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is a business, cultural and tourism city in and the county seat of Carter County, Oklahoma, United States. As of the 2007 census estimates, the city had a population of 24,625, while a 2007 estimate has the Ardmore micropolitan statistical area totaling 56,694 residents. Ardmore is located equidistant from Oklahoma City and Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas at the junction of Interstate 35 and U.S. Highway 70, and is generally considered the hub of the ten-county region in South Central Oklahoma, also known by state tourism pamphlets as Arbuckle Country and Lake and Trail Country. Geologically, Ardmore is situated about 16 kilometers south of the Arbuckle Mountains, and is located at the eastern margin of the Healdton Basin, one of the most oil-rich regions of the United States.
Ardmore was named after the affluent Philadelphia suburb and historic Pennsylvania Main Line stop Ardmore, Pennsylvania, which was named after Ardmore, Ireland by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1873. The name Ardmore is Gaelic signifying high grounds or hills.
On April 22, 1966 Ardmore was the site of the worst plane crash in Oklahoma history, which killed 83 people.
Ardmore, Indian Territory began with a plowed ditch for a Main Street in the summer of 1887 in Pickens County, Chickasaw Nation. It owes much of its existence to the construction of the Santa Fe railroad through the area during that time. It grew, as most frontier towns grew, over the years into a trading outpost for the region. A large fire in 1895 destroyed much of the fledgling town, which forced residents to rebuild nearly the entire town. In the early 1900s, Ardmore became well known for its abundance of cotton-growing fields and eventually became known as the world's largest inland cotton port.
After the fields were stripped of their fertility, however, the city fortunately found itself positioned next to one of the largest oil fields ever produced in Oklahoma, the Healdton Oil Field. After its discovery in 1913, entrepreneurs and wildcatters flooded the area, and Carter County quickly became the largest oil-producing county in Oklahoma, and has remained so ever since. Ardmore has remained an energy center for the region ever since, with the region's natural wealth giving birth to such energy giants as Halliburton and the Noble Energy companies, among others. Ardmore also learned the perils of being energy-rich with yet another disaster in 1915, when a railroad car containing casing gas exploded, killing 45 people and destroying much of downtown, including areas rebuilt after the 1895 fire. The disaster, which made national news at the time, gave residents the resolve to establish the city's first fire department to ensure that such events would not compound themselves in the future. The city has not experienced any major setbacks since the 1915 fire, save for a 1995 tornado that nearly destroyed the Uniroyal Goodrich (now Michelin) Tire Plant in west Ardmore. Despite a shift at the plant working at the time, miraculously no one was killed as the tornado ripped through the area, thanks to the public being alerted by area news and tornado sirens.
On April 22, 1966 just outside of Ardmore was the site of the worst plane crash in Oklahoma history, which killed 83 people. There is a memorial to the crash just outside of town.