NEBO, C.N., I.T.


Located  eight miles south and 1 1/2 west of Sulphur on highway 177, the Community of Nebo was established in 1887 by local farmer Hardel Wells.  For some time, Hardel's ranch house was used as a posting place for notes so neighbors could exchange information. 

When the Santa Fe railroad ran through Dougherty in 1887, a post office  was established there with a mail route going to Hickory and Old Mill Creek (eastern Murray County).  Although the mail ran past his place, Hardel could not get the mail dropped of at his ranch.  He finally got a post office established on August 22, 1890 and lasted until Feb 15, 1922.  A name was requested for the post office.  Hardel, being a devout Christian suggested Mount Nebo.  The Post Office Department shortened it to just Nebo.

John and Sam Rogers came from Kentucky shortly there after and built a store in Nebo.  The post office was moved to the store.  There was an Indian school in Nebo as well as the school for the settler's children.  At one time, Nebo had three general stores, a pool hall,  gambling house, two cotton gins and two blacksmith shops.

In 1901 a telephone toll line was run to Davis.  After Statehood, a new school was built half way between the old school and Howe's Store.  For the second time in ninety days, the Nebo post office was robbed of $66 on June 12, 1912.

The beginning of the end for Nebo came when the Rogers general store burned and the dynamite store exploded and nearly leveled the town.  The cotton gin burned and then to add insult to injury, the U.S. Marshal padlocked the only honkey-tonk.  When the new highway between Sulphur and Ardmore was laid a mile and a half to the east, that was the end of the town.  The post office was moved to Howe's Store on the highway and finally closed.

 


Dennis Muncrief,  November 19, 2000.