Stapp is an unincorporated community in Le Flore County, Oklahoma, United States.[1] It is located approximately eight miles south of Heavener on US Route 59.[2]

History

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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.[3][4] 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.[3][4] King-Ryder left about 1901, but other timber operations continued in the area.[3]

The settlement was later reborn as Stapp, and had a Buschow Lumber Company sawmill.[5] 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.[5] While at its height the population of the settlement was about 1,000, nothing remains of the old town today.

References

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  1. ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Stapp, Oklahoma
  2. ^ Oklahoma Atlas & Gazetteer, DeLorme, 1st ed., 1998, p. 57 ISBN 0899332838
  3. ^ a b c "The King-Ryder Lumber Company and the Louisiana & Pacific Railway at Bonami, Louisiana in 1902". American Lumberman Magazine (accessed on the Texas Transportation Archive). Retrieved December 9, 2021.
  4. ^ a b "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). Retrieved December 9, 2021.
  5. ^ a b "Mill Towns (Lumber)". Larry O’Dell, Oklahoma Historical Society. Retrieved December 10, 2021.


34°45′18″N 94°37′26″W / 34.75500°N 94.62389°W / 34.75500; -94.62389