Retiring Guy's Digest: Population loss in rural Oklahoma: Cotton County

Saturday, June 1, 2019

Population loss in rural Oklahoma: Cotton County

Population loss as in major -- 50% or more.

Source: Wikipedia (Cotton County, Walters)

Walters is the county seat of Cotton County.

Population loss by degrees: 80-89%, 70-79%, 60-69%, 50-59%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts

Percentage of population 25 and older with a bachelor's degree:

15.8% - Cotton County
24.8% - Oklahoma
30.9% - U.S.

Percentage of population 65 and older:

19.1% - Cotton County
15.3% - Oklahoma
15.6% - U.S.

The last time Cotton County voted for a Democratic candidate for president was in 1996, when Bill Clinton won a 2nd term. In 1964, LBJ beat Barry Goldwater by 32.8 percentage points, and third-party candidate George Wallace received 29.1% of the vote in 1968.

Walters Public Library

Photo credit: Library Technology

Related reading:

New Deal Architecture Faces Bulldozer. (The New York Times, 2/8/2009)

In Cotton County, Okla., a ruined gymnasium has only holes where windows used to be. Across the country, schools, auditoriums and community centers of the era are headed for the wrecking ball.

“It’s ironic to be tearing them down just when America is going through tough times again,” said the biographer Robert A. Caro, who wrote about the W.P.A. in “The Power Broker,” his book about the builder Robert Moses. “We should be preserving them and honoring them. They serve as monuments to the fact that it is possible to combine infrastructure with beauty.”

Other Oklahoma population loss posts:

Western third

Cimarron County/Boise City. (5/27/2019)

Beaver County/Beaver. (5/27/2019)

Harper County/Buffalo. (5/28/2019)

Ellis County/Arnett. (5/28/2019)

Roger Mills/Cheyenne. (5/28/2019)

Greer County/Mangum. (5/29/2019)

Harmon County/Hollis. (5/29/2019)