Bryan Co., OK; Town of Durant - History --------------------------------- Submitted by the Bryan County Heritage Library Located in Calera, OK Written by Typed for the archives by Trudy Marlow --------------------------------- USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Files may be printed or copied for personal use only. ---------------------------------------------------- DURANT CITY HISTORY Choctaws, Christianity, crops and colleges are all intertwined in the heritage of what today is the proud City of Durant. Until 150 years ago it was largely wilderness. Footprints in the dust were those of bands Plains Indians, an occasional white explorer or hunter. The forced removal of the Choctaws from their homeland in Mississippi and other southern states brought the first true settlers, and missionaries soon followed with Christianity and education. It was a pressure of white settlement from the east that brought the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830. It called for exchange of over 10 million acres of Choctaw lands for the southern third of what is now the State of Oklahoma. Some remained behind, but the in the removal in the early 183Os of the Choctaws and other tribes to the west was filled with bitterness. Nearly a fourth of those who began the journey didn't survive because of a combination of bad weather and inept planning by the Army and the government in Washington. It became known as the Trail of Tears. Among those that completed the trip was the Pierre Durant family. There were several sons including Fisher Durant, already grown and with a family of his own. Fisher Durant chose a wooded area for his home in the new land. The log house in an oak grove was the first structure in what is now Durant-its location was between North 8th and ~h, in what today is Northside City Park. It was built in 1832 or 1833. It was from one of Fisher Durant's three sons, Dixon, that historians generally say the city drew its name. Dixon Durant's birthday is clouded in history. His tombstone in the city's "old cemetery" lists 1809. An article in volume seven of the Chronicles of Oklahoma has Durant coming with his family from Mississippi as a small child. The Choctaw Tribal Rolls prepared in 1901 by the federal Dawes Commission list his age as 63 at that time. At any rate, Dixon Durant became a farmer, father, businessman, and for many years, a minister of the Gospel before his death in 1906. As Choctaws settled in their new land, they retained their tribal government and went about their business. Their territory became one of the crossroads for westward migration by white settlers, most of whom were only passing through on their way to the west. A natural trail originally used by Indians even before arrival of the Choctaws led through the area. It was known as the Osage Trace until the 1880s, when it became better known as the Texas Road. Part of its course carried the Concord stagecoaches of the Butterfield Overland Mail as well as freight wagons and horseback riders, and with them came commerce. The real impetus for growth and immigration came however, with the railroads. Irish road gangs put down the first steel rails on right-of- way granted by the Choctaw Nation in 1872, and a year later the City of Durant was horn when Dixon Durant opened a small trading post. A year later he built an even larger store, combined with a home, west of the railroad between Main and Evergreen-and what the Katy called "Durant Station" began to grow. In 1882, it became simply "Durant". The Katy was the first line through what is now Oklahoma, and it became an attraction to communities along the north-south route. At the time, Caddo probably prospered more than Durant. An east- west line was built by the Arkansas and Choctaw Railway Co. in 1902, year later it became part of the Frisco system); it went through Durant, insuring its future as the commercial hub of the area. Still later, in 1910, a third rail line was built through Durant, the Missouri, Oklahoma and Gulf, later renamed the Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway Co. With people, religion came to the new land and with religion, education. The 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek required government- paid college education for 40 Choctaw youths a year; seldom were vacancies. Missionaries had begun work among the Choctaws even before the Trail of Tears removal and many traveled with the Indians to the new land, sharing the suffering of the journey. The late Dr. James D. Morrison of Southeastern Oklahoma State University, who had a deep interest in Oklahoma history, noted that "As part of their work of Christianizing the Choctaws, the missionaries established schools, translated the Bible and some school books into Choctaw, and prepared a Choctaw grammar and dictionary. The Choctaws were avid students and soon a high percentage of the Nation was literate." In the 1840's the tribal government established nine boarding schools-cooperative operations supported by Choctaw, federal government and church funds, and usually operated by mission boards under contract with the Choctaw Nation. The one nearest Durant was the Armstrong Academy, located northeast of Bokchito, which remained in operation-with lapses-from 1843 until the main building burned in 1921. For 20 of those years, from 1863-83, it also served as capital of the Choctaw Nation. The village which developed was designated Chabta Tamaha (Choctaw City). The capital was removed to Tuskahoma, where it remains today, although administrative headquarters remain in Durant. The Presbyterian church started a school called the Calvin Institute in Durant in 1894 as an effort toward higher education in the territory. In 1901 it became Durant Presbyterian College and still later Oklahoma Presbyterian College. A few years later, in 1909, Southeastern Oklahoma State University had its beginning, as Southeastern Normal School, and the church and state institutions worked hand-in-hand in education. The doors of OPC were closed for the last time as an educational institution in May, 1966; ten years later its two buildings were acquired by the Choctaw Nation for use as an operating headquarters. Durant became an incorporated city (its population was around 2,500) on an application filed with a federal court on November 26, 1898. A petition bearing 120 citizens' names accompanied it. A New Yorker who had moved here to enter the lumber business, W. H. Hilton, was the first elected mayor. Other officers were N. W. Carter, recorder; D. Morgan, T. B. Sledge, A. P. Mastin and Joe Shields, aldermen; R. L. Williams, attorney; and L. D. Stinson, city marshal. At some point during the succeeding years, businessmen had formed a Chamber of Commerce, which published a booklet that described the principal industry of agriculture in glowing terms: "Its principal crops are cotton, corn, oats, wheat, hay and sweet and Irish potatoes; but now the farmers are successfully adding kafir corn, milo maize, broomcorn, sorghum, millet, peanuts, cowpeas, soybeans, pumpkins, squash, barley, alfalfa and Bermuda grass. In fact it seems that anything consigned to mother earth for propagation yields most bountiful returns. Tomatoes, cabbages, cucumbers, radishes, okra, onions and all kinds of vegetables produce splendidly." Livestock production also prolific: dairy cattle, hogs (Poland China and Duroc Jersey), poultry and horses. Beef cattle aren't mentioned. It also notes supporting communities of the county: Caddo, "an enterprising little city of 1,500 inhabitants"; Calera, with 600 residents; Colbert about 300; "Kenefick, two years old, with 500 pupulation"; Achille 300; Kemp City 200; Bennington 1,200; Bokchito 1,000; and Blue, Pirtle, Kiersey and Mead with from 100 to 300 each. By 1913 Durant had a waterworks, an electric plant and sewer system owned and operated by the city, according to the booklet. Among its industries were a cotton oil mill, cotton compress, four cotton gins, hardwood factory, four lumber yards, two grain eleva- tors, a flour mill, ice cream and butter factory, two soft drink bottling works "and the biggest and best nursery in the entire southwest". Durant had five banks, a postal savings bank, two building and loan associations, one daily and two weekly newspapers, and Methodist Baptist, Presbyterian, Christian, Catholic, and Episcopal Church with "places of worship and resident pastors". The Chamber booklet bragged of a population of 8,000, although the Census takes of three years earlier, 1910, located only 5,330. Census figures show growth has moved steadily upward over the years; to 7,340 in 1920, 7,436 in 1930, 10,027 in 1940, 10,541 in 1950, 10,467 in 1960, 11,118 in 1970 and 11,972 in 1980.