Bixby became a government town site with a post office in 1899. Located in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Indian Territory, Bixby was named in honor of Tams Bixby, a chairman of the Dawes Commission. The original 80-acre town site was approved in 1902. Many settlers were attracted to the area by the rich, though sometimes swampy river bottom land. In 1904 the Midland Valley Railroad laid tracks and built a depot in Bixby. It created factions that briefly split Bixby into two towns. The new part of town was deliberately surveyed so that the new streets did not align with the existing ones. Bixby incorporated as an independent, self-governing town in 1906. The first mayor, recorder and five aldermen were elected in February, 1907. In 1911, a two-story brick schoolhouse was built on Main Street. Bixby Central Elementary is now near the original site. A traffic bridge was built over the Arkansas River in 1911, and for a time was said to be the longest bridge west of the Mississippi River. Bixby was impacted and enriched by the discovery of nearby oil fields in 1913, but farming remained the backbone of the community well into the 20th Century. Early farmers focused on production of cotton, wheat and alfalfa in the rich river bottom. During the 1930's, truck farming of vegetables slowly replaced those crops. In 1941 Bixby became an important regional center for shipping produce by railroad. It was at that time that Bixby was christened with it nick-name "The Garden Spot of Oklahoma," a designation still carried on the town seal and public vehicles. Cantaloupes, potatoes, radishes, Squash (fruit)squash, turnips, spinach and sweet corn were shipped from Bixby all over the U.S. In time, the majority of the truck farms were converted to the production of sod, typically Bermuda grass, or developed for residential and other purposes. Only a small percentage of Bixby residents now work in agriculture, but the town continues to celebrate its earthy roots with the yearly "Green Corn Festival" in June. Another point of history commemorated by Bixby is the 1832 visit to the area by the famous American writer Washington Irving. Irving accompanied a U.S. Army exploration party on an excursion from Fort Gibson west onto the prairie and the lands occupied by the Osage and Pawnee tribes. He described his adventure in his book A Tour on the Prairies (1835). In it, he relates camping in a grove of large trees on the banks of the Arkansas River in what is present day Bixby. The town has honored his visit by the creation of Washington Irving Park and Arboretum near the location. The park contains an amphitheatre stage patterned after the front facade of Irving's home, Sunnyside, in Tarrytown, New York, as well as gates near the park entrance that are replicas of ones at Irving's estate. A bronze statue of Washington Irving sits near the stage. Bixby Middle School drama students present a popular retelling of Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in the park each October. The park is also the location of the heavily attended "Bixby BBQ & Blues Festival" each May. Bixby has been used as the setting for at least two popular works of fiction. The best-selling novel Tex (1979) by S.E. Hinton tells the story of its title character, a troubled teen in rural Bixby. The 1982 film adaption, starring Matt Dillon, was filmed on location and features the Bixby High School as well as various other locations around the town. Also, The Midnighters series of books (begun in 2004) by Scott Westerfeld tells the supernatural story of a group of five Bixby High School students. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixby%2C_Oklahoma