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===Founding=== [[Image:Old Atoka.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|An early, turn-of-the-century photograph of Court Street in Atoka]] Though the [[Choctaw]] Indians had inhabited the area since the 1830s with a small town located near the city today, the city was officially founded by a [[Baptist]] missionary named J.S. Murrow in 1867 and quickly supplanted the dying town of [[Boggy Depot, Oklahoma|Boggy Depot]] as the chief city in [[Atoka County, Choctaw Nation]], a territorial-era county which included portions of today's Atoka, Coal, Hughes and Pittsburg counties. A main contributing factor in the early growth of Atoka was the [[MKT Railroad]], which came through the area in 1872. The railroad provided the economic lifeblood to Atoka that any isolated rural town needs to survive and flourish. Many businesses quickly moved to Atoka from Boggy Depot.<ref name="EOHC-Atoka"/> Also in 1872, Father Michael Smyth founded St. Patrick's Catholic Church. This was the first Roman Catholic church in what became the state of Oklahoma.<ref name="EOHC-Atoka"/> On October 12, 1875, the Sacred Heart Mission, what later became [[St. Gregory's University]], was founded in Atoka by the Benedictine monks Father Isidore Robot, O.S.B., and Brother Dominic Lambert, O.S.B.<ref>[http://www.konawa.k12.ok.us/community/sacred_heart/sacred_heart_mission.html Sacred Heart Mission, Konawa Public Schools] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061107071806/http://www.konawa.k12.ok.us/community/sacred_heart/sacred_heart_mission.html |date=2006-11-07 }}</ref> In 1876, the mission relocated to near [[Konawa, Oklahoma]] and became an [[abbey]]. About 1896, [[Robert L. Williams]], who would become the third [[Governor of Oklahoma]] and first [[Chief Justice]] of the [[Oklahoma Supreme Court]], moved to Atoka (then a part of the old [[Indian Territory]]) from [[Troy, Alabama]]. In 1898, land allotments were implemented and town lots were sold, as required by the Dawes Commission.<ref name="EOHC-Atoka"/>
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