History

A permanent settlement has existed at the site of modern Moyers since at least the 1880s.

During the 1880s the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway

St. Louis-San Francisco Railway

The St. Louis – San Francisco Railway , also known as the Frisco, was a railroad that operated in the Midwest and South Central U.S. from 1876 to 1980.-History:...

, more popularly known as the “Frisco”, built a line from north to south through the Choctaw Nation

Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma

The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is a semi-autonomous Native American homeland comprising twelve tribal districts. The Choctaw Nation maintains a special relationship with both the United States and Oklahoma governments...

, connecting Fort Smith, Arkansas

Fort Smith, Arkansas

Fort Smith is the second-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. With a population of 86,209 in 2010, it is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 298,592 residents which encompasses the Arkansas...

 with Paris, Texas

Paris, Texas

Paris, Texas is a city located northeast of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex in Lamar County, Texas, in the United States. It is situated in Northeast Texas at the western edge of the Piney Woods. Physiographically, these regions are part of the West Gulf Coastal Plain. In 1900, 9,358 people lived...

. The railroad paralleled the Kiamichi River

Kiamichi River

The Kiamichi River is a river in southeastern Oklahoma. A tributary of the Red River, its headwaters rise on Pine Mountain in the Ouachita Mountains near the Arkansas border...

 throughout much of its route in present-day Pushmataha County, Oklahoma

Pushmataha County, Oklahoma

-Administrative History:* Ca. 1000-1500: Caddoan Mississippian civilization at Spiro Mounds* 1492-1718: Spain* 1718-1763: France* 1763-1800: Spain* 1800-1803: France* 1803–present: United States...

. Train stations were established every few miles to aid in opening up the land and, more particularly, to serve as the locations of section houses. Supervisors for their respective miles of track lived in the section houses to administer the track and its right-of-way. These stations also served as points at which the trains could draw water.

The site of the future Moyers was selected because of its proximity to the Kiamichi River

Kiamichi River

The Kiamichi River is a river in southeastern Oklahoma. A tributary of the Red River, its headwaters rise on Pine Mountain in the Ouachita Mountains near the Arkansas border...

, with its abundant water supply. Adjacent station stops were established at Kosoma, Oklahoma

Kosoma, Oklahoma

Kosoma is a settlement and former railroad station in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma, United States. It is located just off Oklahoma State Highway 2, about north of Antlers.-Geography:...

, to the north, and Davenport—now Kellond, Oklahoma

Kellond, Oklahoma

Kellond, Oklahoma is a settlement and former railroad station in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma. Kellond is located approximately three miles northwest of Antlers, Oklahoma on Oklahoma State Highway 2.- History :During the 1880s the St...

—to the south.

The sparsely-populated area, at that time known as Jack’s Fork County of the Choctaw Nation, in the Indian Territory

Indian Territory

The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...

, was home to Choctaw Indians who farmed or subsisted on the land. Few roads or trails existed. But with the railroad came white settlers, seeking commercial opportunities.

Kosoma became an immediate boomtown

Boomtown

A boomtown is a community that experiences sudden and rapid population and economic growth. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although the term can also be applied to communities growing very rapidly for different reasons,...

, home to a thriving timber industry. Sawmills

Sawmills

Sawmills may refer to:* A sawmill, a facility where logs are cut to length* Sawmills Studio, a famous UK music recording studio* Sawmills, North Carolina...

 were established in the mountains surrounding the town and the mills used Kosoma’s railroad depot as a transshipment

Transshipment

Transshipment or Transhipment is the shipment of goods or containers to an intermediate destination, and then from there to yet another destination....

 point. Moyers remained tiny and insubstantial until Kosoma’s decline in the early 1900s, when its local forests had all been logged.

In addition to timber, other natural resources

Natural Resources

Natural Resources is a soul album released by Motown girl group Martha Reeves and the Vandellas in 1970 on the Gordy label. The album is significant for the Vietnam War ballad "I Should Be Proud" and the slow jam, "Love Guess Who"...

, including mining, were important in the regional economy. An asphalt

Asphalt

Asphalt or , also known as bitumen, is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits, it is a substance classed as a pitch...

 mine was established at Jumbo, northwest of Moyers, and a tram

Tram

A tram is a passenger rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets and also sometimes on separate rights of way. It may also run between cities and/or towns , and/or partially grade separated even in the cities...

, or railroad, was built from Moyers northwest through the Kiamichi Mountains

Kiamichi Mountains

The Kiamichi Mountains are a mountain range in southeastern Oklahoma. A subrange within the larger Ouachita Mountains that extend from Oklahoma to western Arkansas, the Kiamichi Mountains sit within Le Flore, Pushmataha, and McCurtain counties near the towns of Poteau and Albion...

 to Jumbo. Railroad cars were loaded with asphalt at the mine and was brought via the tram to Moyers’ depot. Although the rails have long since been taken up, the tram’s elevated track bed

Track bed

A track bed or trackbed is the term used to describe the groundwork onto which a railway track is laid. Trackbeds of disused railways are sometimes used for recreational paths or new light rail links....

—a significant man-made structure—is still clearly evident from a quarter-mile west of the Moyers school along its route around Parker Mountain.

The first known mention of Moyers occurred in 1904, when an Antlers newspaper referred to the settlement as “Moyer’s Spur”. The term may have referred to the tram, which was a rail spur off the Frisco Railroad, and “Moyer” was a reference to Roy Abraham Moyer, a local settler. It was not until 1910 that Moyer’s Spur became known as “Moyers”, the name it continues by today.. It received its United States Post Office on June 7, 1895.

In addition to logging

Logging

Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...

 and the railroad, Moyers became home to additional industry in 1907 when the Gulf Pipe Line Company—which was constructing a natural gas pipeline northward from the Texas gulf coast—built a pumping station

Pumping station

Pumping stations are facilities including pumps and equipment for pumping fluids from one place to another. They are used for a variety of infrastructure systems, such as the supply of water to canals, the drainage of low-lying land, and the removal of sewage to processing sites.A pumping station...

 southwest of the settlement, near Ten Mile Creek in the Rocky Point area. The pumping station was an important facility for the pipe line, and kept it operational for many miles north and south in either direction. A sizeable crew was stationed there, and was popular among local townspeople in Moyers and Antlers.

Lumber

Lumber

Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....

 would prove as beneficial to Moyers as it did earlier to Kosoma. The Walter-Hopkins Lumber Company established a presence there which proved so profitable that, by 1911, it built a sizable new store and office. From those humble origins it grew so that in succeeding decades Moyers came to resemble a “company town

Company town

A company town is a town or city in which much or all real estate, buildings , utilities, hospitals, small businesses such as grocery stores and gas stations, and other necessities or luxuries of life within its borders are owned by a single company...

” – Walter-Hopkins owned many of the stores, homes, and much of the property in the town. It operated large lumber yards and a sawmill which came to employ many local men and lend Moyers what it has not had since: an industrial skyline

Skyline

A skyline is the overall or partial view of a city's tall buildings and structures consisting of many skyscrapers in front of the sky in the background. It can also be described as the artificial horizon that a city's overall structure creates. Skylines serve as a kind of fingerprint of a city, as...

 complete with chimneys, towering machinery and conveyors. It remained in operation through the 1950s, after which its closure sent Moyers into a steep decline.

Transportation was provided by the Frisco Railroad, which offered six trains per day—three in each direction—until it closed to passenger traffic during the late 1950s. It continued freight operations until 1981, when it closed altogether and its rails were removed. The loss of passenger rail fortunately coincided with the construction of Oklahoma State Highway 2. It offered a paved, graded route all the way from Antlers to north of Moyers, at the turn-off to Baugh’s Prairie and Big Mountain. (It was later completed in the 1980s.) Until this time overland transportation was problematic at best—particularly the portion of road at Rodney Mountain (itself named after Rodney Moyer), between Moyers and Kellond.

The road, where it passed the foot of Rodney Mountain near Ten Mile Creek, “…is so rough that a farmer going to town with a can of cream

Cream

Cream is a dairy product that is composed of the higher-butterfat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, over time, the lighter fat rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream this process is accelerated by using centrifuges called "separators"...

, found that the cream had been churned, and he had butter

Butter

Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...

,” according to one observer in 1926. Local conditions stayed pretty much the same until the opening of the state highway thirty years later.

During World War II the Moyers area was the site of two lethal air crashes. British pilots operating from a Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 base in Texas crashed into White Rock Mountain and Big Mountain

Big Mountain (Oklahoma)

Big Mountain is a mountain in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma. It is part of the Kiamichi Mountains, a subrange of the Ouachita Mountains.- Geology :...

, killing four crew men. Two planes were destroyed. A third plane crash-landed successfully at Jumbo

Jumbo, Oklahoma

Jumbo is a community in western Pushmataha County, Oklahoma, 10 miles north of Miller, Oklahoma.- History :A United States Post Office was established for Jumbo, Indian Territory on November 8, 1906...

. On February 20, 2000 the AT6 Monument

AT6 Monument

The AT6 Monument is a granite memorial to Royal Air Force cadets who were killed while on a training flight during World War II. It stands on Big Mountain, north of Moyers, Oklahoma, and was dedicated on February 20, 2000—the 58th anniversary of the deadly crashes.- Background :The United Kingdom...

 was dedicated in the fliers' honor at the crash site on Big Mountain. Over 1,000 people attended the ceremony, and the story was carried by the British Broadcasting Corporation and many newspapers around the world.

Moyers, at this writing, has a post office

Post office

A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...

, one general store

General store

A general store, general merchandise store, or village shop is a rural or small town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, sometimes in a small space, where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general...

 and one church, and a number of homes, both in the immediate vicinity and adjacent areas. It has regained its public junior high and high school –lost during the 1960s—and now educates local children from kindergarten

Kindergarten

A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...

 through 12th grade. Over 100 years after lending the settlement its name, the Moyer family continues to live nearby. Ms. Jimi Moyer Cocke lives on a ranch

Ranch

A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...

 just south of Rodney Mountain.

Geology

Moyers is located in a very picturesque area with varied topography

Topography

Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...

. To its south is Rodney Mountain. To its immediate north is Parker Mountain, with the taller Whiterock Mountain rising behind it. East of Moyers is the Kiamichi River, and west is a relatively flat expanse connecting it to the Impson Valley. Buck Creek, a well-watered and dependable spring-fed stream rising in the mountains north of Whiterock Mountain, flows through a sharply-defined valley

Valley

In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys...

 north of Moyers to its confluence with the Kiamichi. Ten Mile Creek—also spring-fed but more seasonally-dependent—flows east and south of Moyers. Two significant manmade structures are nearby, and due to their size and permanence have become a part of local topography: the elevated beds of the rail spur winding around the base of Parker Mountain, and the Frisco Railroad.