Chandler, OK

At the 2020 census, Chandler was a Lincoln County city and county seat of 2,858 people, set on a hilltop northeast of Oklahoma City. It was created in its own land run on September 28, 1891, one of only two Oklahoma towns to have a separate rush for its townsite. At noon, gunshots sent several thousand land seekers racing on foot and horseback for lots in the 320-acre site. The town was named for George Chandler, a Kansas lawyer who served as assistant secretary of the Interior.

Chandler's later identity came by road. Route 66 runs through town, and the old National Guard armory now houses the Route 66 Interpretive Center, with Lincoln County history and roadside travel in the same stone building. The 1897 tornado killed 17 people and led to a downtown rebuilt in brick and stone; ten of those commercial buildings still house businesses. Bell Cow Lake, the Oklahoma Law Enforcement Museum, and the county courthouse keep the county seat busy after the last land runner is gone. Chandler is a land-run town that learned how to keep moving when the road changed.