The Oklahoma Panhandle (formerly called No Man's Land, the Public Land Strip, the Neutral Strip, or Cimarron Territory) is a salient in the extreme northwestern region of the U.S. state of Oklahoma, consisting of Cimarron County, Texas County and Beaver County, from west to east. As with other salients in the United States, its name comes from the similarity of its shape to the handle of a pan. The three-county Oklahoma Panhandle region had a population of 28,751 at the 2010 U.S. Census, representing 0.77% of the state's population. This is a decrease in total population of 1.2%, a loss of 361 people, from the 2000 U.S. Census. Geography The Panhandle, long and wide, is bordered by Kansas and Colorado at 37°N on the north, New Mexico at 103°W on the west, Texas at 36.5°N on the south, and the remainder of Oklahoma at 100°W on the east. The largest town in the region is Guymon, which is the county seat of Texas County. Black Mesa, the highest point in Oklahoma at , is located in Cimarron County. The Panhandle occupies nearly all of the true High Plains within Oklahoma, being the only part of the state lying west of the 100th meridian, which generally marks the westernmost extent of moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. The North Canadian River is named Beaver River or Beaver Creek on its course through the Panhandle. Its land area is and comprises 8.28 percent of Oklahoma's land area. The area includes Beaver Dunes State Park with sand dunes along the Beaver River and Optima Lake, the home of the Optima National Wildlife Refuge. History What is now the Oklahoma Panhandle has been occupied for millennia. The Paleo-Indian people of the region were part of the Beaver River complex. A Paleo-Indian encampment, the Bull Creek site, dates back to approximately 8450 BCE, and the Badger Hole site dates to circa 8400 BCE. Shortly before the arrival of European explorers, the Panhandle was home to Southern Plains villagers. From 1200 to 1500, the semi-sedentary Panhandle culture peoples, including the Antelope Creek phase, lived in the region in large, stone-slab and plaster houses in villages or individual homesteads. As horticulturists, they farmed maize and indigenous crops from the Eastern Agricultural Complex. Several Antelope Creek phase sites were founded near present-day Guymon, including the McGrath, Stamper and Two Sisters sites. The arrival of horses from Spain