Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Lima Lima, OK

Lima is a town in Seminole County and is one of only thirteen historically all-Black towns still remaining in Oklahoma, out of more than fifty that once existed.

The Lima area was settled by Seminoles and Seminole Freedmen, and the community — named for the local limestone quarries — existed by at least 1904.

Lima's post office operated from 1907 until 1957, and its first postmaster was Grudge V. Gross.

The town was established on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad and was incorporated in 1913.

Lima had its own newspaper, the Lima Observer, founded in 1914.

In 1921 the Rosenwald Fund helped the community build Rosenwald Hall, a school that served Lima until 1966; the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

In 1925 Lima residents won the court case Moore et al. v. Porterfield et al., in which the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that because Black students were the local majority (232 Black students to 16 white), Lima's Black school would be its own independent school district.

The 1926 opening of the Greater Seminole Oil Field brought prosperity and white settlers to Lima, who formed the separate neighboring village of New Lima.

The combined population of Lima and New Lima reached 239 in 1930 and peaked at 271 in 1940 before the oil boom faded.

The 2020 census counted 68 people in Lima, a 28.3% increase over the 53 residents counted in 2010 — a rare population gain for a historic Black town.