Historical Marker Program

Elliott Academy

McCurtain County
Location: on US-70, west of Valliant
Coordinates: 34.006301, -95.119515
Material: Granite
Sponsor(s): Oklahoma Historical Society
Topics: Early Statehood, 1907–1941; Education; Ethnic Diversity; Territorial Period, 1861–1907

Established here in 1869 as Oak Hill Industrial Academy by Presbyterian Board of Missions as boarding school for children of Choctaw Freedmen. Academy succeeded a small school begun in 1860 by ex-slave and Presbyterian Minister Charles W. Stewart to serve numerous Black families who had settled here after Civil War. The academy’s name changed in 1912 after David Elliott gave funds for a new dormitory in memory of his wife, Alice Lee. Students cleared and operated a large farm to help support school. Hundreds of students trained at the academy before it closed in 1936.