THE TOWN OF BOLEY, OK

 Founded in 1903, Boley, Oklahoma, located in the central part of Okfuskee County, is of national historical significance because it is representative of the many towns established by African Americans who migrated from the South to northern and western communities in hopes of escaping oppression and making new lives for themselves.  The town, named for a white official of the Fort Smith and Western Railroad who had encouraged its development, began as a rural community of Creek Indian Freedmen.  The townsite was a propitious one for starting an all-black community because it was located on fertile farm land which had been allotted to the Creek Indian Freedmen.  Many of these families, the Barnetts, Walkers, Graysons, and Johnsons, to name a few, became the town’s leading citizens.

Thomas M. Haynes was chosen as the town-site mayor.  The towns construction began on 160 acres which belong to Abigail Barnett McCormick who inherited the land from the government because she was a daughter of James Barnett, a Creek Freedman.  Additions were made to the original site until it comprised about three hundred acres.

 

By means of massive advertising, T.M. Haynes publicly announced the purposes of the town and invited blacks to come and settle here.  Boley was portrayed as a haven from oppression and a place where blacks could govern themselves.  Mr. J.B. Boley, the Fort Smith and Western Town site Manager, supported this theory.  This is why the town was named for him.

 

On September 22, 1904, a formal opening of the Town of Boley was held.  On March 30, 1905, T.M. Haynes, H.C. Cavil, and Hilliard Taylor presented a petition for incorporation signed by 200 of Boley’s citizens to the Western District of the Federal Court at Sapulpa, Oklahoma.  The petition was heard and granted on May 10, 1905, and immediately thereafter the first election of town officials was held.  The election was enthusiastically supported by the town’s inhabitants, many of whom had never been able to participate in a political process before.  Booker T. Washington, after a visit to Boley in 1905, declared that it was, “the most enterprising, and in many ways the most interesting of the Negro towns in the United States.”

 

The Boley Progress, the town’s first newspaper, did much to sustain interest in the town’s growth and prosperity.  In 1911, the town was comprised of a population near 4000 residents.  Boley’s commercial district in 1911, as recorded in “Facts About Boley, Oklahoma”, a booklet published by the Commercial Club of Boley, included one bank, five grocery stores, five hotels, seven restaurants, four cotton gins, three drug stores, one jewelry store, four department stores, two livery stables, two insurance agencies, an undertaking establishment, one lumberyard, two photographers, and an ice plan, to name only a few of the town’s businesses.

 

Boley’s social institutions and public buildings included numerous churches, schools, including a home for delinquent Negro boys and a Masonic Temple, to which all black Masons in the state made a yearly pilgrimage.  Eastern Star and other fraternal orders came regularly.

 

The Great Depression in the late 1920’s and the mid-30’s caused great economic difficulties  for Boley.  Many residents moved away and the migration of new residents came to a standstill.  The Depression of the 1930’s dealt Boley a blow from which it has never recovered.  During the 1930’s, times were so bleak for Boleyites that the population dwindled to about a thousand inhabitants as many of its townspeople moved away to seek work in the nearby cities as well as western and northern states.

 

On November 22, 1932, Boley was the victim of an unsuccessful attempt by a contingent of the Pretty Boy Floyd’s gang to rob the Farmers & Merchants Bank.  The robbers, two white and one black, killed the bank president, D.J. Turner.  They were, in turn, killed by H.C. McCormick, the bank’s assistant cashier, and by officers and vigilantes who had assembled outside the bank.

 

Boley is today as much a town of opportunity and challenge as it was in it’s early days.  The town’s population holds steady at around 900.  Its businesses include a manufacturing company, one cafe, one funeral home, a gas station, a hardware store, and assisted living facilities.

 

Boley has a modern water system and a modern telephone system.  There are several churches and an elementary school.  It has a town hall, a volunteer fire department, a museum, and police protection.

 

In recent years, major events, developments and accomplishments have included the Annual Boley Rodeo and BBQ Festival, which started in 1961; an annual Founders Day Celebration, Flip Wilson Day, honoring our Honorary Police Chief, the Boley Chamber of Commerce Banquet, which features governors, senators, congressmen, university presidents as guest speakers, the renovation of the Boley Public Library, the Boley Area Newsletter, and information service sponsored by the Boley Chamber of Commerce, and historical museum, the erection of street and traffic signs, and re-pavement of major streets.

 

Come visit us located on Highway 62, sixty-eight miles southwest of Tulsa and sixty-two miles east of Oklahoma City.

 

If you are looking for a retirement haven, Boley is the place!  If you have a business acumen for establishing another business or other industry, Boley will welcome you!