Winchester is a populated place in Woods County, Oklahoma. It is located at an elevation of 1,483 feet at a point 9.1 miles west-southwest of Hardtner, Kansas, and 12 miles northwest of the Woods County seat of Alva, Oklahoma.[1]
Winchester, as part of what became Woods County, was opened to settlement by the Land Run of 1893.[2] A post office was created there in 1895[3] while the area was still Oklahoma Territory. A 1902 Woods County Directory indicates the town had daily stage service to Alva.[4] Casual mentions of Winchester can be found in Renfrew’s Record, the newspaper in Alva, from at least 1902 to 1921.[5] [6] A 1911 map of Woods County shows its location, together with the ephemeral settlements of Fitzlen to its east, Gamet to its southeast, Flagg to its southwest, and Faulkner, Abbie & Kingman to its west.[7]
But Winchester was not built on a railway: the rail line from Kiowa, Kansas came into Alva from the northeast, running well east of Winchester,[8] [7] [9] while the Buffalo and Northwestern Railroad, which connected Buffalo, Oklahoma with Waynoka by way of Freedom in the 1919–20 timeframe, was too far south.[10] Further, the town was bypassed by major highways, with the nearest, US Route 281, well to the location’s east.[11] The town did not thrive, and the post office closed in 1939.[3]
This settlement is not to be confused with the modern-day community of Winchester, Oklahoma, in Okmulgee County.[12]