Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Barnsdall Barnsdall, OK

Barnsdall is a city in Osage County, Oklahoma, founded in 1905 under the name Bigheart, in honor of Osage Chief James Bigheart — and 'Bigheart' remains the city's nickname today.

Because the Barnsdall townsite was exempted from the Osage allotment, its lots could be sold to anyone, and they were auctioned off in May 1906.

The community was renamed Barnsdall on January 1, 1922, for oilman Theodore N. Barnsdall, after the Barnsdall Oil Company bought the local refinery the year before.

Barnsdall boomed with oil in the 1910s — its population leapt from 307 in 1910 to 2,099 in 1920, which is still the city's all-time peak.

The 2020 census counted 1,034 residents in Barnsdall living in 395 households, and about 72% of the city's occupied homes were owner-occupied.

Barnsdall has a producing oil well in the middle of Main Street — the Barnsdall Main Street Well Site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as is the Bank of Bigheart, built in 1911 and the community's oldest surviving commercial building.

Barnsdall's refinery, built by Joshua Cosden in 1910, stopped refining oil in 1946 and switched to making microcrystalline waxes; the plant later operated as NuCera Solutions and was the town's largest employer.

On May 6, 2024, a large EF4 tornado with peak winds estimated at 180 mph struck Barnsdall, killing two people — the second tornado to hit the city in five weeks — and the tornado-damaged NuCera plant later announced it would close permanently.

Lake Waxhoma, about 4 miles east of Barnsdall, serves as the town's water source and offers fishing, and the Woolaroc Ranch Historic District is also just east of town.

Public education in Barnsdall is provided by the Barnsdall Independent School District, which runs Barnsdall Elementary School and Barnsdall High School.