President Benjamin Harrison s nomination of George Washington Steele to be the first Governor of the Oklahoma Territory, May 8, 1890 Congress holds the power to make all the needful laws in the territories including the establishment of the territory and territorial government. In 1890 Congress created the Oklahoma Territory and confirmed George Washington Steele as the Territorial Governor. RG 46, Records of the United States Senate
Engrossed HR 12707, An act to enable the people of the Indian and Oklahoma Territories to form a state constitution and State government, first page, June 16, 1906 On June 16, 1906, after months of political wrangling, Congress finally passed an act enabling the people of the Indian and Oklahoma Territories to form a state constitution and state government and to be admitted into the Union on equal footing with the existing states. Congress included a compromise measure that allowed the voters of the Arizona Territory and New Mexico Territory to decide if the territories should be admitted into the union as one state. RG 233, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives
On September 17, 1907 the people of the Indian and Oklahoma Territories voted favorably on statehood. The vote was certified and delivered to the President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt and on November 16, 1907, Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamation 780 admitting Oklahoma as the forty-sixth state. In his annual message on December 3, 1907—just a few weeks later—President Roosevelt announced to Congress, "Oklahoma has become a state, standing on full equity with her elder sisters, and her future is assured by her great natural resources."
