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The History of Pleasant
Prairie, Indian Territory,
Oklahoma
Source
used: Localized
History
of
Pottawatomie
County,
Oklahoma to
1907
by
Charles W.
Mooney, B.S. University
of Oklahoma pages
44-47
Pleasant Prairie was the second community established
in the county after the Civil War. When
John Anderson and six
other families arrived
here in the spring of 1871, this community
and
"Mac Town" were the
only two towns in the county. By that
time Chishoim Springs and the Seminole Agency
had been
dissolved. There were seven families
that came in covered wagons, led by Joe Melot from Kansas.
They were the first permanent continguents of the Pottawatomi
Indians to move upon their allotments in the reservation area.
The families were: Joe Melot, John Anderson, Joshua E. Clardy, Pete
Anderson, George Pettifer, the Burjon and the Toupain
families. John Anderson became the local blacksmith.
John Anderson called the community "Mission Farm". By the end
of 1871 this town had grown from 28 and practically all of them were
of Indian and French descent. The Johnson, Clinton, Darline,
Antonoine Bourbonasis, Neadeau and the George Young families
arrived. This town was located about 5 miles northwest of the
present day town of Wanette. Antoine and Mary Bourbonais were
converted to christianity by Re. Franklin Elliot. It was near
Pleasant Prairie a few years later that the town of Isabella was
established in 1876. That town later changed its name to
Clardyville, then to Oberlin. The town then moved to include
the town of Pleasant Prairie and absorbed it. The name of the
town was then changed to Wagoza in 1881. The town of Wanette,
established many years later near there, was in reality named for a
Pottawatomi indian word meaning "Pleasant Prairie." There
never was a post office, but the town did exsist from 1871 to
1881. The school at Pleasant Prairie was one of the first four
Pottawatomie Day Schools, and was known as the Wagoza School before
the town's named changed. In 1875 the William Brown family
moved to the area.
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