The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

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July 15, 2008

Area seeing ups, downs

Staff reports



Many northwest Okla-homa towns are losing population or staying fairly steady, except for three notable exceptions.

Blaine County’s Waton-ga has increased by 823 people since 2000, according to figures released re-cently by U.S. Census Bur-eau. While Watonga has in-creased in population since 2000, it has decreased from its high of 5,621 in 2005.

The July 2007 estimate has Watonga at 5,481.

Kingfisher in Major County and Woodward in Woodward County are the two other major cities in northwest Oklahoma that have seen growth since the official 2000 estimates.

Woodward has had the next highest growth in the area, with 353 additional people since 2000. Wood-ward has shown steady growth in seven years, ex-cept for a dip in 2003.

The city reached more than 12,000 people for the first time with the 2007 estimate at 12,206. At its lowest population point in the last seven years, Woodward had a population of 11,674 in 2003.

Kingfisher has grown by 119 people since 2000. The population took a dip in 2001 and 2002 and again in 2004 but has increased steadily since to 4,499.

Other area towns have seen significant population drops, including Alva, Northwestern Oklahoma State University’s home.

Alva had a population of 5,288 in 2000, and 2007 estimates show a population of 4,738, a loss of nearly 500 people. Cherokee has lost 193 people since 2000, and Medford has lost 167.

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