Claremore Oklahoma Historical Information

Claremore is best known as the home of Will Rogers but its a bit more than that. In around 1800, a band of Indians of the Osage tribe settled in the area of what is now Claremore Oklahoma.

The entire area did receive some damage during the Civil War years, but made a rapid recovery once the war was ended.

They gave the town its name, from the name of oneo f their Chiefs, whose name was Gra moi.

The traders in the area, who spoke primarily French, pronounced the name Clairmont, which meant "mountain with clear view".

In 1830, the Indian Removal act was passed by the US, and Claremore was then integrated as part of the Indian Territory, and the Cherokee Nation.

The Rogers family, after whom the county is named, were among the first to settle in the area. Clem Rogers, father of famed statesman Will Rogers,moved to the area, and along with his family, is buried at the Will Rogers Memorial.

They moved to the county in about 1856, and in the end the ranch they owned took up about sixty thousand acres.

That home, which still stands outside Oologah, is a historical site. Clem Rogers was a major advocate of Oklahoma statehood and at the age of nearly seventy, was the oldest delegate to the state's Constitutional Convention in 1907.

Railways coming in to Indian Territory was the driving factor in Claremore's growth. Two lines intersected in the town. The name of Claremore changed from Clermont to its present spelling on September 19, 1882. A spelling error made by a clerk when recording the post office wrote the name down wrong and its stuck.

Claremore was incorporated in the Cherokee Nation in 1883.