money From Idabel race riots to a tourist boom in Hochatown, six things to know about McCurtain County, Oklahoma
Outrage and turmoil pouring out of McCurtain County, Oklahoma, over "hate speech" and an apparent death threat allegedly coming from the sheriff, a county commissioner and other officials, captured in a secret audio recording, cast an ugly pall over a beautiful part of the state.
The McCurtain Gazette-News, published in Idabel, the county seat, accuses Sheriff Kevin Clardy, investigator Alicia Manning and District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings of talking about killing reporter Chris Willingham, among other gruesome matters.
The newspaper's accusation, the recording and published transcript broke Saturday and spread like an Ouachita Mountain forest fire. Gov. Kevin Stitt had called for the officials' resignation by Saturday night. McCurtain County was the top story Monday night on "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC.
McCurtain County's recent past has been mostly positive, as far as the rest of the state and country is concerned, but its not-so-recent past is tainted with racism. Here are six things McCurtain County was known for before last weekend.
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McCurtain County, Oklahoma, and the Idabel race riot
On the night of Sunday, Jan. 20, 1980, 15-year-old Henry Lee Johnson, who was Black, was shot dead in the parking lot of the whites-only Black Hat Club in Idabel, and his body left lying. Companions who fled at the sound of gunfire found his body the next morning.
By the next Tuesday, The Washington Post reported "150 hastily assigned officers patrolled the streets" and "civil rights officials began investigating" the rioting and "subsequent clashes between between police and nearly 200" Black people.
Later that year, in October, racial violence erupted again in Idabel with a shootout between police and two Black residents. A white man — defended in court by notorious sitting state Sen. Gene Stipe — was tried for second-degree murder in Johnson's killing.
In just a few years, The Oklahoman reported: "The Black Hat Club, where the rioting began, was closed. And so is the subject," although local debate over the cause of the violence persisted.
McCurtain County, Oklahoma, includes booming Hochatown, seen as the next Branson, Missouri
Twenty miles north of Idabel is Hochatown, still a baby as an incorporated municipality, but with a long history originating with the Choctaw Nation, and, locals say, a future as big as Texas.
Texas is where many, if not most, investors in the mountain cabin boom that caused the few hundred Hochatown residence to incorporate in self defense. Cabin owners, many of whom treat their commercial lodging as second homes, have turned Hochatown into a vacation destinations attracting tens of thousands on peak weekends.
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McCurtain County is home to the 'Moonshine Capital of Oklahoma'
Hochatown or Hoochtown? McCurtain County's reputation for illegal liquor was born 200 years ago.
"When the United States government set aside the area now known as Oklahoma in the 1820s, prohibition was in place, so there was no alcohol in (what became) McCurtain County," distiller Tommy "Blue" McDaniel recently wrote on a McCurtain County tourism web site.
"Being where we are down here in southeast Oklahoma, we were a long way from Oklahoma City — and the reach of the law. But we had fertile fields and a great climate," McDaniel wrote. "The clean, pure water of the Mountain Fork River was one of the best in the region and excellent for making moonshine. So what do you do when you have all of that? Start making liquor and moonshine.
"When prohibition went in place, the rest of the United States shut down all distilleries. In the meantime, all of these hillbillies down here in southeast Oklahoma started making moonshine. The whole nation wanted the liquor they were making out of these hills, so this area really boomed during the moonshine era of prohibition.
"So much moonshine was flowing out of this area that a federal agent out of Muskogee deemed Hochatown 'the moonshine capital of Oklahoma.' That nickname has really stuck for this area."
More: Could Hochatown, Oklahoma, be the next Branson, Missouri? Some people think so
Tourists are drawn to McCurtain County, Oklahoma, for the Ouachita Mountains (and it's pronounced "WAH-shi-tah")
Hochatown and Broken Bow are situated near the foothills of the Kiamichi Mountains, a sub-range of the Ouachitas. The mountains themselves, natural streams, abundant wildlife and hiking trails are attractions.
Other attractions include Beaver Bend State Park, with its own lodge, golf course and Forest Heritage Center, and Beavers Bend Wildlife Museum, and kid-oriented Beavers Bend Mining Co., which offers panning for gemstones, fossils and arrowheads, among many others.
Alligators? In Oklahoma? Yes, in McCurtain County
"Alligators are often basking with their eyes and nostrils just above the water. They are mostly found in swamps and marshes, but sometimes they are found in rivers, lakes and other bodies of water," according to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.
"In Oklahoma, alligators can be found in Red Slough Wildlife Management Area and the Little River National Wildlife Refuge. Choctaw County and McCurtain County have the highest number of these long-lived reptiles, but they can also be found in other southern counties," the department says.
Why southeast Oklahoma, including McCurtain County, is called 'Little Dixie'
"The character of the region began to emerge in the mid-1830s with the arrival of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes in southeastern Oklahoma, then known as Indian Territory. Both had thoroughly appropriated southern customs, including slavery. The two tribes were the most resolute Confederate allies among the Five Tribes during the Civil War.
"Further, throughout the nineteenth century whites, mainly southern, migrated legally and illegally into Oklahoma. By 1900, 87 percent of white settlers in the Indian Territory (eastern Oklahoma) were southerners. Late-nineteenth-century immigrants from the Midwest perceived the southeastern part of present Oklahoma as a southern enclave and tended to settle elsewhere."
Senior Business Writer Richard Mize has covered housing, construction, commercial real estate and related topics for the newspaper and Oklahoman.com since 1999. Contact him at rmize@oklahoman.com. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Real Estate with Richard Mize.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: McCurtain County, Oklahoma known for Idabel race riot, Hochatown, more
