Draft:Kiamichi Wilderness

The region's potential for tourism was noted as early as 1961 by longtime residents, who noted the tall bluffs along White Rock Mountain (which anchors the southern edge of Kiamichi Wilderness), including one that appeared to be "hundreds of feet high" with a view from the top of at least eight miles. ^[2] Another described it as "a geological phenomenon unsurpassed as a potential tourist attraction."^[3] But neither the state nor the county opened a park here, and the potential went unrealized.

A bustling, rural residential community mixed with a tourism was floated as an idea ten years later^[4], but it was not until October 1975 that an organization called Kiamichi Wilderness, Inc., began the process by launching its business plan. In 1976 the organization announced plans to open a residential development sprawling across over 10,000 acres of undeveloped, unoccupied mountains north of Moyers, Oklahoma. The initial concept was for a mix of residential properties and tourist camps. The development was promoted heavily in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and marketed as weekend getaways for urban dwellers.^[5]

Advertisements featuring Kiamichi Wilderness appeared in newspapers across north Texas for several years, particularly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.^[6] Advertisements also aired on country-western radio station WBAP-AM of Dallas.^[7]As part of the promotion effort a yearly "bluegrass jamboree" was established in 1977. The event ran for at least three years.^[8]

The nucleus of what is now called Kiamichi Wilderness was founded as Pine Tree Estates; it was established on the south end of the development. Pine Tree Estates included a tourist area called Choctaw Village, which held 120 campsites as well as the tourist camp headquarters. This area was comprised of 8,913 acres.^[9] The tourism aspect of Kiamichi Wilderness has since been abandoned and it no longer includes campgrounds for tourist use. Decades later the concept proved commercially viable and a campground now operates along the Kiamichi River south of the Kiamichi Wilderness.

At its founding, Kiamichi Wilderness comprised 12,233 acres, which was divided and sold as tracts. Most of these were a minimum of five-acre parcels. The Kiamichi Wilderness centered on Big Mountain (elevation 1,145 feet), and also on portions of neighboring Flat Top Mountain (1,184 feet), Box Springs Mountain (1,047 feet), Horsehead Mountain (1,043 feet) and White Rock Mountain (1,027 feet) and was bounded, roughly, by the Buck Creek valley on the south, Johns Valley on the north, and Impson Valley on the west.

A group of North Texas investors capitalized Kiamichi Wilderness, Inc., which was organized and headed by Silas “Si” Rickman, formerly vice president of Metroplex Properties in Dallas. The group experienced difficulties and declared bankruptcy soon after the development opened, with everyone who purchased land there being thrown into limbo. It resumed business again in March 1977.^[10]

Bankruptcy did not seriously damage the overall business concept, and by the close of 1980 almost all of Kiamichi Wilderness’s acreage had been sold. By that point the Wilderness had been organized into three development phases: Phase One, which sold out the first year, consists of properties lying inside the entry gate. Phases Two and Three lie generally to the west of it, and are progressively more difficult to reach, with much of Phase Three being accessible only during fair weather and with appropriate vehicles.^[11]

The area features 26 miles of streams and mountain scenery. Several ponds and small lakes were built across the Wilderness for use by wildlife. Its early-day motto was “Seclusion (Even Isolation, If Desired)”. A landowners association and volunteer fire department were organized, and continue operating today. A guard shack provided 24-hour gate security at the only entrance to the area.^[12]

In 1981 a church was built to serve the residents of the Wilderness and tourists who camped there. The building, enclosed in glass to allow congregants a complete view of the scenery outside, was just north of the Choctaw Village campground. It seated up to 200 people.^[13] Today the only substantial public building is the fire department.

The venture, which Rickman called a “recreational gateway,” was said upon his death to be one of his proudest achievements.^[14]

Kiamichi Wilderness exists because of the rugged and tranquil nature of its setting in the Kiamichi Mountains. The mountains are ancient. In their prime between 358 to 323 million years ago, they reached a height of 17,000 feet. They have eroded steadily since then. Today the tallest summits reach 1,650 feet elsewhere in Pushmataha County, although not in the vicinity of the Kiamichi Wilderness, and to a height of 2,500 feet further north toward the river’s headwaters.^[15]

Despite its name, Kiamichi Wilderness was never a formal preserve or reserve. It was not known as Kiamichi Wilderness until the 1970s, and until that time bore no particular name or identity, except geologically: it is bounded on the north by Johns Valley, on the south by Buck Creek valley, on the east by the Kiamichi River valley, and to the west by Impson Valley. It is not associated with the Choctaw Nation, aside from being located within its larger reservation.

The area has always been sparsely settled, mostly due to its mountainous and isolated nature, and was never home to an organized settlement.

Logging operations began during waning days of the Indian Territory and operated from the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad stations and adjacent lumberyards at Moyers and Kosoma. Much of the old-growth forests were removed from these mountains during the succeeding decades. A logging tram, or railroad, began operating from Moyers in 1909 and accessed the western portions of Kiamichi Wilderness via Buck Creek valley. It ceased operation during World War I. Track extended as much as eight miles northwest of Moyers, branching off the Buck Creek main line into what is today the Kiamichi Wilderness via the valley of Caney Creek.^[16]

Prior to statehood the area fell within Jack's Fork County, Choctaw Nation, itself a constituent part of a larger administrative and judicial province called the Pushmataha District. The county seat of Jack's Fork County was Many Springs Courthouse, near the area known today as Daisy. The district capital was Mayhew Courthouse, near present-day Boswell. Since Oklahoma’s statehood in 1907 the area of the Kiamichi Wilderness falls within Pushmataha County.^[17]