Shawneetown

The settlement left its name behind. When Miller County's commissioners chose a county seat in August 1821, Miller Court House was set up at the community previously called Shawneetown, about seven miles west of present Idabel. The people the plaque names are today the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, one of the state's three federally recognized Shawnee tribes. Organized under the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936 and headquartered at Shawnee, the tribe is governed by an elected five-member executive committee and keeps the bread and war dances on its own ceremonial grounds.

What the plaque says

Shawneetown In the early 1800s a group of Absentee Shawnee Indians occupied a site near the Red River southwest of present-day Idabel. The Shawnees departed in the 1830s when the area was ceded to the Choctaws.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Beavers Bend State Park — 19 mi
  Pine and hardwood Ouachita hills where the Mountain Fork leaves Broken Bow Lake, a 1930s CCC park named for a Choctaw citizen, with trout water, a 26-mile ridge trail and the Forest Heritage Center.
• Fort Towson Historic Site — 26 mi
  The 1824 Red River post where arriving Choctaw and Chickasaw families were dispersed after removal, beside the site of Doaksville, the Choctaw capital where Stand Watie surrendered in 1865.

More markers nearby

• Miller Courthouse — steps away
• Military Road — 11 mi
• Wheelock Mission — 11 mi
• Elliott Academy — 19 mi