The Town That Couldn

The Town That Couldn’t Keep a Name.

With the end of the Civil War, the Treaty of 1866 between the U.S. Government and the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations freed the African slaves of these tribes. These “freedmen” were given 40 acres of land to farm in the Nations. Many settled in a community north of the confluence of Caddo Creek and the Washita on the southern slopes of the Arbuckle Mountains.

There was no store in the area and the freedmen would travel ten miles across the Arbuckle foothills to Old Mill Creek and to the store of Jimmy Davis and mill of Cyrus Harris located on the west bank of Mill Creek today located on the Penner ranch five miles southeast of Sulphur. Here the freedmen would buy provisions and have their grain milled.

Walker Martin was the only white man in the settlement moving to the area about 1868. He lived near where Caddo Creek empties into the Washita River. He moved here from Atoka, where he had operated a large grape press. After he moved to the Washita, he began the cultivation of a large orchard and grape vineyard, and people went for miles to buy fruit and wine from him.

In 1869, Charlie Henderson came to the area and established a store and the area became known as Henderson’s Flat. After the ferry was established in 1870, the area became know as Henderson’s Ferry. In July of 1883 a post office was established called Lou.

The Washita was notorious for flooding and on one occasion when the little settlement was nearly washed away, what was left was moved up the hill a few hundred yards and a new community was established. In November of 1883, the name of the post office was changed to Dresden.

In 1884, the Santa Fe Railroad came through the Arbuckles and a siding was established a few hundred yards up the hill from Dresden. The townsfolk decided to move the town to the siding where there would be more commerce for the businesses and farmers. The railroad section hands had named the new siding Berwyn after a town in their home state of Pennsylvania. The post office name was changed from Dresden to Berwyn in October of 1884.

Things seemed to settle down for the next fifty years. Then, one day a guitar picking, cowboy singer took a job as telegrapher at the Berwyn railroad station. One day a train stopped with the famous Vaudevillian comedian Will Rogers on board. When Rogers took time to stretch his legs at the station he heard the young telegrapher named Gene Autry playing and singing. He went up to the young man and handed him his card. He told Autry, “Hey Kid, you’re pretty good, if you are ever in New York look me up.” The rest is history as they say.

In January of 1942, the post office name was changed to honor the former resident and the community became known as Gene Autry. So the community was known as Henderson Flats, Henderson Ferry, Lou, Dresden, Berwyn and Gene Autry over the span of seventy years. As far as I can determine, there is no other town in Oklahoma that has had as many changes in it’s name as the town that couldn’t keep a name.