Washington Irving, Charles J. Latrobe, and Count Albert de Pourtalès accompanied Henry L. Ellsworth and others on an expedition in Indian Territory that may have passed through the far northwestern corner of the future Lincoln County.

[1] The Osage hunted on land that includes present-day Lincoln County until they ceded the area in an 1825 treaty to the federal government.

The government then assigned the land to the Creek and the Seminoles after they were removed from the southeastern United States.

There were absentee groups of Quapaw living along the Red River and in Creek, Choctaw and Cherokee territory.

[6] After the Civil War in 1866, the Creek and Seminoles were forced to give up lands that included present-day Lincoln County in Reconstruction Treaties for siding with the Confederacy.

[1] The federal government then used the area to resettle the Sac and Fox, Potawatomi, Kickapoo and Ioway tribes.

[1] In 1890, the Jerome Commission negotiated with the tribes of the area such that they agreed to allotment of their reservation lands, except for the Kickapoo.

A separate land run was held later that year for the townsite of the predesignated county seat, Chandler.

Oil furnished one-third of county tax revenue, and cattle raising and pecan growing became important income sources.