Chester, Oklahoma.
Typical home $265,108 (+8.7% in a year). Woodward, OK metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$809 (+139%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $21,308 +9%
- $243,800$265,108 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $77,527 +41%
- $187,581$265,108 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Chester$1,391
- Oklahoma$1,159
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Chester, OK rose 8.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Chester, Major County, Oklahoma
Chester, in Major County, had 176 people in the 2020 census. Unemployment in Major County was 3.3% in August 2026, and the county had 4.8% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Major County work in schools and health care, then farming.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Chester is a very small community in Major County, Oklahoma, where neighbors are likely to know one another by name. Poverty is rare here, and homes carry a typical value that sits well within reach of what many families in the county earn. Winters are cold and summers are hot, with the year's moisture arriving as a mix of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with many others in farming, forestry and mining, in manufacturing, and in shops. Across Major County, some of the biggest employers are Fairview Schools, Fairview Hospital and Broce, which makes road construction and maintenance equipment. Unemployment across the county is low and has barely moved from a year ago, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before.
Things to do. Several state parks and a lake lie within a longer drive. Little Sahara State Park is a protected area known for its open sand country, and Canton Lake is a lake for time on the water. Gloss Mountain State Park is another protected area for a day outdoors, and all of these are a longer drive from town.
Report a mistake
- 4%below the poverty line
What people in Major County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Major County had 2,033 jobs in 2025, 4.8% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 49° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 95° and lows near 70°. About 28 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Seiling 7WNW Mesonet weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Major County
- Fairview SchoolsSchool district106FTE
- Fairview Fellowship HomeNursing homes88
- BroceDrags, road construction and road maintenance equipment, manufacturing60
- Fairview HospitalCritical access hospital55FTE
- Ringwood SchoolsSchool district51FTE
- Harp's Food StoreRetail grocery46
- Okeene Milling CompanyFlour mills, cereals grains27
- Martens Machine ShopMachine shops23
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 6 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 267 people in all across the county; Chester has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Ice stormsVery high
- HailVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Chester’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Major County and the Woodward, OK metro.
Chester home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Chester$265,108
- Oklahoma$220,801
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Zip codes with a Chester address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Chester — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.