Mattie Beal Home

Mattie Beal registered for the 1901 Oklahoma land lottery and hers was the second name drawn for the Lawton district from among over 164,000 registrants. As a result, she won the right to claim a valuable 160-acre allotment, the land on which the home now sits. Due to her instantaneous fame and fortune, proposals of courtship and marriage poured in from across the country, but in 1902 Mattie married the owner of a local lumberyard, Charles Warren Payne. In 1907 they started construction on Mattie’s dream home with Neoclassical Greek Revival style elements and Baroque ornamentation with a Mediterranean style roof. Because of its size - 14 rooms, an attic and a basement - and its location on one of the highest spots in the city, the home reigned as the architectural highlight of early Lawton.