united-states federal-courts oklahoma
Why is Oklahoma divided into three districts?
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Tenth_Circuit" rel="nofollow noreferrer">United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit</a> hears appeals from the district courts of the states of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming.  With one exception, each state is a single federal district, for example the District of Colorado.</p>
<p>Oklahoma, however, is divided into an Eastern, a Northern, and a Western district.</p>
<p>Why?  Are the federal courts of Oklahoma busier than those of the other states?  The obvious answer is population, but Colorado is substantially more populous than Oklahoma.  Nor is the population of Oklahoma more dispersed than, say, that of Kansas.</p>
<p>How did this happen?  Is there a reason for it?</p>

<p>Oklahoma Territory and The Indian Territories were set on the road to statehood by the <a href="https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/34/STATUTE-34-Pg267b.pdf" rel="noreferrer">Oklahoma Enabling Act</a>: §13 of that act stipulated that two judicial districts would be created, where The Indian Territories would be the Eastern District and Oklahoma Territory would be the Western district. This is an ancient-enough political act that we can't say why Congress decided to give the constituent parts separate courts, however legal issues regarding tribes are different from other aspects of federal law, so it would be sensible to have a specialized district for special cases. In <a href="https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/43/STATUTE-43-Pg945.pdf" rel="noreferrer">1925, Congress</a> reorganized the two districts into three. I think that is as far as one can go with the legal aspect of the question, but there may be a historical political explanation</p>
