Midwest City: The City a Reporter Built from a Formula
Near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Midwest City, Oklahoma, was essentially built by one man's detective work. In nineteen forty-one, W. P. Atkinson, a real-estate developer, heard speculation about a new Army air depot nearby, guessed where it would land, and quietly bought land before any announcement was made.
He was right. The Army built what became Tinker Air Force Base, and Atkinson built a planned residential community right next to it. The base was named for Major General Clarence Tinker, the first American general killed in the Second World War. He reserved space on his drawing boards for homes, schools, churches, and businesses before a single lot was sold. Midwest City became a model for postwar community planning. It went from nothing to a population of tens of thousands in a single decade. The census counted ten thousand one hundred sixty-six people in nineteen fifty and thirty-six thousand fifty-eight in nineteen sixty. The city incorporated on March eleventh, nineteen forty-three, and took its name from the Midwest Air Depot. Today it is a city of around sixty thousand, one of the Oklahoma City metro's largest suburbs, founded not by pioneers or railroads but by a developer who read the signs. Atkinson died in nineteen ninety-nine and left his nineteen fifty-five mansion in trust for community use. It is now the Atkinson Heritage Center, with free tours by appointment.
