Booker, Texas, used to be La Kemp, Oklahoma

That part of Texas-Oklahoma used to be a bone of contention in the throats of Texas and Oklahoma politicians. What is now the three counties of the Oklahoma Panhandle, Texas claimed as part of the Republic and then the State of Texas. The federal government got in an argument with the Republic, as it often did on matters of borders. The feds won, as they often do, and those three counties became federal territory, later tacked on to the northwestern part of Oklahoma. 

But that’s not why La Kemp, Okla., became Booker, Texas. Wikipedia says: “Booker was founded seven miles north of where it currently sits as La Kemp, Oklahoma, in 1909. However, ten years later when the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway was built from Shattuck, Oklahoma, to Spearman, Texas, the entire town moved seven miles across the state line to be near the railroad. The town was platted shortly before the move in 1917 by Thomas C. Spearman who had Spearman, Texas named after him. La Kemp was renamed Booker in honor of one of the engineers for the railroad.” 

So it was economics of the time, a railroad, that caused towns folk of an Oklahoma town to say, “You know what? We’d be better off if we were in Texas.” Such a decision today would benefit both states, what with Texas receiving more emigrants from California and such than has Oklahoma. In the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, here is the number of Oklahoma counties that voted for the Democratic Party candidate: 0. In Texas, counties of big cities voted Democratic: Fort Worth-Dallas, Austin, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, and Brownsville, just across the river from Mexico.

A dam and a big lake – Texoma -- in the north of Texas and south of Oklahoma already keep the Red River under some control. Four million Oklahomans joining 29 million Texans could keep blue-staters in line, too.