Woodward Plains Books

Woodward Plains Books is a literary outpost in the vast wheat and cattle country of northwestern Oklahoma, where the nearest major city is hours away and the bookstore serves as a cultural lifeline for readers across several counties. Founded in 2002 by a retired wheat farmer with a passion for history, the store specializes in the literature of the Great Plains, with a Dust Bowl history section that rivals those of metropolitan research libraries. Photographs of the 1930s black blizzards hang alongside accounts by survivors and descendants, including many local families whose stories have been collected and self-published through the store's community history program. The Great Plains ecology section covers the grassland biome from the tallgrass east to the shortgrass west, with field guides, conservation studies, and nature writing that celebrates the often-overlooked beauty of the prairie landscape. The Western fiction section keeps ranchers and farmers supplied with entertainment during long winter evenings, and the children's section ensures that the next generation grows up with books in hand.