, noted geological formations and named Mount Scott.

Philip Sheridan, a Union General of civil war fame, shot elk near the mountain which now bears his name.

Mount Pinchot is the highest mountain in the refuge, which rises to 2,479 feet (756m). Mount Pinchot was named in honor of Gifford Pinchot who served as the first Chief of the United States Forest Service.

Mount Scott has a narrow winding road rises steeply to it′s summit at 2,464 feet, (751 m), and has a view that encompasses the whole refuge.

Although the refuge mountains rise only 800 to 1000 feet above the surrounding prairie, they are steep and rocky.