The townsite was platted in 1904 by L. R. Kershaw, who was an attorney and an immigration agent for the Frisco. He named the town after H. E. Morris, a Frisco executive. Many of the street names in Morris are named after towns that were familiar to Kershaw from his home state of Illinois. Kershaw was also the founder of two of the earliest banks in Morris, Indian Territory: The Farmer's State Bank of Morris in 1905 and the First National Bank of Morris in 1907. Morris's later history includes bank robberies, the most talked about being those by Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd, who was popular in the Morris area.