Edwards's Post

For Gold Rush travelers on the California Road, this was the last settlement between Fort Smith and Santa Fe, some 130 miles out of Fort Smith, a place to mend wagons and restock. A trail ran from the trading house to the Colorado River in Texas, and Comanche, Kickapoo and other nations came up it to trade furs, mules and captives. Capt. Nathan Boone's dragoons were here in July 1843. Lt. James W. Abert, passing in October 1845, called it "a rude collection of log huts." Traffic on the road fell away, and no ruins of the post remain.

What the plaque says

Edwards's Post An important site for cultural and commercial exchange prior to the Civil War, Edwards's Post was established near the confluence of the Little and Canadian Rivers circa 1835 by the firm Edwards and Shelton. The post was located near Camp Canadian (also known as Camp Holmes), which was established in 1834 for the Dodge-Leavenworth Expedition and subseq- uently abandoned. The post's chief proprietor, James Edwards, was a white trader who married a Muscogee (Creek) woman. Jesse Chisholm worked for Edwards as a trader and married his daughter, Eliza. Native and white traders met at Edwards's Post to exchange goods, horses and mules, and captives. Several military expeditions stopped here, including those led by Lt. James W. Abert in 1845 and Lt. Amiel Weeks Whipple in 1853. In 1849, Capt. Randolph B. Marcy and a large party of emigrants obtained supplies from the post while traveling on the California Road. Muscogee (Creek) families, Native peoples from other tribes, and enslaved Black persons lived in the vicinity. Edwards's Post was also frequented by inhabitants of neighboring Muscogee (Creek) settlements such as North Fork Town near present-day Eufaula. Oklahoma Historical Society 2024

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Seminole Nation Museum — 12 mi
  A community museum in Wewoka, capital of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, telling the Seminole story from Florida to Indian Territory and the town that John Horse's people founded in 1849.

More markers nearby

• Sasakwa — 12 mi
• Osage Village — 13 mi
• Lima — 17 mi
• Mekasukey Academy — 22 mi