Biohazard Cleanup Near Sumner Historic District Sumner, OK

Sumner is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Noble County, about ten miles east of Perry, the county seat, and two miles north of U.S. Route 64.

Sumner was established before Oklahoma statehood along the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway (the Frisco), which gave the farm community its rail stop.

The town was named for Henry T. Sumner, a businessman from Perry, and its post office opened on May 23, 1894.

The 1905 Oklahoma Territorial Census counted 64 residents in Sumner.

At its peak Sumner had a bank, a post office, two churches, a school, a grain elevator and a train stop; today only the Baptist church, the Christian church and the school remain in significant use.

Sumner's post office closed on July 27, 1957, after more than sixty years of service.

The historic Sumner School — a brick classroom and auditorium building erected in 1920-21 with a sandstone gymnasium added by the Works Progress Administration in 1940-41 — was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

The 2020 census counted 35 residents in Sumner.

Sumner sits on former Cherokee Outlet land that was opened in the land run of September 16, 1893; Noble County was named for John Willock Noble, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior at the time.