Business & Industry
A sovereign tribal nation running its own industrial park and manufacturing plant, an energy company credited with helping pioneer the horizontal-drilling-plus-fracking technique that reshaped U.S. oil production, and the 50-story tower that's anchored downtown's skyline since 2012.
Citizen Potawatomi Nation
The Citizen Potawatomi Nation, headquartered in Shawnee, counts 37,264 enrolled citizens with no minimum blood-quantum requirement — enrollment is based on lineal descent alone. Beyond FireLake Grand Casino and its other gaming and retail operations, the tribe opened Sovereign Pipe Technologies in 2023, an HDPE pipe manufacturing plant at its own 700-acre Iron Horse industrial park near Shawnee, and has run a 36,000-square-foot cultural heritage center and museum since 2006.
Continental Resources
Continental Resources, headquartered in Oklahoma City, was founded by Harold Hamm in 1967 at age 21 and grew into one of the companies credited with pioneering horizontal drilling combined with hydraulic fracturing in low-permeability rock — its 2004 well was the first commercially successful well in North Dakota's Bakken formation to be both horizontally drilled and hydraulically fractured, a technique that helped reshape U.S. oil production. Hamm took the company private again in November 2022 for $4.3 billion.
Devon Energy
Devon Energy, founded in 1971, moved its headquarters from Houston into the newly completed 50-story Devon Energy Center in downtown Oklahoma City in 2012 — still the tallest building in the state and the defining feature of the skyline. The company remains an S&P 500 and Fortune 500 member headquartered in OKC.