Buffalo, OK

Buffalo is Harper County's seat in northwestern Oklahoma, where the 2020 census counted 1,039 residents. The town sits at the eastern entrance to the Panhandle, along U.S. Routes 64 and 183, twelve miles south of Kansas and about thirty miles northeast of Texas. Its name comes from Buffalo Creek, whose valley was staked out for the town in 1907. A post office opened that June, and Buffalo won the county-seat election the following year.

The surrounding landscape carries older travel routes too. Cattle drives used the Western Trail west of town, while a military trail once ran north from Fort Supply toward Fort Dodge, Kansas. Doby Springs, eight miles west and two miles north, is now a city-owned lake and park that supplies Buffalo's water. Buffalo School District serves primary and secondary students, keeping education, county government, and highway traffic close together. The town's map is a mix of Panhandle roads, county-seat institutions, cattle history, and a spring-fed park. The county courthouse remains the town's civic center.