Where to Stay in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

What is Oklahoma City known for?

Oklahoma City is known as the capital of Oklahoma and a hub of the state's Frontier Country. The Oklahoma City National Memorial anchors its downtown, and the Bricktown district lines a canal with ballpark and warehouse blocks. Its culture blends Native American and cowboy heritage.

Museums carry that mix. The Oklahoma City Museum of Art and the Gaylord-Pickens Oklahoma Heritage Museum both draw visitors, while the American Banjo Museum keeps an unusual collection near the water.

What are the main landmarks in Oklahoma City?

The main landmarks in Oklahoma City span memorial, museum, and church: the Oklahoma City National Memorial marks the site of the 1995 bombing, its reflecting pool flanked by the Beacon of Hope. Nearby, the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark and the Oklahoma City Museum of Art draw crowds downtown. St. Joseph Old Cathedral and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help add older stone to the skyline.

First Christian Church rounds out the built landmarks.

What is the history of Oklahoma City?

Oklahoma City was founded in 1889, born in a single day when the Land Run opened the surrounding country to settlement. Thousands staked claims at once. The instant town grew on the plains around the North Canadian River, and within two decades it had pulled the state capital away from Guthrie.

Oil changed the trajectory next, as derricks rose within the city itself and drilling reached the grounds of the state capitol. The city carried that boom-town energy through the twentieth century. It spread across Oklahoma County in a wide, low grid.

On April 19, 1995, a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building downtown, an attack now marked by the Oklahoma City National Memorial. The Gaylord-Pickens Oklahoma Heritage Museum and the Oklahoma History Center preserve the longer story, from the Land Run through the oil years to the modern capital.

Where is Oklahoma City?

Oklahoma City sits on the rolling plains of central Oklahoma, spread along the North Canadian River. It is one of the largest cities by land area in the country, its grid running far past the core into Oklahoma County and beyond. The terrain is open and gently undulating.

Cottonwood and prairie line the river bottoms, while suburban development and watershed land fill the outer limits toward Canadian and Cleveland counties.

What is the climate of Oklahoma City?

Oklahoma City has a warm, humid climate typical of the southern plains. Summer heat settles over the southern plains for months on end. Spring brings the region's signature storms, when the city sits squarely in the path of Great Plains supercells and the occasional tornado.

Winters are short and mild by comparison, though cold snaps and ice can sweep down across Oklahoma from the north. Wind is a constant across the open prairie.

How do you get to Oklahoma City?

Oklahoma City sits at the crossing of Interstate 35 and Interstate 40, the two main highways that carry traffic across Oklahoma toward Texas, Kansas, and the rest of the southern plains. Will Rogers World Airport handles flights on the southwest side. Trains stop downtown near Bricktown.

From the airport it is a short run into the core and the Oklahoma City National Memorial, though the wide highway grid makes driving the default way in and around town.