Stapp, Oklahoma Explained

Stapp is an unincorporated community in Le Flore County, Oklahoma, United States. It is located approximately eight miles south of Heavener on US Route 59.[1]

History

The community originally formed in 1897 in Indian Territory under the name of Thomasville, about the time the Long-Bell Lumber Company purchased property there.[2] [3] The company created a subsidiary, the King-Ryder Lumber Company (that was also in Bon Ami, Louisiana), which built a lumber mill at Thomasville and even a railway, the Kingston and Choctaw Valley Railroad, which ran from Thomasville to connect to other rail lines at Howe, Oklahoma.[2] [3] King-Ryder left about 1901, but other timber operations continued in the area.[2]

The settlement was later reborn as Stapp, and had a Buschow Lumber Company sawmill.[4] Stapp had a post office beginning in 1918. However, the Buschow mill, a victim of its own "cut and move on" timber policies, closed in 1932, and the post office followed in 1944.[4] While at its height the population of the settlement was about 1,000, nothing remains of the old town today.

Notes and References

  1. Oklahoma Atlas & Gazetteer, DeLorme, 1st ed., 1998, p. 57
  2. Web site: The King-Ryder Lumber Company and the Louisiana & Pacific Railway at Bonami, Louisiana in 1902. American Lumberman Magazine (accessed on the Texas Transportation Archive). December 9, 2021.
  3. Web site: Kingston & Choctaw Valley Railroad Company (King-Ryder Lumber Company's tram at Thomasville, Oklahoma). Cram's Atlas of the World, Ancient and Modern (accessed on the Texas Transportation Archive). December 9, 2021.
  4. Web site: Mill Towns (Lumber). Larry O’Dell, Oklahoma Historical Society. December 10, 2021.