Towns of Sequoyah County,
Oklahoma
History The county seat of Sequoyah County, Sallisaw is
situated at the junction of State Highways 64 and 59
between Sallisaw
Creek and
Little Sallisaw Creek, at
the southern edge of the
Ozark Plateau
twenty miles
west of the Arkansas border. Interstate 40 crosses
the south
side of the city, which was given its name
by French
traders. Sallisaw
derives from the French salaison,
which means "salt meat" or "salt
provisions."
English
naturalist Thomas Nuttall may have been the first to
record the name "Salaiseau" in the journal of his
1819 travels in the
area, then
part of Arkansas. The
city, elevation 531 feet, is
in hilly
country that
reduces
to sticky bottoms southward to the Arkansas River and
Robert S. Kerr Lake. Close geographic features
include Wildhorse Mountain
to
the south, Badger
Mountain to the northwest, and
Lone Pine Mountain to
the northeast. The organized
settlement now known as
Sallisaw can be
traced to 1887-88 when Argyle
Quesenbury, one of the first white men to
settle in
the vicinity, and
Will Watie Wheeler, collateral descendent of
Cherokee Confederate leader Stand Watie, laid out
lots for a town one-half
mile
square. The mostly
Cherokee town was not
incorporated until 1898 when
William E. Whitsett, Jr., was
elected mayor.
Confusion arises over the
place. Present Sallisaw
was
the site of a post office called Childer's
Station from 1873 to 1888 when
the name was changed
to Sallisaw. Another
community fifteen miles north
bore the name Sallisaw for a period until
1888 when
the name of the post
office there was changed to Mays, remaining
so until
it closed in 1896. Earlier, in the 1840s
and1850s
Sallisaw had
been the name of a landing on
the Arkansas River, one of twenty-two
between Fort
Smith, Arkansas,
and Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, during
the heyday
of steamboat navigation. Although it
usually
referred to
Sallisaw Creek, the place name
Sallisaw also was familiar to commanders
during the
Civil War when
Confederate Indian troops under Col., later
Brig.
Gen., Stand Watie maneuvered and skirmished
with
Union forces in the
Cherokee Nation and fought
battles in northwest Arkansas. The railroad
came to
Sallisaw when the
Kansas and Arkansas Valley Railway (later the
Missouri Pacific Railroad) laid track west from Van
Buren, Arkansas, in
1888-90.
In 1895-96 the Kansas
City, Pittsburg and Gulf
Railroad
constructed a
north-south line through the region. The rail
companies
intersected at the city. Town builder
Wheeler
established several
businesses in Sallisaw in the
1880s and1890s, including a cotton gin, saw
mill,
grist mill, lumberyard,
and, in 1896, the Coffin Shop, which evolved
into
Wheeler Funeral Home. The mortuary continued
operation into the
twenty-first century. Other early
business leaders included William Henry
McDonald,
who operated the
Economy Store and McDonald Mercantile Company
in the
1890s and later ran a bank; Mr. and Mrs. C.
F. Ivey,
who
established a long-standing drug store
(she also owned hotels); Henry and
Arch Matthews,
who established
Matthews Brothers, a grocery, in 1898; and
W. D.
Mayo and E. M. Pointer, who founded Mayo and
Company, a mercantile
and farm
implement business.
Wheeler Mayo, son of W. D., and
Wheeler's
wife,
Florence, in
1932 founded the Sequoyah County Times, which
remained in the Mayo family in 2005 under Cookson
Hills Publishers, Inc.
and,
with 5,891 paid
circulation, was the
largest-circulation, non-metro,
non-daily newspaper
in Oklahoma. In 1900 the
population stood at 965,
and
it steadily increased,
reaching 2,255 in 1920. Sallisaw's economy largely
rose and fell with cotton in
the early years.
However, changes in
agricultural practices in the
1930s, not the drought that plagued most of
the rest
of Oklahoma that
decade, caused a population drop and a shift to
other forms of commerce. Lumber from hardwood and
pine forests, oil, but
mostly
natural gas, and coal
also were mainstays of the
economy. In 1930
Sallisaw
had
1,785 residents. By the early 1930s they supported seven
auto-related businesses, a bakery, two blacksmiths,
a bottler, four gins,
several
mills, and two
printing companies. Nevertheless, the
city
declined,
as all did
during the Great Depression. The city briefly was the
site of a prison camp during World War II. The
postwar 1940s and 1950s saw
a
variety of industrial
and retail businesses
flourish, including
auto-related concerns,
trucking, furniture
manufacturing, canning,
construction contracting,
mining, and manufacturing.
Gans is on State Highway 141, approximately seven
miles southeast of Sallisaw and one mile southwest
of U.S. Highway 64.
Originally
lying within the
Sequoyah District of the Cherokee
Nation, the
dispersed rural
area was locally called Jack Town.
It subsequently
became
known as Gann, after the
brothers Charlie, Swimmer, and Tom Gann. In
1895-96
the Kansas City,
Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad built tracks through
this location and requested the residents change the
name to Gans, as the
rail
system already included
two localities named Gann.
In 1899 the post
office,
which
had been established in 1896, was renamed Gans. In 1900 the
railroad sold its holdings to the Kansas City
Southern Railway. Gans's
growth in the early
nineteenth
century was due to agriculture and to
market access through the
railroad. In 1900 Gans's
population stood at
136, and by 1911 the town had a
bank, two cotton gins, a sawmill, six
general
stores, three doctors,
two drug stores, two blacksmiths, and a
restaurant.
The Gans Reporter served as an
early,
short-lived
newspaper. Cattle and hog raising
as well as farm production dominated the
economy. In
1918 the
surrounding region and town could shop at nine retail
establishments. The town also had a bank, three
churches, a cotton gin,
and a
sawmill. By 1920 the
population climbed to 295, but
it declined to
204 in
1930. In
1924 the bank relocated to Sallisaw. In 1933 Gans, which
had incorporated under federal guidelines for the
Cherokee Nation in 1902,
lost
its corporate status.
In 1953 the town
reincorporated, and by 1960 it
had
a population of 234. In January 1957 a devastating
tornado struck,
killing eight people, injuring
eleven, and
inflicting an estimated
$100,000 worth of property
damage. In 1980 the population was 346. The
town's
children attend the
Gans School District, which had 250 students in
1990. Gans native Bryant "Big Country" Reeves, an
Oklahoma State
University and
professional
basketball player, donated a city hall
building in
2002 after he
retired and returned to live in his home town.
In
2000 the U.S. Census reported 208 residents, with
most employed
residents
commuting to work in larger
towns. The kindergarten
through high
school
enrollment
had climbed to 321.
Gore lies at the convergence of U.S. Highway 64,
State Highway 10, and State Highway 100, less than
one mile from the
Muskogee
County line and across
the Arkansas River from
Webbers Falls. The
area
around
Gore was important in early-nineteenth-century Cherokee
history. In 1829 Western Cherokee Chief John Jolly
established his home in
the
vicinity. Also nearby
was the Western Cherokee
capital, Tahlonteskee.
During
this period Sam Houston, future president of
the
Republic of Texas,
came to the area to see
Jolly, who in earlier years had adopted Houston
and
named him Raven. In 1839,
after the Treaty of New Echota (1835) and the arrival
of most of the Eastern Cherokees, the Western
Cherokees affiliated with
the
Cherokee Nation. In
1841 Tahlequah was designated
the Cherokee
capital.
As the
nation was divided into political districts, the Illinois
District encompassed the Gore area. Tahlonteskee
retained a district
courthouse
until an 1846.
Meanwhile, a small dispersed
settlement
developed
around a
ferry that was operated across the Arkansas River by
Joe Lynch and Dr. W. W. Campbell. The ferry
connected the growing town of
Campbell (future Gore)
with
Webbers Falls. The place was also a stop on
the
stage route linking Fort Smith, Arkansas, with Fort
Gibson. In 1888
Dr. Campbell received a postal
designation of
Campbell for his store. Also
that year the St.
Louis, Iron
Mountain and Southern Railway (later the
Missouri
Pacific Railway) laid tracks through the
community.
The Dawes
Commission ordered the town
surveyed in 1903. Locals also called the
community
Illinois Station,
and many circa 1900 maps label it "Illinois
Station,
Campbell Post Office." By 1909 the
population
supported a bank,
two lumber companies, a
flour mill, a cotton gin, two hotels, and numerous
retail outlets. In that year
the town changed its
name to Gore, in honor
of U.S. Sen. Thomas P. Gore.
Also in 1909 a fire destroyed the bank and
many
downtown businesses. The
1910 census counted 316 residents, and the
count
remained steady for decades. Two early
newspapers,
the Campbell
Register (1907) and
the Citizen (1912), reported to the
citizens.
In 1922 the bank
failed. Gore's population reached 387 in 1950
and
declined to 334 in 1960. Construction of the
Tenkiller Ferry Dam from
1947
to 1953 improved the
area's economy. Completion of
the Webbers Falls
Lock
and Dam
in 1970 (for navigation on the Arkansas River) and its
hydroelectric power generation (initiated in 1973)
stimulated growth. By
1970 the
population climbed to
478. Other industry also
provided
employment. In
1967
Kerr-McGee purchased fifteen hundred acres three miles
east of Gore and built a plant to convert uranium
oxide into uranium
hexaflouride gas, which was then
shipped to a plant (then Kerr McGee's
Cimarron
facility north of
Oklahoma City) to make fuel rods for nuclear
reactors. In 1986 an accident at the Gore plant
killed one worker and
injured
eighty-two people.
Purchased in 1988 by General
Atomics, the plant
closed in
1993 after investigations by the Nuclear
Regulatory
Commission.
At the beginning of the
twenty-first century controversy again erupted,
hinging on financial
responsibility for cleaning up
the site. The stomp
grounds for the United Keetoowah
Band of the Cherokee Indians is located
near Gore.
One of that
nation's leaders, Redbird Smith, died at his
Gore-area home in 1918. Another town resident, Ray
Fine, played a
significant
role in state politics,
serving in the Oklahoma
legislature
for thirty
years.
In 2001 Bill Summers retired as mayor after serving for
forty-nine years. In 2000 Gore's population stood at
850 and had a
kindergarten
through twelfth grade
enrollment of 710 students.
Approximately nine miles north of Sallisaw, Marble
City is by County Road E1000, leading west
from U.S. Highway 69
at
Brushy. The early history of
Marble City is closely
tied to that of
Arkansas
Territory and the Western Cherokees. In 1828 the
area received
its first post office, serving
Nicksville, in Lovely
County, Arkansas, (to
which the region was briefly
attached). That post office discontinued in
1829
when the federal
government moved the Western Cherokees from Arkansas
into the area and ordered all non-Indians to vacate.
At that time the
Arkansas
Territorial Legislature
terminated its claim to the
land. In May
1829 Dwight
Mission relocated from Arkansas and took over the
Nicksville
improvements. During the remainder of the
nineteenth
century the site of
future Marble City was
distinguished primarily by constant changes in
postal designation as a
settlement gradually formed
there. In 1835 a post
office was designated nearby
as "Kidron," named for a stream mentioned in
the
Bible. Kidron served the
area's Cherokee settlers and missionaries.
James
Orr, affiliated with the mission, served as
postmaster. In 1858 the
post
office moved elsewhere
and changed its designation
to Marble Salt
Works,
but the
next year another Kidron post office was established near
the Dwight Mission location. In 1869 this post
office discontinued. In
1886
the Post Office
Department opened a Kedron (spelled
with an e) post
office near
the same location. By 1895, when the
Kansas City,
Pittsburg
and Gulf Railroad (later the
Kansas City Southern Railway) laid tracks
through
the area, the post
office moved adjacent to the railroad, closer
to a
marble quarry, and was redesignated Marble.
Meanwhile, people
continued to
settle there, enticed
by railroad access and
business
opportunities. In
1910 the population stood at 342. In 1906 the name
of
the community changed to Marble City, and by 1911
the town had a bank, a
newspaper, a hotel, a
telephone exchange, five general stores, numerous
livestock dealers, and many
other retail outlets. In
the early twentieth
century the Marble City
News and the Marble City Enterprise
reported to the town. In 1920
the U.S. Census
reported 344 residents.
Farming, ranching, and
quarrying contributed to the town's growth. The
region has Oklahoma's only
true marble outcrops,
with commercial quarrying
beginning in approximately
1895. From 1906 to 1914 the Ozark Marble
Company
mined the stone, with
its product used in the construction of
Oklahoma
City's Pioneer Telephone Building and at
the Rice
Institute
(later Rice University) in
Houston, Texas. In 1932 two limestone companies
and
two sawmills operated. In
1939 the Sinclair Lime Company began mining
limestone near the town, and in 1964 they built a
large plant that
converted
limestone into quicklime.
In the 1960s the town also
held three
kilns used to
manufacture charcoal briquets. The 2002 annual
report of the
Oklahoma Mining Commission reported
Global Stone
Saint Clair,
Incorporated, and Marble City Gravel,
Incorporated, as registered
limestone companies. For
the
last half of the twentieth century Marble
City
remained a small agricultural and industrial center
with a few
grocers and gas stations serving the
residents. In
1961 Watie Davault
stepped down as mayor, a position
he had held for forty-seven years. The
1960
population was 271, and
it climbed slightly to 294 in 1980
Muldrow lies on State Highway 64B and adjacent to
U.S. Highway 64, north of Interstate 40,
approximately ten miles southeast
of Sallisaw. The
Western
Cherokees, or "Old Settlers," began occupying the
area in 1829 after they moved from Arkansas. After
1840 Muldrow existed in
the
Skin Bayou District
(renamed the Sequoyah District
in 1851) of the
Cherokee
Nation. The community coalesced prior to
1888 when
the Kansas and
Arkansas Valley Railway
built its tracks through the region. In November
1887 the Post Office
Department established a post
office, named for
Henry
Muldrow, assistant secretary
of the U.S. Department of the Interior. A. J.
Jeremiah served as the first
mayor, and many members
of William J. Watts's
family pioneered the town.
Watts, known as "the King of the Intruders"
remained
in litigation with
the Cherokee for more than twenty years.
Although in
1895 fire destroyed most of the town's
businesses,
the 1900
population stood at 465. In
1909 the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern
Railway acquired the local
line, and in 1917 it
became part of the
Missouri Pacific system. By 1910
Muldrow's population had climbed to 671,
and by 1911
the town supported
two banks, a newspaper, telephone service,
two
cotton gins, several retail stores, a hotel,
three
doctors, and many
other businesses. Newspaper
titles that have reported to the residents
include
the County Seat
Herald, the Big Basin Herald, the
Muldrow Press, the Muldrow Sun, and
the Muldrow
Register.
Cotton reigned as the
early economic staple, but
ranching
also
contributed. The
population dipped to 557 in 1930 but rose to 638 in
1940. During and after the Great Depression
agriculture continued to
dominate. In 1932 the town
had
two feed mills and a broom factory. The
focus
later shifted to truck farming, primarily corn,
green beans,
spinach, and other crops. In 1960 the
population had
expanded to 1,137. In
1965 the Muldrow City Lake's
dam was constructed, providing a better water
system. As the town began to
attract businesses, the
growth continued, and
in 1990 there were 2,889
residents. In 1995 OK Industries opened a poultry
processing plant, which
employed 185 in 2002. A
large furniture store and
a grocery store were the
other
largest, non-government employers. In 1995
Muldrow native Shawntel Smith
was selected as Miss
America. In 2000 the
U.S. census registered 3,104
inhabitants, and the public school system
enrolled
1,600 students from
prekindergarten through high school.
Paradise Hill is situated on the shores of Tenkiller
Ferry Lake. State Highway 10A runs through a portion
of the town. Paradise
Hill
originated in 1954 as a
residential development
offering tracts of
land near
the lake. By 1962 there were forty-seven permanent
homes, and
the community had incorporated and owned
its own
water system. In 1969 the
town more than doubled its
size by annexing surrounding property. The 1970
population stood at 87,
climbing to 154 by
1980.
Roland is situated on County Road E1100, one mile
north of U.S. Highway 64 and adjacent to Interstate
40. The town is four
miles
east of Muldrow and
approximately six miles west of
the
Oklahoma-Arkansas state
line. The settlement emerged
from a dispersed
rural community in the Cherokee
Nation, which also sheltered whites, some
of whom
were legally in the
nation and others who had intruded illegally
from
Arkansas. After the Kansas and Arkansas Valley
Railway built tracks
through
the region in 1888, the
railroad, which was soon
leased to and
then acquired
by
the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway, built
a depot at present Roland. The emerging community
became known as Garrison
or
Garrison Creek, and
received a postal designation in
1902. In 1904 the
residents
voted to change the name to Roland. In
1910 the
population stood
at 228. In 1911 the town
had telephone service, a public school, four
general
stores, and three
grocers. The surrounding river bottoms have
consistently been the basis of a strong agricultural
economy. In 1917 the
Missouri
Pacific Railroad
purchased the local line. The 1920
population of
271
patronized
four stores, and agricultural services were provided by two
blacksmiths, a corn mill, and a cotton gin. The
railroad ended passenger
service in 1938, but the
town
remained a shipping and retail point. The
1940
census recorded 311 residents, a number that climbed
to 443 in 1950.
Roland is six miles from Fort Smith,
Arkansas, and
is close to Interstate
40, opened in 1965 between
Arkansas and Oklahoma. The town's placement has
facilitated the steady
population growth of a
"bedroom" community and has
also generated business
opportunities. In 1990 the Cherokee Nation
constructed a casino
(originally called the Cherokee
Nation Bingo
Outpost)
in the town, near the highway.
The 1980 population of 1,472 mushroomed to
2,842 in
2000. That year 1,229
students enrolled in the Roland school
system, which
served prekindergarten through high
school.
Vian lies at the intersection of U.S. Highway 64 and
State Highway 82, just north of Interstate 40,
eleven miles west of
Sallisaw.
The community, which
began in the Cherokee Nation,
evolved from
a trading
post
between the Big and Little Vian creeks, from which the town
took its name. The first postmaster, Mahala
Thompson, originally wanted to
name the post office,
established in 1886, Round Mountain, but that name
had been taken. In 1888 the
St. Louis, Iron Mountain
and Southern Railway
laid tracks through the region,
and Vian benefitted, establishing itself
as a
shipping point for
agricultural production, especially cotton. In
1901
it was estimated that between 2,500 and 3,000
bales
were annually
shipped. The 1900 population
stood at 296. By 1910 Vian had 794
inhabitants. In
1911 they
supported two banks, the Sequoyah County
Democrat newspaper, a
telephone connection, two
hotels, and several retail
outlets and restaurants.
In
1917 the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern
combined with the Missouri
Pacific Railway, becoming
the Missouri Pacific
Railroad. In the late 1880s a
school had opened to educate the area's
Cherokee
children. In the
mid-1890s Rev. J. B. Barry established a school
for
white children. Circa 1897 the community built a
schoolhouse that was
used
until a three-story, brick
building was constructed
in 1909. Douglas
High
School
existed as a separate school for the region's African American
students until the mid-1950s. In 1956 a modern high
school building was
built,
partially funded with
federal grants for areas
serving large
numbers of
American Indian pupils. Vian's population reached
1,176 in 1920
before declining to 900 in 1930.
Agriculture and
ranching remained an
integral part of the economy.
In 1932 the area still produced enough
cotton to
require three cotton
gins. By 1946 the town had only one gin and
one
bank, and in 1950 the population stood at 927.
Through the years
newspapers
reporting to the town
have included the Vian
American,
the Vian
Press, the Vian Tribune, the
Democrat-American, and
the Vian Tenkiller
News. Located
between Lake Tenkiller (impounded
in 1953) and Robert S. Kerr Lake (1970),
the
community and its vicinity
have profited from additional tourism. The
Sequoyah
National Wildlife Refuge lies south of Vian
adjacent
to Kerr
Lake. Oklahoma Supreme Court Judge
and politician W. A. Carlile attended
school at
Vian. Scenes for the
movie Where the Red Fern Grows
(1974) were
filmed in the
area.
Source
of Town
History found in Encylopedia of Oklahoma History
and
Culture
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