Home |  PublicationsEncyclopedia |  Doaksville

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

Doaksville in the late 1890s
(11381.A, Francis Iman Collection, OHS).

DOAKSVILLE.

The principal antebellum town of the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, Doaksville was located immediately north and west of the present Choctaw County community of Fort Towson. Named for Josiah Doak, Doaksville was founded between 1824 and 1831. Doak co-owned the Mississippi trading post, or stand, where a Choctaw removal treaty was negotiated in 1820. He and his brother preceded the Choctaw to Indian Territory and erected a store above the mouth of the Kiamichi River. They relocated north along Gates Creek when Fort Towson was established in 1824, or after the army reoccupied the site in 1831. The area, a part of Miller County, Arkansas, until 1825, was occupied by settlers, many of whom joined the Doak brothers near the fort. Immigrating Choctaws inhabited the settlement after 1830.

Served by steamboats plying the Red River, Doaksville prospered. Several general stores, a gristmill, blacksmith, and hotel operated there before 1840, and two newspapers, the Choctaw Telegraph and the Choctaw Intelligencer, were soon published. Doaksville served as the capital of the Choctaw Nation intermittently after 1850 and regularly from 1858 to 1863. A convention held there in 1860 resulted in the ratification of the Doaksville Constitution, the document that guided tribal government until 1906.

Doaksville, where Confederate Gen. Stand Watie surrendered in 1865, declined after the Civil War. The Choctaw capital was moved to Chahta Tamaha in 1863, and a postwar labor shortage hurt local agriculture. Businesses closed, but the Doaksville post office functioned until 1903. Except for the cemetery, nothing remains of the townsite, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NR 75001561).

Jon D. May

Bibliography

"Doaksville," Vertical File, Research Division, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City.

John W. Morris, Ghost Towns of Oklahoma (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977).

William B. Morrison, "Doaksville: Another Ghost Town," Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City), 12 April 1936.

Muriel H. Wright and LeRoy H. Fischer, "Civil War Sites in Oklahoma," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 44 (Summer 1966).


Browse By Topic

American Indians

Explore

Place
Town

Citation

The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for articles:
Jon D. May, “Doaksville,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=DO002.

Published January 15, 2010

Copyright and Terms of Use

No part of this site may be construed as in the public domain.

Copyright to all articles and other content in the online and print versions of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History is held by the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS). This includes individual articles (copyright to OHS by author assignment) and corporately (as a complete body of work), including web design, graphics, searching functions, and listing/browsing methods. Copyright to all of these materials is protected under United States and International law.

Users agree not to download, copy, modify, sell, lease, rent, reprint, or otherwise distribute these materials, or to link to these materials on another web site, without authorization of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Individual users must determine if their use of the Materials falls under United States copyright law's "Fair Use" guidelines and does not infringe on the proprietary rights of the Oklahoma Historical Society as the legal copyright holder of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and part or in whole.