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Boggy Depot Site
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| Nearest city: | Atoka, Oklahoma |
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| Built: | 1838 |
| Governing body: | Local |
| NRHP Reference#: | 72001050[1] |
| Added to NRHP: | April 19, 1972 |
Boggy Depot is a ghost town and Oklahoma State Park that was formerly a significant city in the Indian Territory. It grew as a vibrant and thriving town in present day Atoka County, Oklahoma, United States and became a major trading center on the Texas Road and the Butterfield Overland Mail route between Missouri and San Francisco. After the American Civil War when the MKT Railroad came through it bypassed Boggy Depot and the town began a steady decline. It was soon replaced by Atoka as the chief city in the area. By the early 1900s all that remained of the community was a sort of ghost town.
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The town was founded by Choctaw and Chicasaw Indians in 1837.[2] The United States government had removed the Choctaws and Chickasaws from Mississippi and Alabama to relocate them in the new Indian Territory, including the area of Boggy Depot, in the 1830s. While at first the Choctaws and Chickasaws lived together jointly on the Choctaw land the Chickasaws later emigrated to the western portions of the Indian Territory and eventually formed their own separate nation on land transferred to them by the Choctaw.
In 1834, General Henry Leavenworth built the military road from Camp Washita (later Fort Washita) to Fort Gibson. For years this road was generally the division between the Choctaw and Chickasaw lands. Afterwards a treaty created a formal dividing line between the nations, with Boggy Depot on the east side of the line in Choctaw lands. Reverend Cyrus Kingsbury established the church in Boggy Depot in 1840. The church building was the temporary capitol of the Choctaw Nation in 1859. Boggy Depot received a post office in 1848, and in 1858 became a stop on the Butterfield Overland Stage line. During the Civil War a Union raiding party fought a Confederate group at the Battle of Middle Boggy Depot a few miles northeast of Boggy Depot. After the Civil War with Boggy Depot clearly in the Choctaw Nation many of the original settlers, mostly Chickasaws, abandoned Boggy Depot. A small community formed near this time two miles (3 km) south of Boggy Depot named New Boggy Depot. Choctaw Chief Allen Wright, who lived at Boggy Depot, coined the word 'Oklahoma' in 1866 to describe the Indian Territory. The name was officially used for the state in 1907: In 1869 Oklahoma's first Masonic Lodge was founded in Boggy Depot.
As part of the treaty between the Five Civilized Tribes and the United States government at the end of the Civil War the tribes had to allow a north to south railroad to be constructed across their lands. This railroad became a reality in 1872. The Missouri, Kansas, and, Texas railroad, or Katy, ran 12 miles (19 km) east of Boggy Depot and was the end of the town's importance. The city of Atoka, on the railroad, flourished while Boggy Depot languished.
Today little is left of the original town except for a few stone foundations and the cemetery. Boggy Depot State Park is a recreation area that commemorates the old town and the history of the area. The park gets its name from Clear Boggy Creek and from its use as a Confederate commissary depot during the Civil War. The park features a fishing lake, nature trail, baseball diamond, playground, picnic tables, group picnic shelters, charcoal grills, and comfort stations with showers. Boggy Depot was added to the National Register of Historic Places (#72001050) in 1972.
Jerry Cantrell from the grunge band Alice in Chains named his first Solo album Boggy Depot, after where his father grew up.
| Butterfield Overland Mail in Indian Territory | ||||
| Next station West Nail's Station |
17 miles |
Boggy Depot, Oklahoma | 16 miles |
Next station East Geary's Station |
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