Oklahoma's '89er Celebration Event

Oklahoma's '89er Celebration Event Celebrating the opening of the Unassigned Lands for Settlement. The birth of Oklahoma.April 18 - 22, The original "Land Run" was on April 22, 1889 at noon.
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This event celebrates the opening of the Unassigned Lands within Oklahoma to settlement. The annual Parade is held on the Saturday closest to this date. This is the official celebration of the birth of the State of Oklahoma. Theme for 2021 is "Women of the Military."

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123 North 1st Street
Guthrie, OK
73044

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(405) 282-2589

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Oklahoma's '89er Day Celebration, is an annual April event commemorating Oklahoma's first land run, held on April 22, 1889, to open the Unassigned Lands of central Oklahoma to non-Indian settlement. The run occured in various cities contained within the historic boundaries of the Unassigned Lands, a 1.8-million-acre geographic area that was bordered by the Cherokee Outlet on the north, the Chickasaw Nation to the south, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation to the west, and the Shawnee, Sac and Fox, Iowa, Pawnee and Potawatomi reservations on the east.

​​The City of Guthrie, site of much of the Land Run's initial settlement and the first Territorial Capital, held the inaugural '89er Day Celebration on the famous land opening's first anniversary.

​The ceremony, which continued in future years, received formal organization in 1911, when Guthrie citizens joined the town's Chamber of Commerce to host a parade and banquet. Past celebrations included lavish parades attended by thousands, as well as rodeos, horse races, and square dancing contests, along with the essential '89er Day Queen crowning.

In 1935 the annual festivities received official sanction when the Oklahoma State Senate and House of Representatives authored Senate Concurrent Resolution Number 16, which provided for a "proper celebration" of the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Unassigned Lands for settlement. This Resolution also named Guthrie as the "official" celebration site for the future.