The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

A black-and-white image of a dirt road leading into a grassy area. Large trees and shrubs and tall grass surround the path.
Military and post road, Boggy Depot
(1448, Muriel Wright Collection, OHS).
A simple hand-drawn map shows a road running north-south from Fort Smith through Boggy Depot. The Red River runs south of Boggy Depot near Fort Washita. Nails Bridge and Camp McCullough are south of the depot.
Rough Sketch of the Vicinity of Boggy Depot, 1862 [not to scale and not geographically accurate]
(image courtesy of the National Archives, Record Group 109, Confederate Records, maps, 70653039).
Historic image of a two-story, woodframe home with a large balcony. The surrounding land is mostly bare and there are a few leafless trees.
Allen Wright’s home in Boggy Depot
(13728, Oklahoma Historical Society Photograph Collection, OHS).

BOGGY DEPOT.

An important town in the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, Boggy Depot (sometimes called Old Boggy Depot) was situated between the Clear Boggy and Sandy creeks, fourteen miles southwest of present Atoka in Atoka County. Founded by Chickasaw Indians in 1837, it stood along the Texas Road and a trail that led from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Fort Washita and was a station on the Butterfield Overland Mail route. Boggy Depot's post office opened in 1849, and the local newspaper was the Choctaw and Chickasaw Observer.

Boggy Depot was the location of the first Chickasaw agency in the West and served sometimes as the capital of the Choctaw Nation from 1858 to 1860. During the Civil War it housed the principal Confederate supply depot in Indian Territory. After the war a flour mill and a cotton gin operated northeast of town, and a salt works was established along nearby Salt Creek.

The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway bypassed Boggy Depot in 1872, prompting businessmen and residents to relocate to Atoka. Others moved two miles south and founded New Boggy Depot (present Boggy Depot). Nothing remains of Old Boggy Depot except its cemetery, where Choctaw chief Allen Wright and Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury are buried. The townsite, presently located in Boggy Depot State Park, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NR 72001050).

Jon D. May

Citation

The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for articles:
Jon D. May, “Boggy Depot,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=BO002.

Published January 15, 2010
Last updated March 1, 2017

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