Dewey is located but four miles north of Bartlesville on the Santa Fe and M. K. & T. railroads. Like Bartlesville, it owes its beginning to Jacob Bartles. Mr. Bartles was instrumental in securing the first railroad to build down through Washington County. It was called the Kansas, Oklahoma & Southwestern, but was soon absorbed by the Santa Fe system. When the railroad reached the present site of Dewey, Mr. Bartles moved one of his country stores over to the railroad. This took place shortly after Admiral George Dewey won his great victory over the Spaniards by destroying their fleet in Manila Bay, and as the praises of the hero of Manila Bay were being sung by Americans everywhere, Mr. Bartles and his associates decided to name the new town after him. The little village has now grown to be a thriving city of 2500 inhabitants. Its growth and principal industries are largely due to the development of oil and natural gas in that vicinity, and to the smelters which the bountiful supply of gas induced to locate there. For several years Dewey gained quite a good deal of fame and free advertising by the annual Round-ups which were held there and which attracted many of the old-time cowboys who were anxious to show the world that they had not forgotten how to rope the wild steers, an art in which they had become wonderfully proficient in former days. Later, Dewey established a County Fair which combined the exhibitions of the cowboy of the past with the products of the modern farm. These annual exhibitions were an admirable blending of the old-time civilization with the newer era of the agriculturist,-the transformation from cowboy days to ploughboy days.
Dewey is well supplied with modern homes, stores, hotels, churches and has established a first class public school system including all of the common school grades and an approved high school, thirty-three teachers composing the entire faculty.
Ramona Oklahoma
Ramona, a town of about one thousand people, is located in the southern part of Washington County on the Santa Fe Railroad. It, too, has been benefited by great development of oil and gas in that section of the state. Ramona has a consolidated school district, which includes quite a territory outside of the corporation, and a good high school, as well as the common school grades, is well managed with a faculty of twenty-one teachers.
The other towns of Washington County have good stores, churches, comfortable homes and excellent public schools.