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Pushmataha County, Oklahoma
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====Bid for self-determination==== Although the [[Five Civilized Tribes]] of the Indian Territory opposed being incorporated within a United States state, by the turn of the 20th century, statehood of some sort appeared inevitable. A group of leaders from the Five Civilized Nations β Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole β met at Muskogee in an attempt to seize the initiative and fashion a state from the Indian Territory, a jurisdiction to be controlled by Native Americans. Their meeting, which came to be known as the [[Sequoyah Constitutional Convention]], established the proposed [[State of Sequoyah]].<ref>Amos D. Maxwell, ''The Sequoyah Constitutional Convention'', pp. 60β61; Plate 56, Historical Atlas of Oklahoma.</ref> The leaders meeting in Muskogee recognized that the counties of the Choctaw Nation, drawn to reflect easily recognizable natural landmarks such as mountain ranges and rivers, were not economically viable. Jack's Fork County, as example β in which Antlers was located β was a vast territory whose tiny county seat was Many Springs (modern-day [[Daisy, Oklahoma]]). But the only commercially successful town within its boundaries was Antlers, and it was situated in its far southeastern corner. County boundaries for the new State of Sequoyah were crafted to take into account the existing towns and the range of their commercial interests. County seats were centered geographically within the populations of the areas they would govern. The area comprising modern-day Pushmataha County proved a particular challenge. Huge areas of its eastern portion had few people. Its population was centered in towns along the railroad in the Kiamichi River valley. A county was eventually drawn with the crescent of the Kiamichi River valley forming its commercial heart, and it was to be called [[Pushmataha County, Sequoyah]].<ref>Morris, ''Historical Atlas'', Plate 56.</ref> Records of the Sequoyah Constitutional Convention's committee on counties are lost, and no evidence remains to document the committee's deliberations. They wanted an area named after their [[Pushmataha|Chief Pushmataha]], and singled out the future Pushmataha County, Sequoyah for this honor. Hugo's businesses served an area extending as far north as [[Kent, Oklahoma|Kent]], [[Speer, Oklahoma|Speer]], [[Hamden, Oklahoma|Hamden]], and nearly to [[Rattan, Oklahoma|Rattan]]. As a result, the county boundary for the proposed [[Hitchcock County, Sequoyah|Hitchcock County]] β with Hugo as county seat β was established along the line of the existing boundary between Choctaw and Pushmataha counties. Similar considerations governed the establishment of the county's northern, eastern and western borders. The United States Congress failed to admit the proposed State of Sequoyah into the Union, preferring to await a possible federation of the Indian Territory and [[Territory of Oklahoma]]. This was soon proposed. In 1907 the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention met in [[Guthrie, Oklahoma|Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory]] to create the new State of Oklahoma. During these deliberations it became clear that the work of the Sequoyah Constitutional Convention had been groundbreaking: the Guthrie meeting essentially adopted nearly the same boundaries for Pushmataha County, Oklahoma as were proposed earlier for it in the state of Sequoyah, again identifying Antlers as county seat.
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