Cushing (Oklahoma)

Payne County

40-18850

Cushing is a city in Payne County, Oklahoma, USA.

Geography

Cushing is located at the junction of Oklahoma State Routes 33 and 18, approximately 50 kilometers east of Guthrie. The capital of the state, Oklahoma City is located about 100 km southwest of Cushing. The nearest neighboring city is the Drumright less than ten kilometers east lying with its long common economic history with Cushing.

At almost 30 km south of the city runs past Interstate 44 Cushing is connected via State Route 18, which meets at Chandler on the interstate. The city has an airport, the Cushing Municipal Airport

The city covers an area of 19.8 km ², the average altitude is 285 m above sea level.

Population

Cushing had 2000 8.371 inhabitants in the census. Almost 80 % of them were white, 8% American Indian and 7 % African- American. The remainder was divided between different ethnic groups. The per capita income was 12,620 dollars, about 16.5 % of the population lived below the poverty line.

History

The territory of the later Cushing was in the 19th century part of the Sac and Fox Reservation, the Indian Reservation in the Sauk and Fox Indians. White settlers settled after the Oklahoma Land Run of 1891 in the area down. In the same year a post office was opened, and the settlement was named to Cushing to Marshall Cushing, private secretary to the U.S. Postmaster General John Wanamaker.

The city was rural in character at the beginning of its history, it has been grown and processed mainly cotton, the timber industry was significant. 1902 Cushung was connected to the railway line in the Eastern Oklahoma Railway, a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. 1903 also reached the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway the city.

On 17 March 1912, the prospector Thomas B. Slick drilled on the grounds of the Frank M. Wheeler farm east of town a productive oil well, and solved with this find an oil boom, and Cushing had trouble with the sudden influx of people get ready. Oil finder flocked to Cushing, and was drilled everywhere. Of the first 46 holes in the so-called Cushing - Drumright oil field only one remained dry. Oil production took place mainly in the area of the new town Drumright, while Cushing took over the processing.

The first oil refinery in the city was founded in 1913, and Cushing became the center for oil production and distribution for the surrounding oil fields. There were 23 oil companies and four specialist firms for the equipment for oil exploration and production on site.

1915 marked the peak of the oil production with about 3,600 oil wells and one month's production of 8.3 million barrels of oil in March. Overall, the amount of oil pumped the year was 49.08 million barrels. The yield of the oil fields, however, took off rapidly and fell in 1916 to half of the previous year. Nevertheless, the population by 1930 grew to more than 9000 inhabitants, and 16 oil companies still had their headquarters in Cushing. After the extensive stocks run economic decline, which was concluded in the 1940s essentially began: 1500 inhabitants had left the city, and there were only three refineries. This produced until the seventies, then the last two refineries closed their gates, and the railway was abandoned.

Towards the end of the 20th century, the existing, with a network of pipelines, well-developed infrastructure for the oil distribution was an important advantage in the selection of distribution centers for the oil. The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX ) certain Cushing for this reason in 1983 the official distribution center for light crude. Since then, the population has grown, she took between the censuses of 1990 and 2000 by more than 1000 people to.

Economy

Cushing is still one of the main hubs for oil on the way from the U.S. Gulf Coast to the consumer. 2014 is the storage capacity up to 80 million barrels (about 13 billion liters ) of oil.

In the south of the city there is an oil - bearing the company Plains All American Pipeline. With a capacity of about 35 million barrels, it is one of the largest camps in the country.

Another important employer in the city is the prison opened in 1997, employs more than 270 people. A large part of the population is also active in agriculture.