Winter Camp Creek
Winter Camp Creek is a 24-mile-long stream in Oklahoma that runs through Canadian and Kingfisher counties and flows into Kingfisher Creek near the town of Kingfisher. It drains about 74,000 acres of land.
The stream was named after a Cheyenne and Arapaho winter settlement that stood along its banks in the 1800s. It used to be called Dead Indian Creek because settlers found a Cheyenne burial site nearby; cottonwood groves along the creek were used for burials. In 2002, officials changed the name to Winter Camp Creek.
The creek starts about 5 miles north of Calumet in Canadian County, flows northeast through farmland, and then enters Kingfisher County. It joins Kingfisher Creek about 2 miles west of Kingfisher. The surrounding land is part of the Red Bed Plains, with rolling hills and prairie grasses.
In 2006, Winter Camp Creek was listed as impaired for sediment (turbidity) under the Clean Water Act. Sediment from cropland and grazing areas caused the problem. Conservation programs by the NRCS and Oklahoma Conservation Commission helped improve the water quality, and the creek was removed from the impaired list in 2010.
Parts of the creek have been channelized and dammed for livestock water, and more recently for oil and gas development. The creek’s history reflects the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes’ life in central Oklahoma after the Indian Removal era, with winter camps along the water for hunting and shelter.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 06:08 (CET).