Editing Okemah, Oklahoma (section)

===Firsts===
[[File:Guthrie house.jpg|thumb|alt=A simple house|Woody Guthrie's [[Okfuskee County, Oklahoma]] childhood home as it appeared in 1979]]
[[File:Okemah mural.jpg|thumb|right|Mural by DeAnna Mauldin, depicting Woody Guthrie and Okfuskee County history, 510 W. Broadway, Okemah]]

The townsite was selected by two railroad surveyors, Perry Rodkey and H.R. Dexter. Dexter is credited with choosing the town name. They picked the site believing that two railroads, the [[Fort Smith and Western Railroad]] and the Ozark and Cherokee Central Railway (later the [[St. Louis and San Francisco Railway]]) would intersect there. While the former did build a line through the site, the latter never did.<ref name="EOHC-Okemah"/>

The town's first state-chartered bank began business the day of the opening, April 22, 1902, in a tent on the northwest corner of the present Fifth and Broadway (now City Hall). C. J. Benson was president. W. H. Dill was vice president and served as cashier. It became the First National Bank<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=B6M0AQAAMAAJ&dq=first+national+bank+of+okemah,+r.w.+armstrong&pg=PA647 The Bankers Magazine - Volume 76 - Page 647 - Google Books Result 1908 - Banks and banking]
Okemah—First National Bank: R. W. Armstrong, Asst. Cashicr.</ref> in 1903, but was liquidated in 1939, having failed due to the [[Dust Bowl]] and the [[Great Depression]].

J. E. Galloway was the first mayor; Perry Rodkey, first postman; E. D. Dexter, first hotel operator; Dill ran the first telephone company; John D. Richards had the first hardware store; McGee Brothers put in the first cotton gin; and E. E. Shook established the first lumberyard. The first church in the city was the North [[Methodist]], at Sixth and Ash, but the first church service [[Baptist]], presided over by the Rev. Black. The editor Charles Barnclaw published the first newspaper.