page_title: Colony, Oklahoma
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Colony, Oklahoma / History
context_page_description: Colony is a town in northeastern Washita County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 136 at the 2010 U.S. census, a decrease of 7.5 percent from 147 in 2000. It was named for the Seger Colony, founded in 1886, which taught modern agricultural techniques to the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes that would be resettled in the vicinity. Colony is 16 miles east and 4 miles north of Cordell.
context_section_description: John Seger, a native of Ohio and a Union veteran of the Civil War, was hired in 1872 to work as a mason/carpenter to build housing and other structures for a school for Native American children at the Darlington Agency. Later, he began a colony for Native Americans with Arapaho Indians, who were joined later by a number of Cheyennes. By the following year, Seger's colony had over 500 inhabitants. Seger began teaching modern agricultural methods as well as brick-making. By 1892, the colony had also built an industrial arts school, with the Native Americans  providing the bricks and cutting stone for all the buildings.
  William De Lestinier opened a store near the school with government permission, even before the Land Run of 1892. After the opening, a group of settlers, led by Zack King, created a townsite 4 miles (6.4 km) west of the school and obtained a post office named Seger. De Lestinier moved his store to the new site. In 1895, the Dutch Reformed Church founded a mission at the colony. In 1896, a new post office named Colony opened, and the town took that name.
  Colony continued to grow and had an estimated population of 300 by 1911. The Dutch Reformed mission closed in 1912 and the Seger Indian school closed in 1932.
caption: In 1900, students brand cattle at the Seger Colony
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