Landmark Lawton water park goes on the auction block

If you’re into the notion of owning the elements for your own giant water park that’s also a piece of Lawton history, then Bill Bridges has the bid for you.

Owner of Bridges Auction & Sales Company in Elgin, he’s tasked with a complete and absolute dispersal auction of the Comanche Nation Water Park: Nations of Fun.

Beginning at 9:15 a.m. Tuesday at the closed water park, 501 NE Lawrie Tatum Road, everything must go, according to Bridges. Be it all in bulk for a big spender or dissembled and pieced out, everything is on the auction table.

“It’s a complete, absolute everything that’s sellable,” he said. “Whatever’s left will be disposed of.”

Buildings, slides, pumps, shades, awnings, restaurant equipment, playground equipment, fencing and more are up for sale, Bridges said.

Opened in 1991 as the Native Sun Water Park, it was a venture by the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache (KCA) tribes. It was constructed by the federal government through the Bureau of Indian Affairs guaranteeing loan on the $3 million project. Three years later, it returned to federal control following a loan default, reopening briefly before closing in 1997.

The City of Lawton attempted to negotiate a deal with the BIA to reopen the park in 1999 but was unsuccessful.

The Comanche Nation took over operations in 2003 and renamed it the Comanche Nation Water Park. From flooding to other issues, it was closed and reopened several times over the past 20 years. It was leased through the BIA and the KCA Land Use Committee. That’s who, Bridges said, contracted his company to conduct the auction.

Acting KCA Land Use Committee Executive Director Janelle Archilta said it was time to look to other uses for the park after being shut down about four years. The park began to deteriorate.

Insuring with no revenue was a primary decision maker about the move, Archilta said. A pandemic got the ball rolling.

“The biggest thing is COVID happened and we were closed all that time,” she said. “Unfortunately, the money was too much to insure the place and having nothing coming in to offset that expense meant we had to do something.”

With the KCA investing in its own cattle as well as leasing to other cattle owners on the lands surrounding, Archilta said the intention is to develop more leasing and potentially start a farm.

But first things first. Bridges said while it’s not the biggest auction awaiting him, Tuesday’s may be his most unique in his long career.

“This is the first water park we’ve ever tried to sell,” he said. “We’ve never sold that type of equipment before.”

Bridges said there’s been interest in the items from “as far east as Pennsylvania” and throughout the state.

“We’ve had a lot of interest in it,” he said.