Wichita Falls

City and administrative headquarters of Wichita County, also in Archer County, north-central Texas, USA, on the Wichita River, south of the Oklahoma border, 153 km/96 mi northwest of Fort Worth; population (2000) 104,200. It is an industrial and commercial centre, trading in locally-produced oil, cattle, cotton, and wheat. Leather goods, glass, textiles, electronics, engine-parts, oil-drilling equipment, and pharmaceuticals are manufactured. Sheppard Air Force Base (1941), a NATO training centre, is to the north of the city. Wichita Falls is home to Midwestern State University (1922).

Wichita Falls was founded in 1876; it was named after the American Indian Wichita people and the falls once sited on the river. It developed as distribution point with the arrival of the railway in 1882. Oil was discovered in 1911.