Welcome to Meanwhile… Back in America, where Cordell Radio takes a detour into the people, places, and peculiar stories that make this country endlessly interesting.

Cordell Radio takes its name from Cordell, Oklahoma, a small town in Washita County with a habit of picking up and moving.

It began in 1892, right after the Cheyenne and Arapaho lands opened to settlement. H. D. Young opened a general store about a mile and a half from where the town sits today, and a post office opened inside it. The town took its name from Wayne W. Cordell, a longtime postal employee in Washington, D.C.

In 1897, two local businessmen, A. J. Johnson and J. C. Harrell, talked Young into moving his store and post office to a spot with better water. The new town became New Cordell, which is still its official name. The old townsite had about 250 people.

The moving didn’t stop there. Johnson and Harrell also pushed to bring the county seat to the new town, and voters agreed. But only Congress could create a county seat in a territory, so the move was later ruled illegal, and the fight dragged on for years. Congress finally settled it in 1906, and Cordell has been the county seat ever since. The courthouse, rebuilt after a fire in 1909, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Now, about that other Cordell. From 1993 to 2001, Chuck Norris played Cordell Walker on CBS’s Walker, Texas Ranger, and ever since, plenty of people hear “Cordell” and think of him. We never followed the show. Until recently, the name meant one thing to us: a little Oklahoma town that once moved down the road for better water. Different Cordell, as the poster says. It’s a good name either way.

Sources: Oklahoma Historical Society, The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, “Cordell”; Wikipedia, “New Cordell, Oklahoma” and “Walker, Texas Ranger.”