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The span is of vital interest to him for he has had an important part in this locality's development. The agile hands that threw the rope on the cattle ranges of the nation became possessed of a sort of magic when he abandoned the career of a cow- puncher and took up that of contractor and builder. The frontier village of Atoka was transformed into a modern little city because of the activities of such men as he. His ideas and his hands conceived and helped to construct the beautiful MCARTHUR home that is now owned by J. O. KUYKENDALL, one of the wealthiest men of Eastern Oklahoma, the W. H. REYNOLDS home, the J. A. CLINE home, the L. C. LEFLORE home, the William HILDWELL residence, the J. R. RAY home and the residence of R. R. PHILLIPS. These are the names of men and families that during the last forty years have been conspicuous in Atoka's progress and they dot the span that reaches from the early Indian and missionary settlements to the modern days. In more recent years the activities of Mr. Long have again been conspicuous, for as a member of the board of county commissioners he took a leading part in the construction of a modern brick county courthouse and jail that cost $67,100. It became his duty - the duty of his board - under recent state laws to survey and build public highways. This accomplished a transformation of important history value, for the county was for fifty years without roads save those the pioneers traveled out through convenient routes. The transformation was practically from cow trails to modern highways. Two state highways were made to thread the county, one running north and south and the other east and west. County highways were also established, and in the three years following 1912, when Mr. Long entered the office of county commissioner, rapid progress was made in laying out and improving section lines. In this respect Atoka County took the lead of some of its neighbors in the Indian country. One of these county highways extends from Atoka to Wapanucka through the historic Village of Boggy Depot and another traverses the lands formerly held by Chief ATOKA, after whom Dr. J. S. MURROW, founder of the Village of Atoka, named this village. In 1915 about seventy bridges, of more or less magnitude, had been constructed. One of these that cost $7,000 was erected in the mountain region east of Atoka on the east-west state highway. The board of county commissioners, of which in 1915 Ira STEPHENSON of Caney and T. M. DYER of Wardville, were the other members, also has taken a forward step in the agricultural development of the county in making annual appropriations for part of the salary of a United States farm demonstration agent. Robert E. Long was born at Decatur, Wise County, Texas, in 1873, and is a son of Joseph and Mary (BRIDGES) Long. His father, who is a native of Missouri, settled in Texas in the '50s, and engaged in the cattle business, leaving that enterprise in 1861 to enter the Confederate army in which he served during the war between the states, following which he entered the service of the Texas Rangers with whom he was identified for several years. He is now living at Atoka at the age of seventy years. Mr. Long's mother is of Choctaw descent, her father having emigrated from Mississippi to Texas after the migration of the Choctaws to Indian Territory. Unlike many red men he was not proud of his Indian blood and never asked, but on the contrary eschewed, enrollment with the Choctaw tribe in Indian Territory. There were the following children in the family of Joseph and Mary Long: Robert E.; Mrs. L. SHOPE, wife of a conductor on the Texas Pacific Railroad, at Bonham, Texas; Joseph Newton, a brakeman on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad, living at Atoka; Thomas, who is engaged in farming in Atoka county; Wesley, who was an employe [sic] of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad and was killed on that road December 13, 1900; Martha Adline FALKNER, who lives at Ada, Oklahoma; Samuel H., a conductor on the Frisco Railroad, who was killed while in the service, near Frances, Oklahoma, in 1911, and Edwin Long, who lives in Coleman, Oklahoma, engaged in the drug business. When he was nine years of age, Robert E. Long came to Atoka county with his parents, and here entered the subscription school. His first activities were as a cowboy on the ranch of D. N. ROBB, of Brush Creek, near Atoka. Later for two years he was employed on the ranch of A. L. DULANEY, leaving that work to learn the trade of carpenter under John MCAFEE, one of the earliest contractors in the Choctaw Nation. Still later he worked under J. H. JACKSON, another early-day contractor. Among his early teachers were B. S. SMYSER, a pioneer of Atoka County; E. H. RISHEL, now of Oklahoma City, who once was superintendent of the Atoka Baptist Academy. Among his schoolmates was Governor LOCKE, who is now principal chief of the Choctaw Nation. Mr. Long was married at Atoka, in 1898, to Miss Belle UPCHURCH. They have four children: Mabel, who was born in 1901; Helen, born in 1903; Robert E., Jr., born in 1912 and Dorothy, born in 1914. Mr. And Mrs. Long are consistent members of the Methodist Church. His fraternal connections are with the Masons, the Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World, and he holds membership also in the Carpenters' Union. For six years he was district deputy grand chancellor of the Knights of Pythias lodge, and for nine years has been a member of the grand lodge of the state. Typed for OKGenWeb by Sherry Van Scoy Hall, November 1, 1998.