Editing Oaks, Oklahoma (section)

==New Springplace Indian Mission==
In 1801, members of the [[Moravian Church]] from Salem in [[North Carolina]] (now [[Winston-Salem]]) decided to begin a mission to the [[Cherokee]] people who were then living in [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] and [[Tennessee]]. As a result, they set up Springplace Mission in [[Springplace, Georgia]]. They continued the mission to the Cherokees there until the Cherokees signed the [[Treaty of New Echota]] with the federal government. This forced the Cherokees and the other four Civilized Tribes (the [[Chickasaw]]s, [[Choctaw]]s, [[Muscogee|Creeks]] and [[Seminole]]s) to give up their homelands in the [[southeastern United States]] and move to [[Indian Territory]], now Oklahoma. Springplace Mission was forced to close its doors and move with the Cherokees to northeastern Indian Territory. Upon arrival in Indian Territory, the Moravians selected a spot north of [[Tahlequah, Oklahoma|Tahlequah]], the new Cherokee Nation capital, to found New Springplace Indian Mission, near current-day Oaks.

The area selected was a beautiful one with plentiful [[oak]] trees (which is probably where Oaks got its name from) and a spring creek (today called Spring Creek), and the site was on the military road from [[Fort Gibson, Oklahoma|Fort Gibson]], Indian Territory, to [[St. Louis, Missouri]]. The [[American Civil War|Civil War]] temporarily closed the mission, but work resumed until 1902, when [[Denmark|Danish]] [[Lutheran]]s took over. Also in 1902, Oaks-Mission School was formed to accommodate the education for the Indian children staying in what became the Oaks Indian Mission. Later, a nearby school consolidated with Oaks, and the school became Oaks-Mission Public School. In 1980, the name of the mission was changed to Oaks Indian Center, and "mission" was dropped from Oaks' school name until the 1990s, when "mission" was re-instated. In 2004, the name of the Oaks Indian Center was restored to Oaks Indian Mission.

Currently, the Oaks Indian Mission continues to house and mission to Indian children, just like it did in the early days as Springplace and New Springplace.