Choctaw Agency

The agency gave the town its official name. Choctaw annuity payments were made here and traders settled close by, but the village was officially called Choctaw Agency until the bureau moved away in 1859. The name came back in 1860 and gave way to Oak Lodge in 1871. The railroad decided the rest: the Kansas City Southern bypassed the settlement in 1895, and local businessmen moved to Spiro to be near its depot. Tandy Walker's home and stage station east of town is on the National Register as Choctaw Agency-Walker Station.

What the plaque says

Choctaw Agency Building completed, and Maj. F.C. Armstrong was first agent in 1832. Village became known as Skullyville. Choctaw Nation adopted new constitution in convention here, 1857. Stage station for the Overland Mail to San Francisco 1858-61. Lead- ing Choctaws here included Tandy Walker, Edmund McCurtain and Thos. D. Ainsworth. Oklahoma Historical Society 191-1995

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spiro Mounds Archaeological Center — 5.2 mi
  A Mississippian ceremonial center on the Arkansas River, about 850 to 1450, whose burial mound was mined in the 1930s, now run in consultation with the Caddo Nation and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes.
• Sequoyah's Cabin Museum — 19 mi
  The log cabin near Akins where Sequoyah, who gave the Cherokee language its syllabary, settled in 1829, kept since 2016 by the Cherokee Nation inside a stone shelter of 1936.

More markers nearby

• Fort Coffee — steps away
• Skullyville — 0.7 mi
• Walker's Station — 0.8 mi
• Battle of Backbone Mountain — 6.4 mi