Cherokee Station

Secluded in a small valley, less than a mile from the Osage County line sets a small group of buildings that have been standing for over one hundred years. They have a history that dates back to when Indian Territory was the name used to describe it's location before Oklahoma became a state. These buildings played an intricate part in the evolution of the oil and gas industries of the area.  In 1904, the Prairie Oil and Gas Company in Kansas, a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company built two tank storage facilities in the Cherokee Outlet. The first was located near Copan and consisted of 107 tanks capable of holding 35,000 barrels of crude oil. The second was located near Ramona and was twice the size of the Copan facility with 222 tanks capable of holding 35,000 barrels of oil apiece. With the escalation of drilling and the discovery of huge oil pools in the area it became necessary to build storage facilities and pipelines to get the oil to market. John D. Rockefeller (founder of Standard Oil) funded the building of the two facilities.

John D. Rockefeller

By 1906, the facility near Ramona was finished and a pump station had been built which was given the name "Cherokee Pump Station". The tank storage area consisted of 5.5 square miles with the pump station located at the west side of it near the Osage reservation. By 1914, Prairie Oil and Gas had built an office in Ramona just three years after the Ramona oil pool was found. By 1940, The tanks were drained and dismantled. Some of the materials from the tank farm were used locally for building supplies but the bulk of the steel sheets from the tanks was sent to Japan. Today the only remnants of the storage facility are the dikes which can be seen from old Highway 75, north of Ramona and the pump station which sets on private property about three miles west of Ramona. I got permission to go on the property to take some photos of the pump station recently. The building has some amazing architecture. It's presently used as a storage building for farm equipment.

North entrance. The double doors on the right go into a room
where maintenance was performed. The door on the left goes into a small office.

West side of the building

South entrance.  The doors on the left go into one of the larger rooms
where the electrical panel sat. The doors on the right enter into an open room.

Some of the interior walls have been removed .
What remains of the electrical
panel is at the foot of whats left of a wall in the middle of the photo