How Oklahoma Got Its Panhandle

Oklahoma comes very close to being a boxy nonentity on the national map. Thank goodness for the state's "panhandle," a 166-mile-long strip of land extending west toward New Mexico, which gives the state its familiar saucepan shape. But what's it doing there, this awkward strip of land just 34 miles wide, the only thing separating Texas from Kansas and Colorado? Like so much else in American history, the panhandle is a mark left by slavery.…