Boise City: Land Scam and Friendly Fire

Boise City, the seat of Cimarron County in the Oklahoma Panhandle, has a founding story built on deception and a wartime story built on error. The town was platted in nineteen oh eight by three promoters who sold three thousand lots to out-of-state buyers using misleading brochures. Most buyers never showed up.

Those who did found an almost empty townsite. The county seat was eventually secured and a new courthouse opened in nineteen twenty-six. Then came July fifth, nineteen forty-three.

A B-seventeen bomber on a night training run out of Dalhart, Texas, veered forty-three miles off course and mistook the lit Cimarron County Courthouse square for its practice bombing range. Six dummy bombs hit around the courthouse. No one was hurt.

It is often called the only continental United States town bombed by the U.S. Army during World War Two, though that claim is disputed.