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December 26, 2009

New Year’s Day Muskogee’s birthday

By Jonita Mullins

While workers struggled to lay track for the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad (the Katy) in 1871, the site for the primary depot in Indian Territory was undetermined. Originally, the surveyor for the line had planned for the depot to be located at the old Fort Davis site.

But the terrain proved unsuitable here, in part because of the large Indian burial mound the Confederate fort had been built around. The railroad surveyor chose another site for the depot about a mile or two further southwest along the Texas Road.

Folks who lived in the vicinity of the new rail line had watched with interest as the track was being built. Communities such as Fort Gibson and Creek Agency would benefit from the railroad, but the location of the railroad’s main depot would surely develop into an important area for commerce. When word had gotten out that the depot was to be located at the Fort Davis site, a few tent businesses set up in the area.

J.S. Atkinson and Andrew Robb had operated a mercantile at Gibson Station, a small passenger and freight depot north of the Verdigris River. They moved their store to the Fort Davis site but had only just set up their business when they learned the depot would not be built there.

So as soon as the railroad surveyor had marked the location for the new depot, Atkinson and Robb picked up their store – literally – and moved it to this site. They re-used the lumber each time they moved the mercantile.

The Atkinson and Robb mercantile was located where the Texas Road and the Okmulgee Road crossed, just south of the depot location and west of the rail line.

Other tent businesses such as followed railroad construction were quick to spring up along the rail line near the depot. On the treeless prairie the canvas community must have been visible for some distance along the wide and much-traveled Texas Road.

By New Year’s Day of 1872, the railroad had completed the Katy tracks to the newly completed depot. On that day, the same “General Grant” steam engine that had crossed the Arkansas River Bridge on Christmas pulled into the Muscogee Station and a celebration was called for.

Reach Jonita Mullins at jonita@netscape.com.

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