In 1682, René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the area for Spain, which ceded it to France in 1800.

They vigorously opposed settlements by white immigrants and non-indigenous Native Americans, leading to much destruction and bloodshed.

After gold was discovered in California in 1848, the large number of people traveling west created a need for a wagon road.

Captain Randolph B. Marcy was commissioned to lead a party to survey the route for such a road from Fort Smith to California.

They rise almost perpendicularly from the smooth prairie, are flat upon the top, and present every indication of having been raised out of the earth by volcanic agency.

The main economic activities are agriculture and petroleum production, because it lies atop the Ogallala Aquifer and the Anadarko Basin.

[1] The surface was originally formed by sediments (sand, clay and caliche) carried down by streams from the Rocky Mountains.