Morris, OK

Morris is an Okmulgee County city with a railroad beginning and a very Oklahoma kind of second act. It grew around a cattle stop on the Ozark and Cherokee Central Railway, with the post office opening in 1904 and the townsite mapped on land bought from Creek landowner Phillip Scott. The first streets were Ozark, after the railroad, and Hughes. By the end of that first year, Morris had a bank, mercantile store, cotton gin, lumberyards, churches, and a few hundred residents.

Oil and nearby coal added another chapter, and the town still carries the legend of bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd, who had local friends during the Depression. Then, on April 26, 1984, a tornado destroyed the business section and about half the housing. Morris rebuilt, and the current layout is more about everyday use: Eagle Park’s playground and trail, the youth sports complex, city library, school, and the highways connecting it with Okmulgee. The local scoop is a city that has been a rail stop, oil town, storm recovery project, and ballfield town all at once.