Tag: Alva
Alva is a city and county seat of Woods County, Oklahoma, along the Salt Fork Arkansas River. The population was 4,945 at the 2010 census. Northwestern Oklahoma State University is located in Alva.
Alva was established in 1893 as a land office for the Cherokee Outlet land run, the largest of the land rushes that settled western and central Oklahoma. The site was chosen for its location on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway and likely named for a railroad attorney, Alva Adams, who had become governor of Colorado.
Alva is home to Northwestern Oklahoma State University (NWOSU), founded in 1897 as a normal school. The college’s main building for a time was the “Castle on the Hill,” a huge, fanciful brick building, modeled after a Norman castle, that towered over much of the town. The Castle burned down in 1935, to be replaced by the more staid Jesse Dunn Hall, which was dedicated in 1937 by Eleanor Roosevelt.
Today, the city council is actively soliciting murals — one of the most…
