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1917 — The city began construction of the Civic Center Auditorium. Before it was completed, it was used on Oct. 2 to send off 141 Kay County soldiers leaving to fight in World War I.

With the discovery of oil and the new wealth that came with it, Ponca City became a thriving modern city. Hundreds of new homes were built in the late teens and early 1920s in the central part of the city.

Due to the increased need for oil in the war, the price of crude went up to $3.50 per barrel.

All frame buildings on Grand Avenue, between First and Fourth Streets, were condemned.

Ponca City Refinery was sold to Empire Refinery Company.

The Oklahoma Legislature passed the "Bone-Dry Law." The law stipulated "it shall be unlawful for any person in this state to possess any liquor received directly or indirectly from a common or other carrier." The measure had the firm backing of the state's Anti-Saloon League. Violation of the law constituted a misdemeanor and carried a penalty of up to $500 in fines and six months in jail. The bill's passage marked 10 years since Oklahoma had entered the Union as a dry state.

The new Marland home was the entertainment place for many of the young people in town. The indoor swimming pool attracted George and Lydie's friends, and Mrs. Marland always kept an assortment of extra bathing suits for guests. The young men and women of that era enjoyed swimming, horseback riding and costume parties.

1918 — Henry Hatashita, a young Japanese man, came to Ponca City to be E.W. Marland’s personal landscaper and gardener. A graduate of the University of Kansas, Hatashita was responsible for the plantings at the first Marland home on Grand Avenue. They included botanical gardens that reached from Tenth to Fourteenth Street and from Grand to Central. A greenhouse was erected along Fourteenth to start new plantings. There was an abundant vegetable garden adjacent to a lilac thicket. The evergreen hedges that bordered the property suggested the formality of a Versailles garden. Flanking the east terrace of the home were two large water lily ponds. Hatashita and his crew of 30 men were also responsible for the design and landscaping of a nine-hole golf course. It covered approximately 24 square blocks, extending from Grand to Highland Avenue, from Tenth to Twelfth Street, across from the new Marland home.

Lew Wentz made his first million, given a boost by high oil prices and generously producing leases.

A third refinery, the Lake Park Refinery, opened at Fourteenth Street and Lake Road, where the Pioneer Woman Statue now stands.

Marland reorganized his geological corps under Spot Geyer. Geyer, who had been a University of Oklahoma football star, was ideally suited in temperament for Marland. Both shared a love for poker and both were willing to take chances in a business where risks played an important role.

Nickles & Gentry Body Shop opened on North First Street.

At the 101 Ranch, a group of German prisoners of war was helping construct several new buildings.

Van Winkle's Clothing Store for Men, founded by Marvin Van Winkle, opened at 212 East Grand. It soon became the leading men's haberdashery in the city.

The Ponca City Courier and The Ponca City Democrat consolidated and became The Ponca City News, published by Richard Elam. The new daily was printed on a 12-page Duplex, a flatbed press that was slow, rickety, and undependable but still turned out more and bigger papers faster than the sheet-fed presses of its predecessors. Lew Wentz financed the new business venture.

The Daughters of the American Revolution organized a local chapter.

The "Bone-Dry Law," passed in 1917, became one of the state's most contested laws because it failed to exempt liquor distribution for sacramental use in churches. Yet, the law provided the exceptions for hospitals, pharmacists, universities, and scientific institutions. The Roman Catholic Church challenged the law, and in May 1918, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the distribution of wine for sacramental purposes would be exempt from the law. In December, a ruling that allowed an individual to possess liquor, as long it was not received from a common carrier, further diminished the law’s intent.

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