Dunbar is a community in
Pushmataha County
Pushmataha County is a county in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2010 census, the population was 11,572. Its county seat is Antlers.
The county was created at statehood from part of the former territory of the C ...
,
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
, United States,
17 miles north of
Antlers.
A
United States Post Office operated here from May 5, 1925, to January 15, 1956. In its early days, it was a sawmill town in the
Indian Territory.
During the 1880s, the
St. Louis-San Francisco Railway
ST, St, or St. may refer to:
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, more popularly known as the “Frisco”, built a line from north to south through the
Choctaw Nation, connecting
Fort Smith, Arkansas with
Paris, Texas. The railroad paralleled the
Kiamichi River throughout much of its route in present-day Pushmataha County. Train stations were established every few miles to aid in opening up the land and, more particularly, to serve as the locations of section houses. Supervisors for their respective miles of track lived in the section houses to administer the track and its
right-of-way. These stations also served as points at which the trains could draw water.
The site of Dunbar was selected because of its proximity to the Kiamichi River, with its abundant water supply. Adjacent station stops were established at
Stanley to the north and
Wadena to the south.
The sparsely populated area, at that time known as
Jack’s Fork County of the Choctaw Nation, in the Indian Territory, was home to
Choctaw Indians
The Choctaw (in the Choctaw language, Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw people are ...
who farmed or subsisted on the land.
[Morris, John W. ''Historical Atlas of Oklahoma'' (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1986), plate 38.
] Few roads or trails existed. Transportation was provided by the Frisco Railroad, which offered six trains per day—three in each direction—until it closed to passenger traffic during the late 1950s. It continued freight operations until 1981, when it closed altogether and its rails were removed. The loss of passenger rail coincided with the construction of
Oklahoma State Highway 2.
Dunbar, in one of the most scenic valleys in the state, is framed by Dunbar Mountain on the east and Bull Creek Mountain on the west.
References
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Unincorporated communities in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma
Unincorporated communities in Oklahoma
Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma