Rural Life in Murray County

Located in south central Oklahoma, Murray County consists of 420 square miles of rolling hills, some of the world's most unusual rock outcroppings and formations, and mountainous areas that have for centuries led to severe weather conditions such as high winds, lightning, and tornadoes. The area has produced some amazingly rugged and tough people who have called Murray County home for generations. Images of America: Rural Life in Murray County tells the story of how they lived, what they produced on their farms, how they entertained themselves, and how they learned to improve their communities. In the early 1930s, when one of the most severe droughts on record produced the Dust Bowl and the nation was in a state of economic depression, the beginning of the Oklahoma A&M Cooperative Extension took root in Murray County, bringing economic change, improving living conditions, and providing educational opportunities to the rural farm families of Murray County.

Author Debbie Sharp spent 32 years as an extension agent in Oklahoma, where she accumulated and documented images, stories, and cooperative extension history. Many of the photographs in Images of America: Rural Life in Murray County were part of agriculture and home economics records, which documented early Oklahoma A&M Cooperative Extension work.