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Shawnee is a city in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 29,857 at the 2010 census, a 4.0 percent increase from 28,692 at the 2000 census.〔(CensusViewer: Population of the City of Shawnee, Oklahoma )〕 The city is part of the Oklahoma City-Shawnee Combined Statistical Area; it is also the county seat of Pottawatomie County〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=2011-06-07 )〕 and the principal city of the Shawnee Micropolitan Statistical Area. With access to Interstate 40, Shawnee is about 45 minutes east of the attractions in downtown Oklahoma City. To the east and northeast, the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System offers barges a water route to and from the Gulf of Mexico. ==History== The area surrounding Shawnee was settled after the American Civil War by a number of tribes that the federal government had removed to Indian Territory. The Sac and Fox originally were deeded land in the immediate area but were soon followed by the Kickapoo, Shawnee, and Pottawatomi Indians. Descendants of these federally recognized tribes continue to reside today in and around Shawnee. Over the course of the 1870s, Texas cattle drovers pushed their herds across Indian Territory; there were four major trails, with the West Shawnee trail crossing near present-day Kickapoo and Main streets. With the cattle drives, railroads were constructed through the territory, with the government forcing tribes to cede rights of way. In addition, white settlers pressed for more land; they were encroaching on territories previously reserved by treaty to Native Americans. In 1871 a Quaker mission was established here. (The current Mission Hill Hospital is located near that site, now occupied by an historic building.) That first missionary, Joseph Newsom, opened a school in 1872. By 1876 a post office and trading post had been established a quarter mile west of the mission at what became known as Shawnee Town. Beginning in April 1889, the United States government succumbed to the pressure that had built to open Native lands to white settlement. In addition, it was making policy intended to encourage Native Americans to assimilate to the culture of the mainstream society. By planning to allocate communal lands to individual households and extinguish tribal land claims, Congress also intended to prepare the territory for eventual statehood. The end of communal holdings was also intended to be the end of traditional tribal government, to be replaced by government with leaders appointed by the federal government. Congress passed the Dawes Act to allocate the tribes' communal lands as 160-acre plots to individual households of members of the tribes. This was a standard plot, what the government believed would support a family subsistence farm. The acreage did not account for the specific conditions in Oklahoma, where considerable land was too dry to farm without irrigation. Tribal members were registered in a massive effort, with records known as the Dawes Rolls established for each tribe. The government declared that tribal land in excess of what was allocated to member households was "surplus" and available for settlement by non-Native Americans. It allocated that surplus land through land runs, essentially races by which people staked claims on land. In the process most tribes lost control of major parts of their communal lands, and were disrupted by the end of traditional governments and practices. After the Land Run of 1891, four settlers (Etta B. Ray, Henry G. Beard, James T. Farrall, and Elijah A. Alley) each staked a quarter section in the proposed city of Brockway. Following an all-night discussion among early settlers who had their own ideas for the town's name, a compromise was reached. They named the town Shawnee after the tribe that had been living there.〔Barnard, Robert J. ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''. "Shawnee".()〕 Henry G. Beard claimed his quarter section of land in 1892. In the early spring of 1895, Mr. Beard entered into an agreement with the promoters of the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad Company, then extending its line from Memphis, Tennessee, to Amarillo, Texas, to build through his farm. In consideration he gave the railway company one-half his claim of one hundred and sixty acres. The road was built through his farm, and the City of Shawnee was founded on July 4, 1895. For the first few years of the new century, Shawnee was undergoing a boom that came close to keeping pace with that of Oklahoma City. Located in the heart of cotton, potato, and peach country, Shawnee quickly became an agricultural center. By 1902, there were seven cotton gins in the immediate area and two cotton compresses. Between March 1901 and March 1902, 375 railroad cars of cotton product were shipped out of Shawnee, along with 150,000 bales of cotton. Feed stores, wagon yards, an overall factory, and an assortment of other businesses designed to serve the farmers as they brought their crops to market arose in Shawnee. The population grew from 250 to 2,500 from 1892 to 1896. In 1903-1904 the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway extended service to town, after being given land inducements from Henry Beard and James Farrall. Oklahoma Baptist University opened in 1910. Its first building, Shawnee Hall, was a gift from the citizens. St. Gregory's College (now St. Gregory's University) relocated to Shawnee from Sacred Heart in 1915, where it had been associated with a Catholic mission and school. In 1930, voters elected to move the county seat of Pottawatomie County from Tecumseh to Shawnee. The courthouse was built with New Deal funding, and opened in 1935. The buildup of industry and the armed forces for the Second World War, and in particular the construction of Tinker Air Force Base east of Oklahoma City, benefited Shawnee's economy. At various times, Tinker has employed as many as 3,000 Shawnee residents. After the war, three major manufacturing concerns were important to Shawnee's economy. Jonco, Inc., manufactured aviation products and employed nearly 1,000 in 1958. The Sylvania Corporation produced vacuum tubes and electrical parts in its Shawnee plant and employed another 1,000. The Shawnee Milling Company, which had rebuilt after a fire in the 1930s, employed nearly 300 workers. Sonic, a well-known drive-in fast food chain, originally began in Shawnee in 1953 as the Top Hat. It was renamed to Sonic in 1959 after the owner, Troy N. Smith Sr., learned that the name Top Hat was already trademarked. The franchise expanded as a major drive-in food chain. Beginning in the 1970s, Shawnee's economy improved with the addition of a number of industrial plants north of the city; they added approximately 1,000 jobs to the community base.〔http://www.shawneeok.org/History/〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Shawnee, Oklahoma」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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