Can't Handle This

Oklahoma's a pretty boring state - the only things to see are tornadoes, virulent homophobia, the shattered dreams of Native Americans, and a panhandle.  While the first three are tragic, the panhandle at least makes for a moderately aesthetically pleasing geographic feature.  However, the panhandle wasn't always part of Oklahoma.

Originally, the strip of land was part of Mexico, along with all of Texas and rest of the modern Southwest.  When Texas seceded from Mexico and joined the US in 1850, they brought the strip with them.  However, they ran into a little issue with the Missouri Compromise.  The Compromise prohibited slavery in states North of 36°30′, and Texas wanted some slaves.  They were more than happy to give up the empty strip of land at their Northern tip in exchange for getting in on the whole owning human being shindig the rest of the South seemed to be enjoying so much.

Unfortunately for Texas, slavery only lasted another 13 years, so they barely had time to make the most of it.  Even so, they weren't allowed to have it back after the Civil War.  Instead, it remained an unincorporated no-man's land until 1886, when the Secretary of the Interior suggested that those who settled on it would be granted squatters' rights, and could keep whatever land they claimed.

You don't have to say "squatters' rights" twice to 19th century homesteaders, so settlers flocked in by the thousands, and by the end of the year they had set up a temporary government for what they named the Cimarron Territory.  Efforts to join the new territory to Kansas got all the way through the House and Senate, but the bill was never signed by President Cleveland.

Instead, the settlers dispatched a delegation to Washington lead by their elected President, Owen Chase to seek recognition as an official territory in their own right.  A second delegation consisting of those opposed to Chase's presidency followed soon after.  Congress wasn't about to lower themselves to speaking with the leader of a bunch of squatters from some remote rectangle of prairie, and neither delegation was granted an audience.  In 1890, the strip was finally joined to the newly created Oklahoma Territory, ending its 40-year run as a no-man's land in the middle of America.