Early inhabitants of the Canute area were Plains Indians who followed and hunted the roaming buffalo herds that grazed its rich grasslands, and evidence of several Indian encampments has been found on Trail Elk, Turkey, and Oak Creeks as well as at Indian Springs. In 1541, the Spanish explorer Coronado crossed western Oklahoma in search of fabled cities of gold, and for the next 350 years Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans searched for gold in the area. Somewhere along Turkey Creek, the fabled Mexican gold mining town of Cascorillo may once have thrived. The wealth they sought in vain was later found in wheat, cattle, oil, and natural gas. After the Civil War, Texas cattle moved through the area to the railhead and markets in Kansas, and the Great Western Trail crossed present-day I-40 about one and a half miles east of present-day Canute. Farmers and ranchers arrived in the Land Run of 1892 with the opening of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Territory. Canute's final location was settled in 1902 by lottery, and the winner paid $10.00 for a lot. The Canute Bank is the oldest state-chartered bank still in operation. Another major source of the area's prosperity was the discovery of oil in the early 1900's and later natural gas. The first well drilled in western Oklahoma was on the C. H. Wilcox farm one mile northeast of Canute in 1917, and the deepest well in the world at the time was drilled to 31441 feet about 10 miles southeast of Canute.