If one word can aptly describe Chickasha today, it is “progressive.”
Renovation and restoration of more than a dozen downtown buildings, new national retailers, new housing under construction, looming development in the Airport Industrial Park, construction of a new water treatment plant expected to start early next year, new hangars at the municipal airport, dirt work underway on a US-81 bypass that will divert heavy truck traffic from downtown streets.
In addition, the “leg lamp” statue continues to attract hundreds of visitors to Chickasha every year.
“I believe that the true measure of a city isn’t its size or its f lashiness, but the spirit of its people and the progress we build together,” Mayor Zach Grayson said during his State of the City address last Thursday at the Grady County Fairgrounds.
“Community buy-in from the citizens is, to me, the single most important measurable point of reference to how a city is doing – a nd in 2025, Chickasha crushed it.” Today, Chickasha is “thriving, united, and unstoppable,” the mayor said.
The city’s population has surpassed 17,000 “for the first time,” and the population in Chickasha’s regional trade area grew almost 8% in 2020-2024 “with no signs of slowing down.”
During the past 12 months “we made great strides in improving our transportation infrastructure,” Grayson said.
Streets received asphalt overlays (“which are crazy expensive”), potholes were patched, some street striping and some street lighting improvements were made. “We invested in new equipment for Public Works to make repairs more efficient and stronger.” City Hall’s relationship with Grady County “enabled us to overlay more streets than we would have with the funds we had available.”
The city is advertising for bids on construction of a new water treatment plant that will replace an antiquated facility. “It has taken longer to get it engineered” and to secure the requisite permits “than anyone thought,” he said. Nevertheless, the bids will be opened in mid-December, a contractor will be selected, “and construction will start shortly after that.”
Residents voted Aug. 8, 2023, to finance the water plant by renewing and increasing a sales tax that ’s dedicated to capital improvements. The permanent 1.25% levy went into effect Jan. 1, 2024. That act was “the single most actionable thing we as a community had done to improve our water situation in decades,” Grayson noted.
“Growth is going to happen. The question is: are we ready to capitalize on it?” he asked. “Growth is what will fund our infrastructure improvements, city services, and our ability to provide our citizens with opportunities and quality of life.”
In 2026, “I envision many more good things to happen here,” said Grayson, who announced he will seek reelection next year to a second two-year mayoral term. “Just because we focus on the positive does not mean the challenges are pushed to the side,” he added. “We all know that not everything is rainbows and unicorns. We do have our challenges. But to me, pushing toward the positive is how we address those challenges.”
During a subsequent question- and-answer session, some discussion centered on the airport industrial park that’s being developed by entrepreneur Chet Hitt.
Hitt, a native of Apple Valley, California, initiated a trip to Los Angeles, California, to recruit several dozen California companies to Oklahoma, specifically Chickasha.
He was accompanied by Gov. Kevin Stitt, Chickasha Chamber of Commerce President Jim Cowan, Grayson, Chickasha Economic Development Council Chairman Ryan Posey, two representatives from the state Commerce Department, and three representatives of the Canadian Valley Technology Center.
“We’re inviting several prospects to come to Chickasha,” Hitt told Southwest Ledger later. “We’ll fly them out here to spend a couple of days. We’re putting together an itinerary of places to visit, such as Canadian Valley Technical Center and the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, and people to meet, including City Manager Jim Crosby and USAO President Kayla Hale.”
The Chickasha City Council “has been pro-business, and that goes a long way in building a community,” Hitt said.
As a rough rule of thumb, every new job that’s created “brings with it 2.5 other people,” he said. “Which demonstrates the importance of adequate housing in a community.”
Timing is difficult, with three holidays approaching, he said, “but we’ll make it happen, sooner rather than later.”
Among those who will receive an invitation is a Californian who builds race cars and manufactures parts. During the trip to L.A., Stitt compared water and electric rates in Oklahoma to those in California, Hitt recalled. The California businessman did some back-of-thenapkin math “and said his electric bill there was 300% higher than he would pay in Oklahoma,” Grayson said.