Editing Howe, Oklahoma (section)

==History==
This community was originally a Choctaw Nation town named Klondike. After the Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Gulf Railroad laid tracks through it in 1895-6, the residents renamed it for Dr. Herbert M. Howe, a railroad director.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s1ZDHy40mQIC&pg=PA271 | title=Heavener (LeFlore County) Oklahoma |author=Heavener Historical Society | publisher=Xlibris Corporation | year=2013 | pages=271| isbn=9781479760558 }}{{self-published source|date=December 2017}}</ref>{{Self-published inline|certain=yes|date=December 2017}} A post office opened at Howe, Indian Territory in 1898. The [[Kansas City Southern Railroad]] bought the Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Gulf Railroad in 1900.<ref name="EOHC-Howe">.[http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/H/HO042.html "Howe." ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100721012137/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/H/HO042.html |date=July 21, 2010 }} O'Dell, Larry. Retrieved August 22, 2014.</ref>

At the time of its founding, the community was located in the [[Moshulatubbee District]] of the [[Choctaw Nation]].<ref>Morris, John W. ''Historical Atlas of Oklahoma'' (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1986), plate 38.</ref>

Howe contained 626 residents in 1900, but the number declined to 538 by the 1910 census. It had grown again to 711 in 1920. The population began a long-term decline from 692 in 1930, to 640 in 1940 and to 390 in 1960. The town had its own newspaper, the ''Howe Herald'', four doctors, four drugstores, a bank, two hotels and two cotton gins.<ref name="EOHC-Howe"/>

In 1961, an [[Fujita Scale|F4]] tornado hit Howe and the neighboring village [[Reichert, Oklahoma|Reichert]].{{note|a}} The source calls the village Reichter, but the actual name is apparently Reichert. Some accounts even refer to the village as Richards. Sixteen people died, thirteen of them in Howe; fifty-eight were injured, fifty-seven in Howe; and at least fifty homes were destroyed. Despite this, Howe's population trend reversed again. There were 562 residents in 1980, 697 in 2000 and 802 in 2010.<ref name="EOHC-Howe"/>