98.1442330 36.7394740 selenite spavinaw sequoyah striper wister washita alfalfa 3204 okmulgee gypsum tishomingo replenishes picnicking optima hourglass brushy usfs boggy mineralogical impoundment ouachita texoma kurtis alabaster 9,300 saline stair evaporates
where is the great salt plains located in oklahoma
Great Salt Plains State Park - wikipedia Great Salt Plains State Park Jump to : navigation , search <Th_colspan="2"> Great Salt Plains State Park <Td_colspan="2"> Location Alfalfa County , Oklahoma , United States Nearest city Jet , OK Coordinates 36 ° 44 ′ 22 '' N 98 ° 08 ′ 39 '' W ﻿ / ﻿ 36.7394740 ° N 98.1442330 ° W ﻿ / 36.7394740 ; - 98.1442330 Coordinates : 36 ° 44 ′ 22 '' N 98 ° 08 ′ 39 '' W ﻿ / ﻿ 36.7394740 ° N 98.1442330 ° W ﻿ / 36.7394740 ; - 98.1442330 Area 840 acres ( 340 ha ) Governing body Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department <Td_colspan="2"> www.travelok.com/listings/view.profile/id.3204 Great Salt Plains State Park is a 840 - acre ( 3.4 km ) Oklahoma state park located in Alfalfa County , Oklahoma . It is located 8 miles ( 13 km ) north of Jet , Oklahoma on SH - 38 and 12 miles ( 19 km ) east of Cherokee . Recreational opportunities at Great Salt Plains State Park include boating , camping , picnicking , swimming , hiking , mountain biking and exploring . The Great Salt Plains Lake is located at the park and covers 9,300 acres ( 38 km ) with 41 miles ( 66 km ) of shoreline and is a shallow , salty lake with fishing opportunities for catfish , saugeye , sandbass and hybrid striper . The average depth is reportedly 4 feet ( 1.2 m ) and the impoundment capacity is 31,420 acre - feet . Salinity of the water in the reservoir is one - fourth that of sea water . Personal watercraft are not recommended . The park has RV and tent sites , comfort stations with showers , cabins , picnic sites , group shelters , swimming beach , playgrounds , boat ramps , fishing dock and equestrian trails . Horse rental is not available . The Great Salt Plains cover an area of 11,000 square miles ( 28,000 km ) . It was so named because it is covered with a layer of salt deposited long ago by an inland sea . A saline aquifer still flows beneath the surface and replenishes the salt whenever the water table rises . The salt is left behind when the water evaporates . The first white men to visit this area were members of the Sibley expedition in 1811 , who named it the Grand Saline . President Herbert Hoover designated an area of the Salt Fork east of Cherokee , Oklahoma as a National Wildlife Refuge on March 26 , 1930 . The Great Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge sits adjacent to the park and offers great bird watching and fall foliage viewing opportunities . Gypsum , special variety : Hourglass - Gypsum ( embedded sand in type of an hourglass ) - Exposed in the Mineralogical Museum , Bonn , Germany The refuge is the only spot in the world where crystal enthusiasts can dig for hourglass selenite , a rare and fragile form of selenite , which is a form of gypsum . Digging times are available from April 1 through October 15 . See also ( edit ) Great Salt Plains Great Salt Plains State Park and National Wildlife Refuge External links ( edit ) US Army Corps of Engineers : Great Salt Plains Recreation References ( edit ) Jump up ^ `` Great Salt Plains State Park '' . Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey . Retrieved January 6 , 2013 . Jump up ^ U , S. Army Corps of Engineers , `` Welcome to Great Salt Plains Lake . '' Accessed July 28 , 2015 ^ Jump up to : Thomas L. Hedglen , `` Great Salt Plains State Park and National Wildlife Refuge . '' Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture . Accessed April 19 , 2013 . Jump up ^ Kurtis W. Boucher and Richard A. Marston , `` Great Salt Plains , '' Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture . Accessed April 19 , 2015 . Jump up ^ `` Great Salt Plains State Park '' . Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department . Retrieved January 6 , 2013 . <Th_colspan="2"> Protected areas of Oklahoma Federal National Historic Sites : Fort Smith Washita Battlefield National Recreation Areas : Chickasaw National Forests : Ouachita USFS National Recreation Areas : Winding Stair Mountain National Grasslands : Black Kettle Rita Blanca National Memorials : Oklahoma City National Wildlife Refuges : Deep Fork Little River Optima Ozark Plateau Salt Plains Sequoyah Tishomingo Washita Wichita Mountains State State Parks : Alabaster Caverns Arrowhead Beaver Dunes Beavers Bend Resort Park Bernice Black Mesa Boggy Depot Boiling Springs Brushy Lake Cherokee Cherokee Landing Clayton Lake Disney / Little Blue Dripping Springs Fort Cobb Foss Gloss Mountain Great Plains Great Salt Plains Greenleaf Hochatown Honey Creek Hugo Lake Keystone Lake Eufaula Lake Murray Lake Texoma Lake Wister Lake Thunderbird Little Sahara McGee Creek Natural Falls Okmulgee Osage Hills Quartz Mountain Raymond Gary Red Rock Canyon Robbers Cave Roman Nose Sequoyah Bay Sequoyah Snowdale Spavinaw Talimena Tenkiller Twin Bridges Walnut Creek Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Salt_Plains_State_Park&oldid=770337175 '' Categories : State parks of Oklahoma Protected areas of Alfalfa County , Oklahoma Geography of Oklahoma Talk About Wikipedia Cebuano Edit links This page was last edited on 14 March 2017 , at 20 : 39 . 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