Indians could've had state

Fest to celebrate Cherokees' impact on stateA lot of the infrastructure that made up early Oklahoma was built by the residents of Indian Territory, which could have been its own state if it weren't for a forced marriage of Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory to form what became Oklahoma in 1907.

Indian Territory made an unsuccessful bid to form its own state in 1905 at the Sequoyah Constitutional Convention.

The idea was rejected by politicians in Washington, and President Theodore Roosevelt said the territories would only be accepted into the union as a single state.