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Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Jefferson County, Oklahoma.
History
In the 1750s, the Taovaya Indians, a Wichita tribe, established twin villages along the Red River, in Jefferson County and across the river near present-day Spanish Fort, Texas. The village became "a lively emporium where Comanches brought Apache slaves, horses and mules to trade for French packs of powder, balls, knives, and textiles and for Taovaya-grown maize, melons, pumpkins, squash, and tobacco."
In 1759, in response to the destruction of the San Saba Mission, the Spanish led an expedition against the Taovaya and their allies and attacked the twin villages. The Indians defeated the Spanish army. The Taovaya villages were abandoned before 1841 as the Taovaya had been decimated by smallpox and encroachment by other Indians and Anglo-Americans.
In the 1830s, the Choctaw tribe acquired more than two-thirds of the land now covered by Jefferson County, and the closely related Chickasaw tribe began to relocate there. In 1855, the two tribes formally divided and this area became part of the Chickasaw Nation. The western part of the present county became part of the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Reservation, created by the 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaty. That area was opened to settlement by non-Indians by the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Opening in 1901.
After the Civil War, the Chisholm Trail, which passed through this area, was heavily used to drive cattle from Texas to markets in Kansas.
Statehood in 1907 brought about the demise of the Chickasaw government and creation of Jefferson County. At that time the southeast corner of the county extended to Mud Creek including the communities of Belleville and Courtney. In 1924 the southeast corner of the county was realigned to its current boundary.
Adjacent Counties
Communities
- Addington
- Asphaltum
- Atlee
- Claypool
- Cornish
- Fleetwood
- Grady
- Hastings
- Keith
- Oscar
- Petersburg
- Ringling
- Ryan
- Sugden
- Terral
- Waurika (County Seat)
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