Bartlesville, city, seat of Washington County and also in Osage County, northeastern Oklahoma, on the Caney River; settled in 1875, incorporated in 1897. It is the commercial hub of an agricultural and petroleum- and natural-gas-producing region. Manufactures include zinc, chemicals, motors, and pumps. Tourism is a growing industry. In the city are Bartlesville Wesleyan College (1909); a United States government energy research center; Price Tower, designed by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright; and the Nellie Johnstone oil well, a restoration of the state's first commercial oil well, drilled in 1897. The city is named for an early settler, Jacob H. Bartles. Population 34,568 (1980); 34,256 (1990); 34,748 (2000).
