A huge area in what is now central Oklahoma was literally "peopled" by non-Native Americans overnight.

The city is situated on a part of the Chisholm Trail, over which millions of Texas longhorns were driven to railheads in Kansas in the years immediately following the Civil War.

[7] The bill that opened Oklahoma Territory to non-Indian settlement limited the sizes of townsites to 320 acres (130 ha).

Abraham Jefferson Seay, a Missouri native, was appointed as District Judge and moved to Kingfisher.

[6] Railroads helped with Kingfisher’s growth: the Chicago, Kansas and Nebraska Railway (later part of the Rock Island) built through the area, the first passenger train arriving on October 23, 1889.

In 1900, the Guthrie and Kingfisher Railway -- also later part of the Rock Island-- built east from Kingfisher, while the Guthrie and Western Railway-- an affiliate of the Santa Fe Railroad-- built west from Seward, Oklahoma, meeting at a point that became Cashion, Oklahoma, and giving Kingfisher access to the territorial capitol of Guthrie and the Santa Fe system.

Kingfisher is a Certified City and has received a Community Development Block Grant to inventory infrastructure features for Capital Improvement Planning (CIP).

[15] The city is drained by Kingfisher Creek, a northeast-flowing tributary of the Cimarron River.

[19] Kingfisher's only permanent tourist attraction is the Chisholm Trail Museum, which houses the Gov.