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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Rhea (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Rhea. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the east contained birth and death records; the county to the south contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Rhea is located in Dewey County.

To see how the shape of Oklahoma's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Dewey County: Blaine, Custer, Ellis, Major, Roger Mills & Woodward.

Below are the counties that are near Rhea. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Rhea:

  • Dewey County     (The home county of Rhea)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rhea, with the one closest to Rhea listed first.
    • Leedey
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Camargo
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
    • Putnam
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • Taloga
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Vici
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Seiling
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Oakwood
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Beckham County
    • Elk City
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
  • Custer County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rhea, with the one closest to Rhea listed first.
    • Butler
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Carpenter
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
      • Carpenter is located in Custer County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Carpenter
    • Arapaho
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
    • Custer City
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
    • Thomas
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Clinton
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Roger Mills County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rhea, with the one closest to Rhea listed first.
    • Hammon
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Hammon is located in Roger Mills County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hammon
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 555 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Hammon <1>
    • Strong City
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
      • Strong City is located in Roger Mills County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Strong City
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 46 people
    • Roll
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
      • Roll is located in Roger Mills County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Roll
    • Cheyenne
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Washita County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rhea, with the one closest to Rhea listed first.
    • Foss
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
      • Foss is located in Washita County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Foss
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 146 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Foss <1>
    • Canute
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
  • Woodward County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rhea, with the one closest to Rhea listed first.
    • Richmond
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Richmond is located in Woodward County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Richmond
    • Mutual
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Sharon
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Rhea, see our County-by-County Page for Rhea.

Cemeteries Near Rhea ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Rhea.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Rhea - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Rhea covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Rhea, with the one closest to Rhea listed first.

  • Rhea Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • New Hermon Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Center Point Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
  • Halcomb Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Evergreen Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • New Herman Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • German Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
  • Riverview Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
  • Shiloh Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Osceola Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Trail Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
  • Prairie Bell Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (98 more) ...
    • Webb Cemetery
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Yake Cemetery
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
    • Moorewood Cemetery
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<2>

While we didn't find Rhea in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Rhea.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Rhea, with the one closest to Rhea listed first.

  • Camargo
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
  • Hammon
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Hammon is located in Roger Mills County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hammon
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 555 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Hammon <1>
  • Taloga
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Arapaho
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
  • Richmond
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Richmond is located in Woodward County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Richmond
  • Cheyenne
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Rhea. See our List of 1890's Communities around Rhea.

Newspapers Published in Rhea ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 91 newspapers that have been published in the area around Rhea.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Rhea, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Rhea.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These professional and volunteer websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Rhea:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Rhea, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Rhea) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.