Tag: Earlsboro
Earlsboro is a town in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 628 at the 2010 census, a decline of 0.8 percent from 633 at the 2000 census. It was once called “…the town that whisky built and oil broke.”
The town of Earlsborough (as it was spelled on the town plat) began in 1891, when the Choctaw Coal and Railway (later the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad) built a line west from the Seminole Nation into Oklahoma Territory. The town was located one-half mile inside Oklahoma Territory. It was named for James Earls, a local African American who had served as an orderly for Confederate General Joseph Wheeler during the Civil War. The spelling of the town name changed when the Earlsboro post office opened on June 12, 1895.
The town had an economic boom from the outset because Indian Territory was legally “dry,” bot Oklahoma Territory was not. The first three businesses were saloons, and it was said that 90 percent of the merchants were engaged in liquor…
