Side-by-side metrics and state or size-class ranks use the same Census and FBI fields shown on this profile. Results stay in the URL so you can bookmark or share them.
Place dossier plate
SheetOK-FORT-TOWSON-OK · Fort Towson, OK 578 pop · income 20th pct
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Fort Towson
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Fort Towson on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Red Oak · lowest
35,676
Red Oak · lowest
35,676 median HH income
34.4% of the leader · rank #1
Fort Towson · this city
50,250
Fort Towson · this city
50,250 median HH income
48.4% of the leader · rank #2
Lynn · near
50,250
Lynn · near
50,250 median HH income
48.4% of the leader · rank #3
Apple River · near
50,250
Apple River · near
50,250 median HH income
48.4% of the leader · rank #4
Smithland · near
50,250
Smithland · near
50,250 median HH income
48.4% of the leader · rank #5
Bosworth · near
50,250
Bosworth · near
50,250 median HH income
48.4% of the leader · rank #6
Culbertson · highest
103,750
Culbertson · highest
103,750 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Fort Towson on ACS population and median household income
. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 578.
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Fort Towson lands in the 20th percentile for household income and the 99th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
20th
percentile, household income
22nd
percentile, home value
14th
percentile, median rent
99th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Fort Towson, OK
Fort Towson is a small town in Oklahoma, home to 578 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Fort Towson households earn a median of $50,250 annually, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 5.3%. Fort Towson's housing stock carries a median value of $133,000, and the median resident age is 53.6 years. About 13.1% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 45.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Fort Towson reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 0.0 crimes per 100,000 residents, below the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Oklahoma run below the national norm: the state registers 87.8 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $995 monthly. Monthly utility costs average around $205 across Oklahoma, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Natural-hazard exposure scores 55.5 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Fort Towson's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from schools and households to housing and income to reported crime to comparison shortlist to work and mobility to population change; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Fort Towson, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, annual population history, commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles, local building permits; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Fort Towson?
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
The NCES join finds 3 public schools within the city match. 13.1% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
How far does income reach against housing in Fort Towson?
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Income and home value move within the same broad scale here. The useful next check is not a generic affordability label, but whether similar-size cities offer a materially different income, housing, or commute trade-off.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 2.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 5.3%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Fort Towson?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 0.0 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 100% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
Which cities make useful reference points for Fort Towson?
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching.
Within Oklahoma, the closest population matches are Nicut (580 residents, $35,806 income); Mountain View (575 residents, $55,781 income); Red Oak (582 residents, $35,676 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Ash Fork, AZ (578 residents); Altheimer, AR (578 residents); Crawfordville, GA (578 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Fort Towson?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 72.8%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
Drive alone
72.8%
Work from home
5.1%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 217 workers age 16+.
Is Fort Towson growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population declined by -7 residents from 2020 to 2025, a -1.4% change. No comparable local building-permit series is available here, so population change should not be read as a housing-supply measure. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Recent estimates point downward. A falling count can reflect migration, household size, annexation boundaries, or estimation noise, so it is a prompt to inspect the full series rather than a claim about local economic health.
2020 estimate
496
2025 estimate
489
Period change
-1.4%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Violent crime A+
0 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Cost of living A+
87.8 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Poverty rate C+
5.3%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$50,250
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
13.1%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Fort Towson profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Violent crime: 97/100 (A+) · 0 /100k
Cost of living: 94/100 (A+) · 87.8 index
Poverty rate: 63/100 (C+) · 5.3%
Household income: 21/100 (F) · $50,250
Bachelor's+ share: 15/100 (F) · 13.1%
How does Fort Towson compare to other US cities?
Fort Towson measured against every US city with 1,000+ residents, computed live from the same Census and FBI data shown throughout this page.
Household income20% higher than other cities
Home value22% pricier than other cities
Median rent14% pricier than other cities
Safety99% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to Oklahoma alone, Fort Towson ranks #1 of 203 Oklahoma cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Fort Towson against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Oklahoma only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Oklahoma-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Fort Towson near the bottom of Oklahoma's cities
Among the 671 Oklahoma cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Fort Towson ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Fort Towson only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#346 of 639
46th percentile in Oklahoma
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 671
0th percentile in Oklahoma
Median Home Value
#200 of 628
68th percentile in Oklahoma
Poverty Rate
#534 of 671
20th percentile in Oklahoma
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#372 of 671
44th percentile in Oklahoma
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Oklahoma only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
20th percentile nationally for median household income · 99th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Fort Towson's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Fort Towson's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Fort Towson's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$133,000Among the most affordablemore affordable than 78% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Fort Towson's home-value-to-income ratio: 2.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
affordable
< 3.0×
National rank
#4,747 of 15,516
More affordable than 69% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#4,195 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 2.6×, Fort Towson sits in the affordable band:
national rank #4,747 of 15,516 and #4,195 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
The multiple is comparatively compact among tracked cities, but a low ratio can still coexist with slow demand or household-level hardship.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$50,250Fort Towson, OK median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Fort Towson, OK median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Fort Towson, OK.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)13.1%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)5.3%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)45.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
578
Median Income
$50,250
Median Home Value
$133,000
Median Age
53.6
Poverty Rate
5.3%
Labor force participation
45.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
13.1%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
0.0
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
0.0
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
0.0
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Schools
Total Schools
3
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Fort Towson's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
496 residents
2021
501 residents
2022
502 residents
2023
498 residents
2024
496 residents
2025
489 residents
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
72.8%
Carpool
21.2%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.9%
Work from Home
5.1%
Based on 217 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Oklahoma statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $205
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Oklahoma at $205 (electricity about $115 , water and sewer about $40 ).
These are Oklahoma statewide averages, not a meter reading for Fort Towson. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Oklahoma's BEA cost-of-living index is 87.8 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Fort Towson is $995/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Oklahoma statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 55.5 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Oklahoma statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Fort Towson sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Fort Towson compares to similar-size Oklahoma cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NCES CCD, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.