Collinsville City

Beginnings [1]

Collinsville took its name from a Dr. A. H. Collins, who in anticipation of the building of the Santa Fe Railway through the region in 1900, gave land for a townsite. The railroad, however, passed a mile to the west, whereupon the town moved over to its present site. Demand for zinc in the first World War led to the creation of one of the largest zinc smelters in the country, but the postwar business depression caused it to close down. In 1941 the town was mainly dependent on the farm and ranch population of the surrounding territory. A few oil and gas wells, however, were still producing at the southern edge of the big shallow field that extended southward from the Kansas State Line.

1. Workers of the Federal Writers' Program, Works Progress Administration in the State of Oklahoma, Harold O. Hunter, Commissioner, Oklahoma: A Guide to the Sooner State, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 1941.