[7] About 1850, he established a trading post near the meeting of Polecat and Rock creeks (about one mile (1.6 km) southeast of downtown Sapulpa).

When the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad (which became the Frisco) built a spur to this area in 1886, it was known as Sapulpa Station.

The Sapulpa post office was chartered July 1, 1889 and the town was incorporated March 31, 1898.

The plant, after many changes to the facilities and in ownership, as of 2019[update] makes beer bottles under the Ardagh Group.

[17] In 1886 the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, which already had a line stretching from Missouri to Tulsa and Red Fork, extended its tracks into Sapulpa.

[7] Also in 1900, construction of the line from Sapulpa to Denison, Texas was started and rushed to completion by March 1901.

[21] The sale contract required initiating a six-month trial of daily passenger service before August 2019—known as the Eastern Flyer—with a financial penalty of $2.8 million for failure to meet the deadline.

[22] On August 5, 2019, with no passenger service in place, the Stillwater Central defaulted on the contract and paid the penalty.

S&I subsequently underwent a series of mergers and name changes, with only the Tulsa-to-Sapulpa portion continuing as the Tulsa-Sapulpa Union Railway.

A small portion of the city that extends north into Tulsa County was annexed into Sapulpa in 2004.

The Creek Turnpike (State Highway 364) branches east from I-44 in northeastern Sapulpa and provides a southern and eastern bypass of Tulsa.

In January 2018, the Sapulpa City Council voted to approve the annexation of approximately 300 acres of land in West Tulsa.

[35] Sapulpa has an organization known as Sapulpa Main Street, one of the various national Main Street programs, the purpose of which is to preserve and enhance the cultural heritage of the town, and to improve its quality of life, by revitalizing the Central Business District as the center of the Community.

[38] Among other facilities is Pretty Water Lake, spring-fed and 25-acres large, open for fishing and stocked with trout and channel catfish/panfish.

[42] The Sapulpa Daily Herald garnered national media attention in November 2008 for not reporting the presidential victory of Barack Obama, instead reporting that John McCain had won among the voters of Creek County.