Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Indianola, OK

Indianola is a town in northwestern Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, on State Highway 113 about 18 miles north of McAlester, on the south bank of the South Canadian River where it now meets Lake Eufaula.

Indianola probably began in 1875, when H. M. McElhany moved to the area in the Choctaw Nation and opened a one-room store that doubled as a mail drop for local residents.

A formal post office was established at Indianola, Indian Territory, on January 16, 1891, and at its founding the community lay in Tobucksy County of the Choctaw Nation.

Two stories explain the town's name: one says it was taken from the brand name on a stove in the general store, and the other says it honored Indianola, Mississippi.

Indianola's first school was organized in February 1895, and in 1898 Choctaw farmer Lyman H. Perkins, who had owned all the land the town was built on, donated an acre for a Methodist church.

When the Fort Smith and Western Railway built a mile north of town in 1902, Indianola picked up and relocated beside the tracks, building a new school and leaving the original site behind as "Old Town."

The railroad move paid off briefly: Indianola claimed 781 residents in 1910, its all-time high, before the 1927 cotton-market collapse and the Great Depression started a long decline.

The 2020 census counted 148 residents in Indianola, down from 162 in 2010 and 191 in 2000, all within a town area of only about 0.3 square miles.

Choate's Cabin, built in 1867 and one of the oldest surviving structures in the area, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Today Indianola is a quiet rural agricultural community whose boomtown days as a Choctaw Nation rail stop are visible mostly in its history.