The Lochapoka were one of the Muscogee towns forced west from Alabama in the removals of the 1830s. In 1836, after reaching Indian Territory, they chose an oak on a hill above the Arkansas River for their council ground. There they lit a new ceremonial fire with coals carried from home, and the Historical Society's encyclopedia says they set down the ashes of their last fires in Alabama. The ground served for councils and ceremonies until 1896. They named their village Tallasi, Old Town, and the settlers who came later said it as Tulsey Town, then Tulsa. Muscogee people still mark the arrival here each year in October.
Later the oilman Harry Sinclair built a house next to the tree, and a later owner tore the house down but left the oak standing. By 1960 the lot seemed headed for a parking lot. Instead the Creek Nation and several individuals bought the site and gave it to the city, which made it a park of under two acres. It went on the National Register in 1976. In November 2024 the tree was returned to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in a ceremony.
The park sits at 18th Street and Cheyenne Avenue in a residential neighborhood. Around the oak, which the Tulsa Preservation Commission identifies as a bur oak, is a garden of plants the Muscogee used in their Alabama homeland. Dan Brook, a Muscogee artist, made the 2008 Trail of Tears sculpture, a flame rising from a hearth. Treat it as the ceremonial ground it is.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour