Autwine – originally called Virginia City – was platted on June 7, 1899 just west of present day Ponca City. It served as an agricultural center until around 1922, when the last store finally closed. There is now nothing left of the town except the old Santa Fe railroad bed that ran through town. It took James and I a bit to find the old location, and we are not sure we even found the exact location of the town. We stopped to ask a local resident if they knew of the town. “Nope, never heard of it. Lived here for years.” The book Ghost Towns of Oklahoma only gives us the section it was in, which consists of 640 acres to search. Usually we can find the old remains of the town on Google Maps, but in this case the town was completely gone. A wikipedia search showed the approximate location, but that is not confirmed either so we are just guessing on the actual location, which should be near the old railroad track.
From the excellent book “Ghost Towns of Oklahoma” by the University of Oklahoma Press.
Autwine, first called Virginia city, was platted on June 17, 1899. The post office which served the town of Virginia City was named Pierceton, and the railroad identified its station as Arta. Soon after the town was started, a meeting of the residents was called to decide upon a single name for the town, post office, and railroad station. The name agreed upon was Antwine, in honor of Antwine Roy, a Ponca Indian chief. There are two different stories telling why the name became Autwine instead of Antwine.
Check out the book for “more information.“.
GPS Coordinates: N36 43.212 W97 13.713
Wiki Entry Autwine
Photo of current day Autwine. Not much there except the old railroad bed that goes off to the left of the picture.
View Off the Beaten Path in a larger map
