Skedee, Oklahoma is a town growing in reverse. As time moves on, so are Skeedee’s residents. Rhonda Kelly is one of few people left who call Skedee home. She knows the same won’t be true for her son. 

 

“My son is young so he’s like, ‘There is nothing here,’ you know,” Rhonda said. “I know that he has to move away to fulfill his life.”

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Skedee only has one intersection. At the junction of 2nd Street and Market Street is a statue, maybe 25 feet tall, bearing the image of two men: 20th Century Osage Chief Bacon Rind and Colonel Ellsworth Walters. The men are shown shaking hands, and beneath their feet are engraved the words “BOND OF FRIENDSHIP.” It’s this principle that keeps Rhonda Kelly around. 

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“Oh I love it,” said Rhonda, leaning out the passenger side window of her son’s car. “Cause to me it’s kinda like living in the country, but you still have some neighbors. So it’s like a little tight knit community. I enjoy it anyway.” 

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Her son, John Kelly, doesn’t quite see it the same way. 

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“It’s a sh*t-hole,” said John. 

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John does not share the nostalgia for Skedee that older residents still harbor. For people like Burnt Spurs, Skedee represents a special time in his life. 

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“We’ve grown apart and moved away from each other,” said Spurs. “But will always be best friends because we grew up there.” 

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Spurs lived in Skedee when the streets weren’t named. Born in 1991, Spurs moved away from Skedee in 2004. They were all poor, he said, but it made them find creative ways of entertaining themselves. He hasn’t visited in a little over a year. 

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“We’ve been in buildings that I would be surprised to hear are still standing,” said Spurs. 

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Some of them are still standing, but they bear witness to the years that have passed. The school hasn’t been used for decades. There are holes in the walls and the ceiling is falling in. The kids go elsewhere to learn, but when they come home, there is not much there for them. 

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Since Skedee itself has no real government or economy, funding isn’t available to sustain the education or extracurriculars of the youth. 

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“There’s lots of little children that live around here,” said Rhonda. “And I feel like they could do more as a community to build like a little playground area or something like that.” 

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    Skedee was founded in 1902 by the name of Lemert, when the Eastern Oklahoma Townsite Company auctioned off lots. A post office soon followed. The postal department decided the name Lemert was too close to that of another Oklahoma town, and so it became Skedee, a play on the Skidi band of the Pawnee tribe. One of the streets in Skedee is named Lemert. Within a couple of years a railway line passed through Skedee. 

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The two men in Skedee’s statue attempted to create a community, but it never really got off the ground. Chief Bacon Rind supported the development of the Osage nation’s oil and natural gas resources. Walters acted as their auctioneer, facilitating the sale of their oil rights. It’s not clear how much of Skedee was involved in those auctions, but it could be this fracturing that stymied the new town’s growth. Amy Hedges works at the nearby Pawnee tag agency. She thinks the statue might overemphasize Walters’ impact on the town. 

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“That statue was put up, I think he put it up himself to be honest.” said Hedges. 

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That fact has been verified by the Oklahoma Historical Society. The Skedee founders may have had ideas for the town that were far bigger than Skedee ever became, but for a while the town grew. 

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    Agriculture was the driving force behind Skedee’s growth, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. Farmers specifically raised livestock and grew cotton. Seven years after Skedee was formed, there were four churches, a public school and a bank. And by the 1950s there was a gasoline station and companies producing cotton, grain, flour and feed. The town never really spread its wings further than that. Perhaps most importantly, the post office closed in 1963. 

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The highest population reported by census was 289, in 1910. The town hit its highest population just eight years into its life. It can be jarring for people to realize how small Skedee is. Travelers may drive through the area without realizing people actually live there. Morgan Didlake is from Ponca City, whose population is a modest 24,000. She considers it small, but Skedee makes it seem huge. 

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    “Being from a small town, I’d never imagined there being a smaller town,” said Didlake. “Until I came across the town of Skedee.”

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There is in fact a playground in Skedee, but like the rest of the town, it’s fallen into disrepair. It’s hard to imagine elementary school students arriving home and rushing to hop onto the rusted swing set. The lack of children’s amenities is just one of the ways Skedee has lost its identity. There are no businesses, neighborhoods or attractions for a community to build around.

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    There is still one church–Assembly of God–and a fire department–volunteer. A sign on the side of the church reads, “Restoration, Commitment, Life.” It’s a fine principle, but lives are moving away. Most Skedee residents commute to work in Stillwater or Pawnee. Most of the land around Skedee is still dedicated to pasture, but there are fewer animals filling it than ever. 

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Eventually, there may be no one left there. Should that day come, Skedee will technically cease to exist, but not much will change. By 2010, Skedee’s population dipped to 51. Didlake referred to it as a “ghost town,” though that is not the name given to it by the state. Today, Skedee is officially considered an “unincorporated community.” This denomination is not lost on the residents. 

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“Since we don’t have our own post office, it is like we are not considered anything now,” said Rhonda. “The only way you know if mail is going to Skedee is if it has Northeast on the end of your address. We get overlooked in everything.”