Initially a border-to-border route, it was shortened to its current extent due to encroaching U.S. highways.

Fourteen miles (23 km) later, the highway passes through Anadarko, sharing a brief overlap with US-62/SH-9.

SH-152 splits off to the west at Binger, and US-281/SH-8 go northward through Lookeba to meet SH-37 at its western terminus in Hinton.

Four miles (6.4 km) to the north, the two highways have an interchange with Interstate 40 at its milemarker 101.

After this, US-281/SH-8 cross the Canadian River and begin a concurrency with U.S. Highway 270 in Geary.

[5] In November 1926, AASHTO officially approved the United States Numbered Highways system.

However, US-70 completely replaced the state highway, which was truncated so that its southern terminus was at US-70 in Randlett.

However, a new road between Anadarko and Cyril had been built; this became part of SH-8 and set the highway's southern terminus at its present location.

[4][8] However, on 1938-10-18, the route was extended back to the former southern terminus at Randlett;[4] this change did not appear on the state map until the April 1941 edition.

[9] As a result of the 1955 realignment, SH-8 cut northeast to connect to US-64 directly, bypassing Lambert.