OILTON — Oilton’s last passenger train left town in 1939.
The city’s laws concerning those trains remained on the books for another 87 years.
The Oilton City Council voted Sept. 8 to repeal two sections of the municipal code titled “Obstruction of Streets by Trains” and “Boarding or Climbing on Trains.”
The action was included in Ordinance No. 2026-9-2, published in the legal notices on Page 7 of last week’s Keystone Gusher.
The ordinance repeals Sections 3 and 4 of Title 8, Chapter 5, which is titled “Railroads.” The rest of the chapter will remain in effect.
The repeal does not include an emergency clause and will take effect 30 days after its passage.
Oilton has not had a passenger train for nearly nine decades.
According to “Railroads of Oklahoma,” a history compiled by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, passenger service on the Oil Fields and Santa Fe Railway ended May 15, 1939.
Freight service continued for a few more years. The Interstate Commerce Commission approved the abandonment of the remaining line between the Frey junction and Oilton in January 1942, leaving the town without rail service.
The ordinances, however, stayed behind.
Oilton’s railroad history began alongside the town itself.
Oilton developed during the Cushing-Drumright oil boom. The first town lots were sold in early 1915, and a post office was established that May.
The Oil Belt Terminal Railway completed an approximately 8-mile line from Jennings to Oilton that year. The Oil Fields and Santa Fe Railway then acquired the smaller railroad and added tracks connecting the oil-field communities.
The completed system stretched from Cushing to Jennings with a branch to Drumright. It carried petroleum, agricultural products and passengers.
For a growing oil town, the railroad provided an important link to neighboring communities and larger rail networks. Oilton residents could travel by train, while local producers gained a way to move oil and other goods out of the area.
The trains also created practical concerns for city officials.
Railroad cars could block streets and crossings. People could be injured while attempting to climb onto moving or parked equipment. The titles of the repealed sections indicate Oilton adopted local rules to address both problems.
By the time passenger service ended in 1939, Oilton’s oil boom had already slowed. The town’s population had peaked at 2,231 in 1920, according to historical census records.
Rail companies gradually abandoned portions of the local system as oil production declined and pipelines replaced trains as a primary way of moving petroleum.
The line from Oilton to Jennings was approved for abandonment in 1934. Passenger service ended five years later. The remaining track into Oilton lasted until the early 1940s.
The municipal rules outlived the railroad by generations.
TheyremainedthroughWorldWar II, the construction of the interstate highway system, the arrival of television and the development of the internet. Residents born after the tracks disappeared could have lived their entire lives under rules prohibiting them from boarding trains that no longer came through town.
The repeal was published beside Ordinance No. 2026-9-1, which amended Oilton’s employee retirement system.
One ordinance updated the city’s retirement plan. The other allowed two pieces of Oilton’s railroad history to retire with it.
The unusual pairing also shows what can be found in a newspaper’s legal notices.
Most public notices do not look like history stories. They are usually written in formal language and filled with section numbers, legal clauses and effective dates.
In this case, a short notice about two repealed code sections pointed back to Oilton’s beginning as an oil-boom community linked to its neighbors by rail.
The ordinance does not erase that history. The old rules remain part of the public record and offer a clue about daily life when trains still passed through town.
They show that rail traffic once affected Oilton often enough for the city to regulate blocked streets and people climbing aboard.
Oilton’s passenger service ended May 15, 1939. The last rail connection disappeared a few years later.
Now the city’s rules about blocking streets with trains and climbing aboard them have also reached the end of the line, about 87 years behind schedule.