This section addresses events that largely occurred outside the present city limits of Tulsa.
The Lasley Vore Site, along the Arkansas River south of Tulsa, was claimed by University of Tulsa anthropologist George Odell to be the most likely place where Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe first encountered a group of Wichita people in 1719.
Odell's statement was based on finding both Wichita and French artifacts there during an architectural dig in 1988.
At first, Creek immigrants stayed close to Fort Gibson, near the confluence of the Arkansas and Verdigris rivers.
The Osage tribe had agreed to leave the land near the Verdigris, but had not moved far and soon threatened the new Creek settlements.
Isaac McCoy and Lt. James L. Dawson blazed a trail up the north side of the Arkansas from Fort Gibson to its junction with the Cimarron River.
The following year, Brevet Major George Birch and two companies of the 7th Infantry Regiment followed the "Dawson Road" to the aforementioned site.
Main article Battle of Chusto-Talasah At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, many Creeks and Seminoles in Indian Territory, led by Opothleyahola, retained their allegiance to the U. S. Government.
Col. Cooper's force attacked the Unionists at Chusto-Talasah (Caving Banks) on the Horseshoe Bend of Bird Creek in what is now Tulsa County.
[7] The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad had extended its main line in Indian Territory from Vinita to Tulsa in 1883, where it stopped on the east side of the Arkansas River.
The company, which later merged into the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway (familiarly known as the Frisco), then built a steel bridge across the river to extend the line to Red Fork.
This bridge allowed cattlemen to load their animals onto the railroad west of the Arkansas instead of fording the river, as had been the practice previously.
This was the court house where a mob of white residents gathered on May 31, 1921, threatening to lynch a young black man held in the top-floor jail.
[10] Located in the Greenwood neighborhood, it was the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre, said to be "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history",[11] in which mobs of white Tulsans killed black Tulsans, looted and robbed the black community, and burned down homes and businesses.
[10] Sixteen hours of massacring on May 31 and June 1, 1921, ended only when National Guardsmen were brought in by the Governor.
[10] Efforts to obtain reparations for survivors of the violence have been unsuccessful, but the events were re-examined by the city and state in the early 21st century, acknowledging the terrible actions that had taken place.
Keystone Lake, formed by a dam on the Arkansas River, lies partially in the county.
[23][24] Of the county's population over the age of 25, 29.2% held a bachelor's degree or higher, and 88.2% have a high school diploma or equivalent.
George H. W. Bush in 1992 remains the only Republican since Alf Landon in 1936 to fail to obtain a majority in the county, and even then only because of Ross Perot’s strong third-party candidacy.
In 2020, Joe Biden became the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to win more than 40% of the vote in Tulsa County, and only the second to do so since 1948.
[33][34][35][36] In February 2020, registered Republicans were reduced from a majority to a plurality in the county's voter registration.
It is a series of linear parks that run adjacent to the Arkansas River for about 10 miles (16 km) from downtown to the Jenks bridge.
Since 2007 a significant portion of the River Parks area has been renovated with new trails, landscaping and playground equipment.
The River Parks Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area on the west side of the Arkansas River in south Tulsa is a 300 acres (120 ha) area that contains over 45 miles (72 km) of dirt trails available for hiking, trail running, mountain biking and horseback riding.