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Created By Sharon McAllister

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Post Offices in Oklahoma
Last Updated:10/21/2002

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  visitors since this page was created on Ceil's Corner August 16, 1999.

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This new version is presented with Special Thanks to Susan Bradford , who provided information from The Chronicles of Oklahoma about additional Post Offices of Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory, including much more data about consolidations.   So if it's been a while since your last visit, you'll find not only more offices but also additional clues about the precise location of many that were already on the list.

In researching early communities, we often encounter information concerning name "changes". Of course, some did change their names, but more often what appeared to be a change of name was simply the result of consolidation of Post Offices. By today's standards, early Post Offices were very close together.   Consolidation of services started almost immediately, so that many small offices existed for only a few years. 

When a Post Office ceased to exist, its mail was "discontinued to" a nearby successor office. If the two offices were close enough, the effect was much the same as a simple name change. Often, though, Post Offices were discontinued across Township, County, and even Territorial boundaries.

Names of discontinued offices were often reassigned to newly authorized ones, so that the same name may appear in different parts of the state at different times.  There are also cases of  Post Offices in different Nations bearing the same name at the same time. All of which can quickly lead the unwary researcher astray so it's important to consider both time and location in searching for one of these offices.

For example:

Post Office

Township

Land Opening

County

Douglas

T13N-R1W

Unassigned (1889)

Oklahoma

Garnettville

T14N-R1E

Iowa (1891)

Oklahoma

Garden

T15N-R1E

Iowa (1891)

Logan

Luther

T14N-R1E

Kickapoo (1895)

Oklahoma

Douglas

T21N-R4W

Cherokee Outlet

Garfield

Luther wasn't founded until the railroad came through in 1898, but with that advantage it quickly outgrew Douglas, Garnettville, and Garden. These three earlier communities and their Post Offices were among those "discontinued to Luther". The Douglas Post Office in Garfield County was established after the one in Oklahoma County was closed.

With incomplete information, you might experience the frustration of looking for a Garden family in the wrong township and wrong county on the 1900 census. Or if you didn't know that there were two Douglas Post Offices over 50 miles apart you might be searching the wrong part of the state, a classic wild goose chase. But whether you are searching the census and land records, or trying to find what would have been the local school, church, or cemetery, knowledge of the history and geography of an area will lead you in the right direction.

This index was compiled from a variety of sources in an attempt to make it as comprehensive as possible.  In some cases, an order authorizing the establishment of a Post Office was rescinded so quickly that it may never have gone into operation but even these are included in this index.  When an office was near a county line, Post Office records sometimes show it in one county while GNIS shows it in the adjoining one so both have been included.

 

Click on a letter below to jump to that part of the index.

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

Data from all available sources of postal information have been merged for all counties, so in this sense the list can now be called comprehensive.  A number of offices have been added from GNIS searches for which neither the precise location nor the dates of operation are known, in the belief that even a vague clue is better than no clue at all.  

I expect obscure offices to continue to turn up, however, because even Shirk mentioned ephemeral offices in Oklahoma Territory that he did not attempt to include in his articles in "Oklahoma Chronicles" or his book of OKLAHOMA PLACE NAMES. 

Use the following links to find the Post Office on a map.

1895 Maps

1915 Maps

1972 Maps

Township Grids

Thanks for stopping by!
Maps 'n' More

State-wide resources formerly found on Ceil's Corner 
Created By Sharon McAllister
Became an OKGenWeb Special Project  March 31, 2001
© 2001 - 2024 OKGenWeb

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