The Sans Bois Mountains are a small mountain range in southeastern Oklahoma and part of the larger

Ouachita Mountains The Ouachita Mountains (), simply referred to as the Ouachitas, are a mountain range in western Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. They are formed by a thick succession of highly deformed Paleozoic strata constituting the Ouachita Fold and Thru ...

. The range is a frontal belt of the Ouachita Mountains and is located in

Haskell Haskell () is a general-purpose, statically-typed, purely functional programming language with type inference and lazy evaluation. Designed for teaching, research and industrial applications, Haskell has pioneered a number of programming lan ...

and Latimer counties. is a French term meaning 'without forest' or without wood' in English. Wright, Muriel H. "Some Geographic Names of French Origin in Oklahoma." ''Chronicles of Oklahoma''
Volume7, Number 2. June, 1929. Accessed March 28, 2016.

History

Humans have inhabited the area since prehistoric times. According to the ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture'', the earliest inhabitants were hunter-gatherers and foragers from about 10,000 to 8,000 BCE. Later indigenous people began farming about 1 BCE along streams with suitable topography. The

Wichita people The Wichita people or Kitikiti'sh are a confederation of Southern Plains Native American tribes. Historically they spoke the Wichita language and Kichai language, both Caddoan languages. They are indigenous to Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. To ...

moved in and established large villages during the Historic Era. The

Choctaws 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 ...

, forced to leave their previous homeland in the southeastern U.S., started displacing other tribes in about 1830. During the 19th century, this area became an important source for timber. Later in the century, production of coal and natural gas became economic mainstays, continuing into the 20th century.

Geography

The highest peaks of the Sans Bois Mountains are above sea level. Robbers Cave State Park is in the middle of the mountains. The

Poteau River The Poteau River is a 141-mile (227 km)U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed June 3, 2011 long river located in the U.S. states of Arkansas and Oklahoma. It is the only riv ...

drains the area, and one of its tributaries, Sans Bois Creek, was the namesake for the mountains. Although the mountains have relatively light forests, they do have deposits of coal and natural gas, which provided the basis for economic development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

References

{{Mountains of Oklahoma Mountain ranges of Oklahoma Landforms of Latimer County, Oklahoma Landforms of Haskell County, Oklahoma Geography of Oklahoma