Kingfisher County, Oklahoma: History
Limited archaeological surveys may have discovered evidence of pre-contact peoples, including Paleo-Indian and Archaic (6000 BC - 1 AD) groups that used the area for hunting and foraging. The historic Osage, Cheyenne, and Comanche tribes traversed the prairie grasslands of this area.
Before the county's creation, The Chisholm Trail's many routes crossed the area. A stage road which paralleled the trail had important stops at Dover Station, King Fisher Station and Baker Station.
The area was given to the Creek Nation by the federal government after their forced removal from Georgia. At the end of the American Civil War, the Creeks were forced to cede the land back to the federal government for siding with the Confederacy. It became part of the Unassigned Lands, and the area was opened to non-Indian settlement in the land run on April 22, 1889. Several towns, including Kingfisher, Oklahoma developed soon after the land run.
Originally this area was called County 5, when the Organic Act of May 2, 1890, created Oklahoma Territory. At an August 5, 1890, election, the voters of County 5 overwhelmingly voted for the name "Kingfisher" over "Hennessey" and "Harrison". The origin of the name is unclear. The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture mentions three different possibilities. The first is that the name memorialized a local rancher, David King Fisher. The second version is that King and Fisher were two different settlers, whose names were combined for the county and town. The third explanation was that the name was for a rancher named John Fisher and for whom Uncle Johns Creek was named.
In November 2022, four Chinese citizens were shot and killed and a fifth person wounded at a licensed medical marijuana grow operation on a 10-acre farm west of Hennessey, near the unincorporated community of Lacey. Local reporting described armed guards regularly posted outside the facility, and the publisher of a nearby community newspaper said the mail carrier frequently encountered armed guards with guns while delivering mail to the property.