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When President William McKinley, a Republican, took office in 1897, he appointed Barnes to replace the outgoing Democratic William Cary Renfrow as Governor of Oklahoma Territory.
On December 19 of 1890, the first Governor of Oklahoma Territory George Washington Steele signed the bill that created the Oklahoma Territorial University at Norman (now the University of Oklahoma), the institution designated to provide the liberal arts and professional education, as the first university in Oklahoma.