Tullahassee, Oklahoma: Oldest Surviving All-Black Town
GLO Record of the Week for February 18, 2024
GLO Record of the Week for February 18, 2024
In honor of Black History Month, the General Land Office is highlighting the town of Tullahassee, Oklahoma. Located five miles northwest of Muskogee in Wagoner County, Tullahassee is thought to be the oldest surviving all-Black town in the Sooner State. Tullahassee is actually a Creek word meaning "Old Town."
The town is depicted below in Section 30 of the survey plat for Township 16 North, Range 18 East, of the Indian Meridian. The survey plat was approved on July 11, 1898.
Prior to the community's establishment, the area was selected as the site of a new Creek Nation school. Robert McGill Loughridge, a Presbyterian missionary on assignment to the Creek Nation, established the Koweta Mission and School in nearby Coweta and was subsequently appointed by the Creek Nation to be superintendent of the new Tullahassee Manual Labor School. The Tullahassee Manual Labor School was to be located near the much-traveled Texas Road that ran southwestward to the Creek Agency in Muskogee. Loughridge oversaw the construction of the school from 1848 to 1850 and remained there as superintendent until he was forcibly relocated to Texas during the Civil War.
The town of Tullahassee was established in 1850, taking its name from the nearby Tullahassee Mission. The area around the Tullahassee Mission was home to many Creek Freedmen who settled there after the Civil War. As the population of Freedmen increased in the area, the Creek Nation population began declining. On October 24, 1881, the Creek Nation council voted to turn the town of Tullahassee over to the Freedmen.
Township 16 North, Range 18 East , in which Tullahassee is located, was surveyed in 1896 by U. S. Surveyors T.H. Johnson and C.H. Hickman. To the left is an excerpt from the field note journal detailing the survey of the land. The highlighted portion of this excerpt noted that approximately 50 people inhabited the town at the time of this survey.
By 1920, the population of Tullahassee was about 200 residents and remained steady for many years. The recorded population in 1970 was 145 residents. Between the years 2000 and 2010, the population was recorded as 106 remaining residents. The latest census marked another decline in the town's population. As of 2021, Tullahassee's population was recorded at 91 residents.
As Oklahoma's oldest surviving Black town, efforts are underway to revitalize the community.