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Fort Towson |
Fort Towson is a small place, with visible relics. The 1857 Cannon, the cistern, and flagpole grace the fort's parade grounds. |
The well on the parade grounds has been re-constructed. Most of the fort lies in ruins. The fort was burned in the late 1820s by white settlers who resented American border patrol between the U.S. and Mexican Texas, and Indian settlement by the Shawnees, Caddos, and Choctaws. Though re-built, further destruction before and after the Civil War led locals to the conclusion that it was okay to dismantle the old structures to build their own homes. |
Choctaws and Chickasaws settled around the fort, where they built Indian academies, churches, farms, plantations, and towns. The first major settlement around the fort was Doaksville, named after the trading post established by Josiah Doaks, a white man from Mississippi who followed the Choctaws into Indian Territory to advocate on their behalf. The village became a trading center. The need to supply Fort Towson was also the impetus to clear the Great Raft of the Red River north of Natchitoches. |
One of Oklahoma's first historians, Grant Foreman, documented historic ruins at the turn of the 20th century. At this time, Fort Towson was eight decades old and its footprint was still clearly visible. |