Boggy Depot (Butterfield Overland Mail)

The town began as a ration point. Chickasaw families removed from Mississippi in 1837 camped first near Fort Coffee, then moved west as a road was cut across the Choctaw Nation, and in 1838 a depot for issuing their supplies was placed here, the Depot on the Boggy. Corn came by boat up the Red and Boggy rivers to within 30 miles, and cattle were driven in from Arkansas. A post office opened on November 5, 1849, with William R. Guy, keeper of the Boggy Depot hotel, as postmaster, and it carried the mail for Fort Washita.

What the plaque says

Butterfield Overland Mail Site of Boggy Depot Here was located a stage stand of the Butterfield Overland Mail route, under act of Congress, March 3, 1857. First mail stage arrived here in September, 1858, enroute to San Francisco. Service continued until the outbreak of the War Between the States. Oklahoma Historical Society, 1958

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chickasaw National Capitol — 22 mi
  The red granite capitol the Chickasaw Nation finished at Tishomingo in 1898, forced out of at statehood, used as the county courthouse for most of a century and reclaimed by the Nation in 1992.
• Choctaw Cultural Center — 25 mi
  The Choctaw Nation's history told from the Chahta side at Calera, with galleries from Nanih Waiya to the Trail of Tears and the reservation today, a living village and daily stickball.

More markers nearby

• Boggy Depot (Old Boggy Depot) — 3.5 mi
• Oklahoma's First Catholic Church — 9.7 mi
• Atoka — 12 mi
• Civil War Burial Site — 12 mi