City Of Sallisaw history

Dwight Mission, 7 miles (11 km) northeast, was founded in 1828 and functioned for more than a century; it was one of the most important educational institutions in Indian Territory before the American Civil War.

Explore the life of the famous Cherokee man, Sequoyah, in the one-room log cabin he built in 1829.

Samuel Lattimore, a survivor of the Civil War, built the oldest building, Lattimore Cabin, in 1835 out of hand-cut logs.

The organized settlement now known as Sallisaw can be traced to 1887–88 when Argyle Quesenbury, one of the first white men to settle in the vicinity, and Will Watie Wheeler, collateral descendent of Cherokee Confederate leader Stand Watie, laid out lots for a town one-half mile square.

The railroad came to Sallisaw when the Kansas and Arkansas Valley Railway (later the Missouri Pacific Railroad) laid track west from Van Buren, Arkansas, in 1888–90.

The mostly Cherokee town was not incorporated until 1898 when William E. Whitsett, Jr., was elected mayor.

The Commercial Hotel in Sallisaw, circa 1900(14823.1, Heye Foundation Collection, OHS).

Sallisaw, city, seat (1907) of Sequoyah county, eastern Oklahoma, United States, just north of the Arkansas River and the Robert S. Kerr Reservoir, near the Arkansas state line.

The City of Sallisaw adopted a managerial form of government in 1919.

Time magazine dated October 22, 1934, mentions a robbery of $350 in pennies from a local post office as his first known crime.

Sallisaw's most widely known and lasting actual feature is Blue Ribbon Downs, the horse racetrack started when cowboy Bill Hedge bought 102 acres just west of the city in 1960.

The track, drawing on local heritage steeped in the cattle and horse business, soon became known as a proving ground and gained recognition from the American Quarter Horse Association in 1963.

Hedge sold the track to an investment group in 1973.

Efforts to legalize gambling on racing finally succeeded in 1982 when Oklahoma voters approved pari-mutuel betting.

The first pari-mutuel race at Blue Ribbon Downs, after a late delay of two weeks, occurred August 30, 1984, before twelve thousand to thirteen thousand spectators in a sweltering temperature above 100 degrees.

Marsha L. Weisiger, "The Reception of The Grapes of Wrath in Oklahoma: A Reappraisal," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 70 (Winter 1992–93).

In late 2002, the city staff began researching the possibility of providing their own telecommunications services to the community.

In 2003 the Choctaw Nation bought Blue Ribbon Downs and infused it with capital.

Our actual “begin” date as far as preparing for construction and selecting equipment vendors began in January of 2004.

Sequoyah County (Sallisaw, Oklahoma) Times, 27 February 2005.

Horrigan, J. (2006). Home Broadband Adoption 2006.

The 2018 findings of measuring the retail trade in the 77 Oklahoma counties using pull factor.