Sulphur

The springs drew a town before the park did. Noah Lael, son-in-law of Chickasaw Governor Cyrus Harris, ranched south of Pavilion Springs from 1878, and his house was Sulphur's first. Richard A. Sneed's Sulphur Springs Company platted a townsite, and the post office opened on October 2, 1895. When the reservation took the land, residents moved east of Rock Creek or west of the park, then moved again when it grew in 1904, leaving rival East and West Sulphur with no bridge between. The Washington Bridge of 1909 joined them, with a hatchet and a horseshoe buried inside.

What the plaque says

Sulphur Springs in this area were first used by wildlife, Indians, and cattlemen. In 1902, Sulphur Springs Reservation was founded, renamed Platt Nat'l Park in 1906, and became part of Chickasaw Nat'l Rec. Area in 1976. The town was moved twice to its present site. In the 1920's and 30's, Sulphur was famous for its mineral waters. Oklahoma Historical Society and Rotary Club of Sulphur 1984

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chickasaw National Recreation Area — 1.4 mi
  Springs the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations sold to the government in 1902 rather than lose them to developers, later Platt National Park, now the Travertine district's creeks, CCC stonework and bison pasture.
• Chickasaw Cultural Center — 1.5 mi
  The Chickasaw Nation's 184-acre campus at Sulphur, opened in 2010, with an exhibit hall on the Nation's history, a recreated 1700s town with daily stomp dance, and a bridge into the national recreation area.
• Turner Falls Park — 11 mi
  Honey Creek dropping 77 feet over Arbuckle rock into a swimming hole off I-35, in a 1,500-acre city park named for the man who settled here with his Chickasaw wife.
• 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

• Civilian Conservation Corps and Platt National Park — 0.4 mi
• Natural Mound — 19 mi
• Delaware Mount — 23 mi
• Tishomingo — 24 mi