Pocola, Oklahoma
Kith & Kin
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Contact Information: Susan Johnson,
904 Fuller, Pocola, OK 74902... Email @
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Pocola is in eastern Oklahoma. Its' western border is
the Poteau River, to the north is the Arkansas River, to the south is Backbone Mountain and to the east is Fort Smith, Sebastian County, Arkansas.The Spiro Mounds are about ten miles west of Pocola. Also, near Pocola and certainly part of its heritage is its closeness to Skullyville,the first payment center for the Choctaw Tribe after the removal of 1830. Pocola's ties to the Choctaw are evident from its name: Pocola is a Choctaw word meaning "ten miles to town". From Pocola, OK. to the gallows of the "Hanging Judge" Isaac C. Parker, in downtown Fort Smith, Arkansas is about ten miles. I believe Pocola got its start due to being along the Old Texas Road, which ran from Fort Smith, Arkansas to Fort Towson on the boundary between the state of Texas and the Choctaw Nation. Also the Butterfield Stage Route ran on Pocola's northeastern side. The south part of Pocola borders the Hackett, Bonanza and Sugarloaf areas of South Sebastian County, Arkansas. The Devil's Backbone Mountain cuts across southern Pocola, lying in an east - west pattern. There is a train tunnel running through this mountain, its entrance, on the Arkansas side was known as Jensen or "Little Hell on the Arkansas Border". Many families followed the emigration pattern of leaving Sebastian County and settling near Kully Chaha, Rock Island, Cameron, Poker Bend, Panama, Bokoshe, McCurtain and Dogtown in south Pocola. |
Among my earliest family to settle here were Lovesy Rogers Lawson and her children, Poker Bend area, by 1880.
The John and Sarah Brown Lovell family were in Bokoshe, I.T.
by 1879.
Milton Bryant Dailey is first documented as being in the Pocola
area in 1889.
Other family lines I have residing in this area were the Harvey
and Mary Strong Lovett family, arriving in the McCurtain area about 1900.
Mary Savilla Shaw and her three children by Harrison Blair.
After Harrison Blair's death, Mary married Samuel Robert Tankersley, in 1891... Between 1892 and 1906, they had nine children, many of these descendants still live in Dogtown, found on the northside of Backbone Mountain, southwest corner of Pocola.
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