Bryan County, Oklahoma: History
The area now known as Bryan County was occupied by the Choctaw tribe in 1831–2. After the tribe reestablished its government in the Indian Territory, it included much of the area within Blue County, a part of the Pushmataha District of the Choctaw Nation.
In 1845, the tribe opened Armstrong Academy for boys near the community of Bokchito. The academy served as Chahta Tamaha, the Choctaw capital, during the Civil War.
Bloomfield Academy, a school for Chickasaw girls, was opened in 1852, just south of the present town of Achille.
Prior to the Chickasaw removal to Indian Territory, the Chickasaw tribe bought part of the Choctaw allocation. The western quarter of today's Bryan County was made part of the Chickasaw District in 1837. When the two tribes formally separated into two distinct nations in 1855, the Chickasaw District became the Chickasaw Nation.
During the late 1850s, the Butterfield Overland Mail and Stage route followed the older Texas Road across the present county. General Albert Pike established Fort McCulloch for the Confederate Army near the present town of Kenefic on the Blue River. Although no Civil War battles occurred in the vicinity, the fort was garrisoned by more than a thousand Indian troops whose leaders were allied with the Confederates.
After the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway (Katy) built a north–south line through this area in 1872, several new towns were created. One such town was Colbert, which became the seat of Blue County and the largest town in the Choctaw Nation. The St. Louis, San Francisco and New Orleans Railroad, later bought by the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway (Frisco), built an east–west line in 1903.
Just prior to statehood, when all tribal governments were dissolved, Blue County was extinguished. Bryan County was officially established on November 16, 1907, and Durant was designated as the county seat.
The Bridge War, also called the Red River Bridge War or the Toll Bridge War, was a 1931 bloodless boundary conflict between the U.S. states of Oklahoma and Texas over an existing toll bridge and a new free bridge crossing the Red River between Grayson County, Texas and Bryan County, Oklahoma.