December 19, 2010
Magazine names Enid in its list of 10 towns to watch in coming years.
By Robert Barron, Staff Writer Enid News and Eagle
True West magazine thinks Enid is pretty special. The magazine’s January-February (2010) edition listed Enid in its “Towns to Watch” list due to the opening of Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center. The museum is a five-year, $9.8 million effort that more than doubles the size of the and capabilities of the previous museum, featuring additional room for research and exhibit space. True West predicts the museum will be a landmark in northwestern Oklahoma. True West listed Enid alongside towns such as Yuma, Ariz.; Mescalero, N.M.; Dodge City, Kan.; and Virginia City, Nev.

The June-July, 2009 issue of “Outdoor Life” in the mail at work and the cover story is a list of the 200 best towns for sportsmen in the United States.
Four Oklahoma towns made the top 200. The magazine listed Bartlesville at No. 54, Poteau at No. 145, Enid at No. 168 and Elk City at No. 182.
The magazine based its ratings on socio-economic subcategories such as median household income, median home value, cost of living, unemployment rate, mean commute time and amenities such as schools and hospitals. 
Outdoors-related subcategories used in the rankings included the gun friendliness of each town’s state, huntable and fishable species nearby, the town’s proximity to public hunting land and fishable waters and the potential for taking a big game trophy-caliber game animal or fish nearby.

Early 2009, Enid was cited as leading by example in thinking green recently when it was given the designation of Tree City USA during ceremonies at the state Capitol. Enid was one of 23 Oklahoma cities given the designation, and it’s the only city being given the designation for the first time. Vance Air Force Base has been designated a Tree City USA the past 16 years



July 22, 2007 
City of Enid is one of the least expensive places to live in the nation, report cites. The most expensive carton of milk in the United States is in Honolulu, while the cheapest is in Twin Falls, Idaho. The price for a half gallon of whole milk in Honolulu is $2.74, while the cost in Twin Falls is $1.39. A 6-ounce can of tuna in Denver is 70 cents, but an optometrist visit is $83.29, higher than the national average of $79.01. Those figures are in the latest nationwide cost-of-living report by Council for Community and Economic Research. The survey considered the price of various, everyday items people buy — from necessities, such as food, to luxury items, such as movie tickets, as well as health care, goods and services and housing. The report was published in May. The report, which sets the national cost of living score at 100, shows Enid is one of the least expensive places to live in the United States, with a score of 87.6.

July 2007, Expansion Management and the National Policy Research Council have listed Enid in their list of Top 20 small metro areas for recruitment and attraction of business.

February, 2007. Garfield County has been named one of the top 10 rural counties in which to live in Progressive Farmer Magazine. Garfield Co was named this because of outstanding health care availability, the reasonable price of land, the teacher-student ratio of 13.9:1 and low crime and low pollution rate. The Progressive Farmer rating is a quality-of-life issue. There are 2,500 counties in the US that are classified as rural.

Main Street Enid received national accreditation again this year (2006) by meeting standards established by the national organization. Enid joins only 625 programs across the nation to receive the national accreditation. The accreditation process evaluates commercial revitalization programs based on criteria established by the Washington DC based organization.

Enid was featured on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Wednesday, 11 Jan 06 as one of the top five “up-and-coming” areas of the United States. Judged on location, desirability, new developments, average home prices and percentage of increase over the last two years. Enid competed against 3,700 other communities around the country to earn a spot on the list.

The March 2004 issue of Inc. Magazine rated Enid, Oklahoma as one of the top 25 small metro areas for doing business (cities 150,000 and under).

The May 2003 edition of Expansion Management magazine rated Enid a “5-Star Community” based on quality of life. One of Americas’ finest cities Enid, Oklahoma; voted one of the top fifty cities in the United States.

Ranked the 28th best place in the nation to raise a family in a Reader’s Digest poll, Enid is known as the hub for Northwest Oklahoma for medical treatment, education, entertainment, and shopping.