Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near Gans Historic District Gans, OK

Gans is a town in Sequoyah County in eastern Oklahoma, about seven miles southeast of Sallisaw, and it is part of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma metropolitan statistical area.

Gans was founded in the Sequoyah District of the Cherokee Nation, where the dispersed rural settlement was originally known locally as Jack Town.

The community took the name Gann after three Cherokee brothers - Charlie, Swimmer, and Tom Gann - settled there.

A post office opened at Gann, Indian Territory, on March 21, 1896, and after the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad built through in 1895-96 and asked for a new name because it already had two stations called Gann, the post office was renamed Gans on September 8, 1899.

Gans incorporated in 1902, lost its corporate status in 1933, and reincorporated in 1953.

By 1911 Gans supported a bank, two cotton gins, a sawmill, six general stores, three doctors, two drug stores, two blacksmiths, and a restaurant, on the strength of local agriculture and the railroad.

In January 1957 a devastating tornado struck Gans, killing eight people, injuring eleven, and causing an estimated $100,000 in property damage, but the town rebuilt.

The 2020 census counted 251 people in Gans living in 86 households, with a median age of 31.9 years.

Reflecting its Cherokee Nation heritage, about 28 percent of Gans residents were Native American in the 2020 census.

By 2000, enrollment in Gans's kindergarten-through-high-school had climbed to 321 students - more than the town's own population of 208 that year.