Durant () is a city in and the county seat of Bryan County, Oklahoma, United States. Its population was 18,589 in the 2020 census. It is the home of the headquarters of the Choctaw Nation, and is the largest settlement on the reservation, ranking ahead of McAlester and Poteau. The city was founded by Dixon Durant, a Choctaw who lived in the area,Phipps p. 180 after the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad came through the Indian Territory in the early 1870s. It became the county seat of Bryan County in 1907 after Oklahoma statehood. The city is officially known as the Magnolia Capital of Oklahoma. Durant is home to Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
History
The Durant area was once claimed by both Spain and France, before officially becoming part of the United States after the Louisiana Purchase and Adams–Onís Treaty. During the 1820s and 1830s, the area was designated as part of the Choctaw Nation in the southern Indian Territory. During the Indian removals, the Choctaws followed the Choctaw Trail of Tears from their ancestral homeland in Mississippi and Alabama into this area. The Choctaw Nation originally extended from the Mexican border in the west (now part of the Texas Panhandle) to the Arkansas Territory in the east, from the Red River in the south to the South Canadian River in the north. In 1855, the Choctaw and Chickasaws formally divided their land into two separate nations, with Durant remaining in Choctaw territory on the east. Chickasaw land extended west to the boundary that divided the Indian Territory from the Oklahoma Territory after passage of the Oklahoma Organic Act in 1890.
Pierre Durant and his four sons, all of French-Choctaw origin, made the journey up the Trail of Tears on the way to the southeastern part of the Choctaw Nation in 1832. The brothers, grown and with families of their own, established homesteads from the Arkansas line to Durant. One son, Fisher, married to a full-blood Choctaw, found a beautiful location for a home between Durant's present Eighth and Ninth Avenues. At the time of Durant's founding, it was located in Blue County, a part of the Pushmataha District of the Choctaw Nation.Morris, John W. Historical Atlas of Oklahoma (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1986), plate 38.
Fisher Durant's son Dixon Durant is recognized as the founder of Durant and is honored as its namesake. A minister, businessman, and civic leader, Dixon Durant is credited with pastorates in local Presbyterian, Congregational, and Methodist churches. He established the first store selling general merchandise in 1873,Milligan, Keith L. "Durant," Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Oklahoma Historical Society, 2009. Accessed April 15, 2015. around the time of the 1872 creation of the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad (Katy Railroad) siding at Durant, which was the initial impetus for establishing the community.
The Missouri-Kansas and Texas Railway (also known as the MKT or "Katy") had already laid a line through the area that would become Durant by November 1882. A wheelless boxcar was parked on the siding there and named "Durant Station". Dixon Durant erected the first building, adjacent to the boxcar, where he opened a general store in 1873. The first post office, also named as Durant Station, Indian Territory, opened February 20, 1879, but closed on July 11, 1881. A.E. Fulsom was postmaster.Foreman, p. 6 The U.S. Postal Service re-established the post office at the site as Durant on March 8, 1882, dropping the word "station" from the name. Beginning in 1882, the area was simply called Durant.
W.H. Hilton was elected the first mayor of Durant.
A memorable event in Durant's rail history occurred on April 5, 1905. A special southbound Katy train stopped in the city with President Theodore Roosevelt aboard.
In 1895, a fire destroyed the original business district, which had spread along the Katy tracks.
Calvin Institute was opened in 1894, representing the first institute of higher education in the immediate area, which was an outgrowth of Presbyterian mission work among the Choctaw Indian Nation. Its success led it being reopened as a larger school, Durant Presbyterian College, in 1901, later renamed as Oklahoma Presbyterian College. After statehood became effective on November 16, 1907, the state legislature created the Southeastern State Normal School at Durant, which opened March 6, 1909. This school was renamed Southeastern State Teachers College in 1921, and renamed again in 1974 as the present Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
Further growth of the town was inhibited by its proximity to the larger town of Caddo (also on the Katy line) and the fact that Dixon Durant did not want to sell more of the land he had inherited to non-Indians. From 1902 to 1903, the St. Louis, San Francisco and New Orleans Railroad, an affiliate of the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway (also known as "SL&SF" or "Frisco") had intended to build an east–west line through Caddo, where it would intersect the Katy. A rapid land price increase near Caddo instead caused the Frisco to bypass it in favor of Durant. With .
In 1904, Durant was named in a grand jury instruction as a sundown town, where a notice had been posted warning African Americans not to stay after dark.
Bryan County was created from Choctaw lands in 1907, the same time as statehood, and was named after William Jennings Bryan, who was nominated three times for President of the United States and at the age of 36 lost to William McKinley. He lost to McKinley again in 1900, and to William H. Taft in 1908. Woodrow Wilson appointed the county's namesake as United States Secretary of State in 1913.
The Oklahoma Constitutional Convention selected Durant as the county seat for Bryan County, Oklahoma, which would supersede Blue County at statehood. In 1908, a special election ratified this choice over three other candidates for the honor: Bokchito, Blue, and Sterrett (later renamed Calera).
The Bryan County Courthouse in downtown Durant was completed in 1917. Before the courthouse stands a Confederate monument, erected in the same year by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Eleven people were killed in Durant by a tornado in April 1919.
The town's population grew from 2,969 in 1900 to 5,330 in 1910, 12,823 in 1990, and to 13,549 in 2000.
The Durant Downtown Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
1911 lynching
John Lee was an African American man who was lynched on August 12, 1911, in Durant, Oklahoma. He was subjected to a brutal act of mob violence, denial of judicial due process, and the desecration of his body posthumously. The event is a reflection of the racial tensions and injustices prevalent in the United States during the early 20th century. The book Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America by Twin Palms Publishers includes a photo from Durant on August 13, 1911, of a group of townspeople burning the body of an African American man named John Lee.
The author of Without Sanctuary summarizes, "According to the August 14 issue of the Durant Daily Democrat, Lee died at 11:15 pm at the hands of a posse of 500. An additional 1,500 citizens were estimated to have been involved in the manhunt. Reports indicate that Lee exchanged gunfire with his would-be captors until his ammunition was spent. The posse "calmly emptied their guns into his body". Lee was accused of a range of crimes, the most serious of which was the critical wounding of a white woman, Mrs. Fanny Campbell. She identified the corpse as that of her assailant. Mrs. Campbell expired later the same day. The mob took John Lee's body to a vacant lot near the railroad tracks, where they built a pyre of gathered lumber and set the remains on fire. It burned from nine in the morning until late in the afternoon. All that remained were ashes and a "few charred parcels". Whites rioted throughout the town of Durant. The city's remaining blacks were warned "not to let the sun go down on them here". All left by sunset. Rumors spread that blacks were organizing to return and avenge Lee's death. Durant's white citizens armed for the coming "race war". In several days, without additional violence, tensions calmed.
Geography
Durant is located in southeast Oklahoma, in a region named Texoma, or Texomaland, because of its short distance from Lake Texoma. The city is also part of Choctaw Country, formerly Kiamichi Country. Its geographic coordinates are (33.999834, −96.384825). It is about north of the Texas border at the Red River. Dallas is about south of Durant. The north edge of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, in McKinney, is about to the south.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city of Durant has a total area of , of which , or 0.24%, is covered by water.
Climate
Demographics
Durant is the principal city of the Durant micropolitan statistical area, which had a population of 46,067 in 2020. The city and its micropolitan area are a major part of the Texoma region.
Durant is also part of the Dallas–Fort Worth combined statistical area, anchoring the northern edge.
2020 census As of the 2020 census, Durant had a population of 18,589. The median age was 32.1 years; 24.2% of the residents were under 18 and 14.6% were 65 or older. For every 100 females, there were 93.0 males, and for every 100 females 18 and over, there were 91.0 males 18 and over.
About 88.5% of residents lived in urban areas, while 11.5% lived in rural areas.
Of the 7,189 households in Durant, 32.7% had children under 18 living in them, 36.5% were married-couple households, 20.4% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 33.8% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 30.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.8% had someone living alone who was 65 or older.
The city had 7,887 housing units, of which 8.9% were vacant. Among occupied housing units, 43.0% were owner-occupied and 57.0% were renter-occupied. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.5% and the rental vacancy rate was 7.0%.
+ Racial composition as of the 2020 census Race Percentage White 63.1% Black or African American 2.5% American Indian and Alaska Native 14.5% Asian 1.0% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander <0.1% Some other race 4.4% Two or more races 14.4% Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 10.3%
2010 census As of the census of 2010,U.S. Census website, United States Census Bureau. (accessed September 2013) 15,856 people and 3,651 families were residing in the city. The population density was , with 7,202 housing units. About 74.7% of the city's population were White, 13.3% were Native American, and 2.2% were Black or African American. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 7.1% of the population. Individuals of mixed Native American and White heritage accounted for 4.8% of the population. Less than 1% of the population was Asian or Pacific Islander.
2000 census Durant's first census was recorded in 1900, and the population was 2,969. The 2000 census reported Durant's population as 13,549.
Of the 6,331 households in the city, 26.0% had children under 18 living with them, 37.3% were married couples living together, 14.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.3% were not families. Individuals living alone accounted for 32.9% of households and 25.3% had someone living alone who was 65 or older. The average household size was 2.34, and the average family size was 2.96.
In the city, the age distribution was 22.0% under 18, 18.6% from 18 to 24, 24.8% from 25 to 44, 20.4% from 45 to 64, and 14.2% who were 65 or older. The median age was 30.9 years. Females were 51.4% of the population; males were 48.6%.