Doaksville,named for Josiah Doak, was founded between 1824- 1831.

Doak had been co-owner of the Mississippi trading post where a Choctaw removal treaty was negotiated in 1820.

He and his brother preceded the Choctaws to what is now SE Oklahoma.

Doaksville was the Choctaw Indian Nation Capital from 1850 until 1863. It was the largest town in the Choctaw Indian Nation. 

The very last Confederate general to surrender, ending the Civil war, happened at Doaksville when General Stand Watie (the only Indian to become a field general in The civil war) surrendered June 23, 1865,nine weeks after Robert E. Lee surrendered.  Doaksville became quite a center for commerce in this frontier area with a jail, hotel, gristmill, blacksmith, several general stores, and a tavern. The Choctaw Nation published 2 newspapers from Doaksville. It is located about a mile north of what is now the town of Fort Towson "Excavations at Doaksville represent the most widespread for a town in the Indian Territory and provide a collection of unprecedented scope from the 1840s to 1860s period." The Oklahoma Archeological Survey has a webpage about the Doaksville excavations here.

The west way to find Doaksville is to go into the Fort Towson Cemetery to the NE corner and take the steps that go over the stone wall that surrounds the cemetery.

 The original Fort Towsonwas built in 1824, , under Col. Matthew Arbuckle, as a frontier outpost for Frontier Army Quartermasters to protect travelers and the Choctaws that were arriving from the Mississippi Valley and settling in nearby Doaksville , Indian Territory, which later became Oklahoma. Fort Towson was the first fort established on the western frontier and west of the Mississippi River by the federal government. Fort Towson was named for Nathaniel Towson, Paymaster General of the Army and originally called "Cantonment Towson.  The Original Fort Towson is located east and north of the current town of Fort Towson. Its location is an Oklahoma Historic Site and on the National Register of Historic Places.  Doaksville lies about a mile west of the old fort grounds.

Fort Towson and Southeast Oklahoma are rich in Native American History. If you enjoy outings of an historical nature, you'll enjoy living in SE Oklahoma. Or just come for a visit, you may decide to stay.

Call Judi Barrett at Integrity Real Estate Services about relocating to SE Oklahoma.

580-212-5946

judi@integrity-realestate.net

These great photos were used with the permission of Ron Henson, the Rootsweb County Co-ordinator far Choctaw County. That's another great thing about Choctaw county-all of the great genealogy resources. If you click on the pictures, they are linked to the photo page for the Choctaw County Rootsweb page. If you click here, gorier be taken to their home page.