Edmund Pickens (Ok-chan-tubby)

The county named for Pickens lay in the southwestern Chickasaw Nation. It began as Wichita County of the Chickasaw District, which the Choctaw General Council renamed for him in 1854, and under the Chickasaw constitution of August 30, 1856 it became one of the new nation's four counties. It ran between the Washita and Red rivers west to the 98th meridian, with its seat at Oakland near present Madill, and took in today's Ardmore, Duncan, Marietta and Sulphur. It ended with the nation's other counties at statehood on November 16, 1907.

What the plaque says

Edmund Pickens (Ok-chan-tubby) Site of home and grave 1 mile south- east on Graveyard Bluff. Born 1789, migrated with Chickasaw from Mississippi in 1837. First elected Chickasaw chief in Indian Territory. Pickens County named for him. As a Chickasaw Commis- sioner, signed Treaties of 1852, 1855 and 1866. On July 12, 1861, signed Treaty of Friendship and Alliance between Choctaw/Chickasaw Nations and Confederacy. Died ca. 1868. Keel Cemetery Association Oklahoma Historical Society 1987

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Murray State Park — 7.3 mi
  Oklahoma's first and largest state park, built by New Deal crews on former Chickasaw Nation land south of Ardmore, with Tucker Tower, a governors' retreat never finished, on a point above the lake.
• Chickasaw National Capitol — 25 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.

More markers nearby

• Love County Courthouse — 8.3 mi
• Camp Leavenworth — 15 mi
• Tishomingo — 24 mi
• Fort Washita — 27 mi