Cimarron Heritage Center

The Cimarron Heritage Center in Boise City is one of the best places to understand the Oklahoma Panhandle. Its exhibits cover ranching, settlement, Native history, transportation, agriculture, the Dust Bowl and the unusual political history of the region once known as No Man's Land. The museum is especially useful because the Panhandle's landscape can seem empty without context. Collections and outdoor displays reveal the amount of human activity hidden behind that openness, from cattle drives and homesteads to military routes and twentieth-century farming. A large dinosaur sculpture and paleontology displays also reflect the region's fossil resources, while local history connects directly to unusual events such as the 1943 accidental bombing of Boise City by a U.S. Army Air Forces training crew. The heritage center works as an excellent orientation stop before visiting Black Mesa, Santa Fe Trail sites or the far western Panhandle. It gives travelers the background needed to see the region as a distinct historical landscape rather than simply the long road between Oklahoma and New Mexico.