When a town loses its population, it loses its life. 

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Evidence remains of what the town used to be, guarded by locals who have made it their duty to preserve its history, such as Gwen Walker, who makes sure those laid to rest in the Confederate gravesite in Atoka all have their headstones correctly marked. 

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“I spent one whole day in the National Archives going through the Confederate index,” Walker said. “And let me tell you, it’s long. Going through the index I copied every Frank, every Fred, every Francis… everything I could find that might fit in the same time.”

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Walker works at the Atoka County Museum and Civil War Cemetery. Here, she spends a lot of her time working to preserve the story of Oklahoma. This includes the history of Boggy Depot, where the land a town once sat on is memorialized by a state park. It’s now owned by the Chickasaw Nation. However, history isn’t just a simple statement of facts. Just like the rest of the state, it has a story that Walker works to share.  

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On her day in the national archives, she worked to identify names of people that could have died in the Battle of Middle Boggy. She knew the soldiers who died in this battle were buried practically in her backyard, and she decided not to let time wash them from memory.

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“I went to these individuals, their individual records,” said Walker. “And I found that indeed, they did die on the date that was carved into the sandstone. So I knew we had our man.”

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Walker’s work helped families find closure and preserved history there was little record of before. She recalled a time when the descendants of one of the buried soldiers reached out to her, remembering it as one of the highlights of her life. 

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“They mailed us their great-grandfather’s papers,” said Walker. “They had no idea where he was. Nothing. Their grandfather’s paper said he died at Middle Boggy in the Choctaw Nation. Well, that was here.”

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According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, the Battle of Middle Boggy was a 30-minute fire fight between a 350-man detachment of the Union army and a Confederate outpost of almost 100 men. It ended with the Union retreating after dealing 47 casualties to the Confederates. 

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Boggy Depot was never a bustling metropolis, but its history is intertwined with the greater story of Oklahoma. While it was an important landmark for the American Civil War, some locals only know it for its contribution to Oklahoma’s mail and travel services of the mid-19th century. Joyce Alexander works near Boggy Depot at the Caddo Indian Territory Museum and Library. She said Boggy Depot was never big, but served a different important purpose. 

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“Well it was basically a stagecoach stop on the butterfield route,” said Alexander. 

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The Butterfield Route was a twice-weekly mail and stagecoach travel route that ran from 1858 to 1861, when Texans voted to secede from the Union. At its peak, the Butterfield Route employed over 800 people and carried both mail and passengers. This angle of history around Boggy Depot contrasts greatly from the bloody story of the war. The Butterfield Route opened new opportunities for mail and progress. This created a false veil of unity in America, as it broadened the horizon for communication and travel so soon before the country was torn apart. 

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Alexander’s small town of Caddo is very close to Boggy Depot in proximity and only has about 1,000 residents, but she makes it very clear to newcomers that it’s not a ghost town and is only on the rise. Caddo celebrated its 150th anniversary of township this year, making it older than the state of Oklahoma itself. They marked the occasion with Caddo Heritage day, which included a parade, dancing and old-fashioned games as a tribute to the history of the town. Residents of Caddo and other nearby towns take pride in their homes because they understand the way new settlements have come and gone over the years. Todd Simonson is a rancher and metalworker in Caddo, and although he doesn’t celebrate when towns fade away, he doesn’t lament it either. 

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“That happens. Small towns begin from somebody back in the day. They bring a covered wagon,” Simonson said. “They find a beautiful spot to sit down, make camp and they say, ‘we need to have a town here.’”

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But Simonson knows not every town will last. 

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“If the train station didn’t come in then they kind of faded off.” said Simonson. 

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Not every town has faded off, though. The neighboring town of Atoka is being revitalized, propelled by the influence of country music star Reba McIntire. However, not every town has a Reba. Looking back, it can be difficult to pinpoint the reason why one town would fail while another flourishes. 

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Boggy Depot even functioned as the capital of the Choctaw nation from 1858 to 1860. Today it is just a park, and is managed by the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations. People who live in the region, like Jacob Allen, still think it could become something more. 

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“Hopefully with the Chickasaw nation taking over, it’ll bring it back to like it was,” Allen said. “You could picnic out there, you could camp out there, you could do just about anything, it was very nice out there.”

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JoAnn Mixon is the brand manager of the Atoka County Library. Her town is growing again, and she has distant memories of visiting boggy depot long ago. 

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“Sadly I haven’t been out there in awhile,” Mixon said. “Went out there in high school one time with some friends and flew kites, but I haven’t been back since.” 

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Mixon said it was too many years ago to remember much more. That could be the town in a nutshell. 

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Perhaps Boggy Depot’s most impressive boast is that former Choctaw Chief Allen Wright’s home once stood on the grounds of the park. Wright was elected chief in 1866 and again in 1876. He signed the Choctaw treaty of alliance with the Confederacy in 1861 and the Reconstruction Treaty of 1866. There are signs around the park that tell visitors about his influence on the Choctaw people, Boggy Depot and Oklahoma as a whole. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, Wright is credited with giving Oklahoma its name. 

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    Despite such an important piece of Oklahoma history coming from Boggy Depot, it’s the towns around it that survived. The people there recognize the sadness of a town disappearing, but there’s nothing they can do. 

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    “And people just kinda thought,” said Simonson. “‘There’s another one that bit the dust.’”