Boggy Depot - Atoka Oklahoma - U.S. Civil War Sites on Waymarking.com

The United States government removed the Choctaws and Chickasaws from Mississippi and Alabama to the new Indian Territory, including the area of Boggy Depot, in the 1830s. While at first the Choctaws and Chickasaws lived together jointly on the Choctaw land the Chickasaws later emigrated to the western portions of the Indian Territory and eventually formed their own separate nation. 1834 General Henry Leavenworth built the military road from Camp Washita (later Fort Washita) to Fort Gibson. For years this road was generally the division between the Choctaw and Chickasaw lands. Afterwards a treaty created a formal dividing line between the nations, with Boggy Depot on the east side of the line in Choctaw lands. Reverend Cyrus Kingsbury established the church in Boggy Depot in 1840. The church building was the temporary capitol of the Choctaw Nation in 1859. Boggy Depot received a post office in 1848, and in 1858 became a stop on the Butterfield Overland Stage line. During the Civil War a Union raiding party fought a Confederate group at the Battle of Middle Boggy Depot a few miles northeast of Boggy Depot. After the Civil War with Boggy Depot clearly in the Choctaw nation many of the original settlers, mostly Chickasaws, abandoned Boggy Depot. A small community formed near this time two miles (3 km) to the south named New Boggy Depot. Choctaw Chief Allen Wright, who lived at Boggy Depot, coined the word 'Oklahoma' in 1866 to describe the Indian Territory. The name was officially used for the state in 1907. In 1869 Oklahoma's first Masonic Lodge was founded in Boggy Depot.

As part of the treaty between the Five Civilized Tribes and the United States government at the end of the Civil War the tribes had to allow a north to south railroad to be constructed across their lands. This railroad became a reality in 1872. The Missouri Kansas and Texas railroad, or Katy, ran 12 miles (19 km) east of Boggy Depot and was the end of the town's importance. The city of Atoka, on the railroad, flourished while Boggy Depot languished.