Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Knowles, OK

Knowles is an incorporated town in eastern Beaver County, in the Oklahoma Panhandle, served by U.S. Route 64.

The community began as Sands City, which incorporated in 1906, and the Knowles post office was established there on March 16, 1907.

In 1912 the town moved about half a mile east to the tracks of the Wichita Falls and Northwestern Railroad, becoming a trading, marketing and shipping center for eastern Beaver County and western Harper County.

By 1913 Knowles had about thirty business establishments, up from nine in Sands City just four years earlier, and its population had grown to roughly 254 people.

The town's population peaked at 219 in the 1930 census and has fallen in nearly every decade since.

The Knowles Grain Elevator is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The 2020 census counted only six residents in Knowles, making it one of the least populous incorporated towns in Oklahoma.

In an unusual census result, the Census Bureau's 2020 Demographic Profile recorded Knowles's six residents but counted no households, listing all nine of the town's housing units as vacant.

In 2000 Knowles still had 32 residents in 10 households, so its population has fallen by more than 80 percent in two decades.

Knowles covers just 0.2 square miles at an elevation of about 2,530 feet, and its children attend Forgan Public Schools.