Bristow is a city in Creek County, Oklahoma, United States. The population as of the 2020 Census was 4,248, up slightly from the population of 4,222 reported at the 2010 census. Bristow began in 1898, when the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway built a track between Sapulpa and Oklahoma City. The town was named for Joseph L. Bristow, an Assistant U.S. Postmaster General who later served as a U.S. senator from Kansas. A post office was established April 25, 1898. By the 1900 census, the population was 626.