Liberal, the judicial seat of Seward county, is located about 4 miles from Oklahoma, on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R. R. It has 2 banks with a combined capitalization of $50,000 and deposits of nearly $350,000, a weekly newspaper (the Independent), a large number of substantial business houses, telegraph and express offices and an international money order postoffice with four rural routes. The population in 1910 was 1,716. The town was founded in 1888. In 1900 the population was 426. Its growth in the last ten years has been the normal result of the increasing prosperity of that section of the state, and not the result of a temporary boom. It is an important shipping point for grain, live-stock and produce. It is the greatest broom-corn market in the United States. Over 800 cars of the product is shipped annually, most of it in the month of August.