Bryan County OKGenWeb is a proud member of The USGenWeb Project®. Our Project's network of sites provide free genealogical information for every state and county in the US. Our goal is to keep genealogy free for family historians and researchers who wish to learn more about where they came from.
I'm Linda K. Lewis, County Coordinator for Bryan Co, OKGenWeb. I lived in Durant for many years, my children were born in Durant, and many of my ancestors were born or lived in the county. I hope you will find resources here to help you with your family research. We readily accept contributions of lists of data, like wills, deeds, cemetery listings, surname lists, etc. Contact me if you'd like to contribute resources to this site to help keep genealogy research free. We accept any an all resources such as photos, County surnames, family trees, family histories, historical information, family Bible info, cemetery transcriptions, and pretty much anything of value to genealogy research!
New content is added periodically, so be sure to see What's New in Bryan County OKGenWeb to find a potential new resource.
Main Street Looking West - Durant, OK
Bryan County was named for Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, a contributor to the 1907 Oklahoma Constitution. Bryan County was originally settled by the Choctaw shortly after their first removal, 1831-1832; however, the one-fourth of the western portion of the county was allotted to the Chickasaw at the time of their removal, 1837-1840.
Bryan County has a long educational history. In 1845, the Choctaw established Armstrong Academy (for boys) that also served as the capital of the Choctaw Nation during the Civil War. In 1852, the Chickasaw established the Bloomfield Academy (for Chickasaw girls). In 1909, the first institution of higher learning in southeastern Oklahoma was established as Southeastern Normal School, now Southeastern Oklahoma State University. In 1910, the Oklahoma Presbyterian College for Girls was established. These buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. From 1975-2018, the buildings served as the Choctaw Nation's administrative headquarters.
Bryan County and many of its towns were developed as part of the transportation industry. "Several towns sprang into existence with the arrival of the first north-south railroad, the Missouri Kansas and Texas Railway (MK&T, or Katy). Choctaw and White businessmen built the towns of Caddo, Durant, Calera, and Colbert, near the former Colbert's Ferry crossing on the Red River, to serve the train traffic".
All information on this site was obtained by the Bryan County OKGenWeb team and from contributions from people like you. If you'd like to help make Bryan County OKGenWeb even better, please consider contributing copies of your photos, family names, and County indexes to this website.
County Coordinator: Linda K. Lewis
State Coordinator: Linda Simpson