Lawton, Oklahoma  Lawton is a city in, and the county seat of, Comanche County, in the State of Oklahoma. Located in southwestern Oklahoma, about southwest of Oklahoma City, it is the principal city of the Lawton, Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area. According to the 2010 census, Lawton's population was 96,867, making it the fifth-largest city in the state, and the largest in Western Oklahoma. Built on former reservation lands of Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Indians, Lawton was founded on 6 August 1901, and was named after Major General Henry Ware Lawton, a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient killed in action in the Philippine–American War. Lawton's landscape is typical of the Great Plains, with flat topography and gently rolling hills, while the area north of the city is marked by the Wichita Mountains. The city's proximity to Fort Sill Military Reservation gave Lawton economic and population stability throughout the 20th century. Although Lawton's economy is still largely dependent on Fort Sill, it has also grown to encompass manufacturing, higher education, health care, and retail. The city's government is run by a council-manager government consisting of a city manager and a city council headed by a mayor. Interstate 44 and three major United States highways serve the city, while Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport connects Lawton by air. Recreation can be found at the city's many parks, lakes, museums, and festivals. Notable residents of the city include many musical and literary artists, as well as several professional athletes. The land that is present-day Oklahoma was first settled by prehistoric American Indians including the Clovis 11500 BCE, Folsom 10600 BCE and Plainview 10000 BCE cultures. Historic indigenous peoples who inhabited the region included the Wichita and Caddo peoples. In the 16th century, Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado visited in 1541, beginning European contact. Around the 1700s, two tribes from the north, the Comanches and Kiowas, migrated to the Oklahoma and Texas region. For most of the 18th century, the Oklahoma region was under nominal French control as Louisiana. The limited interaction between the peoples was based on fur trading. In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase by Thomas Jefferson brought the area under United States control. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which removed American Indian tribes from the Southeast and relocated them to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. The southern part of this territory was originally assigned to the Choctaw and Chickasaw.