Sardis, Oklahoma

Sardis was a community in northern Pushmataha County, Oklahoma, six miles northwest of Clayton.

A United States Post Office was established at Sardis, Indian Territory on February 20, 1905. It took its name from the nearby Sardis Indian Mission Church, which appears to have named itself after the Biblical city of Sardis.^[1]

During the early 1980s, Jack’s Fork Creek was impounded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who built Sardis Lake. The lake, a flood control project, also held tourism potential and Oklahoma State Highway 43 was straightened and paved with blacktop from the interchange at Daisy on the Indian Nation Turnpike to the lake, where it crosses the dam and connects to Oklahoma State Highway 2. This allowed for easier road connections to other parts of the state highway network. At this writing tourism has not been promoted heavily or its economic benefits realized at the lake.

In order to make way for the lake the community of Sardis was emptied. Its cemetery, now located on an island in the lake connected to the shore by a short causeway, is at the approximate location as it was originally, but the tombstones now sit on landfill and are many feet higher than originally. The graves they denote are below the bottom of the lake. The earliest gravestones are dated 1875, a testament to the community’s early establishment.^[2]

Sardis was located in the picturesque Jack’s Fork Creek valley, just above its junction with the Kiamichi River valley, framed by the slopes of Flagpole Mountain (1,562 ft.) on the south and the Potato Hills—a geographic curiosity due to their highly irregular shapes—on the north.

More information on Sardis and the Jack's Fork Creek valley may be found in the Pushmataha County Historical Society.

References

1. ↑ George H. Shirk, Oklahoma Place Names, p. 187; Post Office Site Location Reports, Record Group 28, National Archives.
2. ↑ Pushmataha County Cemeteries, pp. 156-159.

Municipalities and communities of Pushmataha County, Oklahoma, United States County seat: Antlers City Antlers Towns Albion Clayton Rattan CDP Tuskahoma Other unincorporated communities Adel Belzoni Clayton Lake Cloudy Corinne Darwin Dela Ethel Fewell Finley Greenwood Jumbo Kellond Kiamichi Kosoma Miller Moyers Nashoba Oleta Sardis Snow Sobol Stanley Ghost towns Abbott Cohn Crum Creek Dunbar Eubanks Gee Honobia‡ Johns Kiamichi Lyceum Nolia Rodney Sardis Wilson Zoraya Footnotes ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties

Coordinates: 34°39′57″N 95°24′35″W / 34.66583°N 95.40972°W / 34.66583; -95.40972