New Cordell is a city in and the county seat of Washita County, Oklahoma, United States. It lies along U.S. Route 183. The population was 2,775 at the time of the 2020 Census. The community was previously established a few miles from the current site, but was moved about 1900. It was named for a U.S. Postal Service employee in Washington D. C., Wayne W. Cordell. The official name is New Cordell, though it is now commonly called Cordell.
History
Cordell began when H. D. Young opened a general store about 1.5 miles east of the present town, shortly after the Cheyenne and Arapaho lands were opened for non-Indian settlement in 1892. A post office named Cordell was established in the same year in Young's store. In 1897, A. J. Johnson and J. C. Harrell convinced Young to move his store to the present site, where water was more plentiful and of better quality than in Old Cordell. The new location became known as New Cordell. In 1900, Washita County residents voted to move the county seat from the town of Cloud Chief to New Cordell. The move was challenged in the court as illegal, because only the territorial legislature could authorize such an action. In 1904, the Oklahoma Territorial Supreme Court ruled that the county seat must return to Cloud Chief. A Cordell attorney, Sam Massengale, traveled to Washington, where he lobbied for a bill to make Cordell the official county seat. The bill passed the U. S. Congress in 1906.
|date=October 2, 2010
Demographics
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, New Cordell had a population of 2,775. The median age was 39.9 years, with 24.7% of residents under the age of 18 and 19.7% aged 65 years or older. For every 100 females there were 92.0 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 89.6 males.
There were 1,123 households in New Cordell, of which 32.7% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 47.7% were married-couple households, 17.5% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 28.8% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 30.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 15.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Racial composition as of the 2020 census
! Race !! Percent
|-
| White || 85.8%
|-
| Black or African American || 0.8%
|-
| American Indian and Alaska Native || 3.2%
|-
| Asian || <0.1%
|-
| Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander || 0%
|-
| Some other race || 1.6%
|-
| Two or more races || 8.6%
|-
| Hispanic or Latino (of any race) || 7.2%
|}
2000 census
As of the census