Broken Bow, Oklahoma
2012.12.20
When the Choctaw Nation reached the end of their Trail of Tears in the early 1830’s, one of the small villages they created was called Con-Chito, near the Kiamichi Mountains subrange of the Ouachita Mountains. This location is now downtown Broken Bow, Oklahoma.
Two-year-old Hans Dierks immigrated from Germany in 1852 with his parents; they settled in Iowa. In the early 1880’s, Hans became part owner of several lumberyards there. After selling out and opening a new location in Broken Bow, Nebraska, he was joined by three younger brothers. In 1895, they reorganized as the Dierks Lumber and Coal Company in Lincoln, Nebraska, and expanded to other towns in Nebraska, Iowa, and North Dakota. Little more than a year later, Hans and the headquarters moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where they gained access to the wholesale trade in southern yellow pine.
In 1897, they purchased a small planing mill in Petros (near present-day Heavener, Oklahoma). But the mill was at the northern edge of the pine forests and supply difficulties made the venture a failure. Undaunted, around 1900 they purchased another mill in De Queen, Arkansas, and Herman Dierks moved down to manage operations there. Learning from their experiences at Petros, Dierks began to purchase timberlands and other lumber companies.
In 1904, the Dierks approached the Choctaw Nation to acquire timberlands and coal mining rights in McCurtain, Le Flore, and Pushmataha counties. A subsidiary of Dierks Coal and Lumber Company was formed for the new timber operations, called the Choctaw Lumber Company.
They founded two company mill towns in Oklahoma. The first, in 1909, they named Bismark after the North Dakota town where they had formerly operated a lumberyard. During World War I, due to negative associations with German chancellor Otto Von Bismarck, the name was changed to Wright, and in 1920, Wright City. The second town, platted in 1911, was Broken Bow, named after the town in Nebraska where, again, they had operated a lumberyard. The two mills could process 250,000 feet of pine and 60,000 feet of hardwoods each day.
In 1969, Dierks Forests and various subsidiaries owned and operated 1.8 million acres of timberlands, three saw mills, a paper mill, a preservative treatment plant, a wood fiber plant, a gypsum wallboard plant, two railroads, and some smaller facilities. Still a family-owned business, by then in the third and fourth generations, they sold everything to Tacoma, Washington based Weyerhaeuser for $317 million in cash and preferred stock. The mill in Broken Bow was closed, but otherwise Weyerhaeuser ramped up production in the region, including at the Wright City mill (closed in 2009), and what was the world’s largest containerboard mill at Valliant (sold to International Paper in 2008).
In 1970, Lane Industry built a chicken processing plant in Broken Bow, which was purchased by Tyson Foods in 1985. They run through about a million chickens per week.
Broken Bow grew slowly as the decades passed. In 1920, the population was 1,983. In 1970, it was 2,980. Today there are a little over 4,000 residents.
My parents moved to Broken Bow after college. It was a culture shock, even though they’d both grown up in small towns. I was about two and a half when we moved away, so I don’t really remember anything, but we visited a couple times. This was our first time back in twenty to thirty years. Everything was the same but different. The elementary school where Mom taught has a different roof, the church where Dad pastored has a different name.
The ramshackle house they first lived in is long gone. The kitchen cabinets were wooden crates, which also served as the sheathing directly behind the clapboard siding, with cracks of daylight. Mom kept everything in the kitchen sealed in glass jars and plastic bags to defy the waterbugs and mice. Daylight was also visible through the corner of the bathroom. One winter day, when Dad was away and called home, it took a few rings before Mom answered. “Where were you?” He asked. “On the ladder.” ”…Why?” “Because it’s warmer up there.”
The second house, while modest, was a vast improvement. This is the house in my baby pictures, so it has a familiarity to me.
We stopped in the furniture store where they had purchased their first bedroom set and other furniture. To their surprise, the old guy that ran the place was still there, and remembered them.
The local telephone company is still owned by the same family. Back in the early 1970’s, as my parents recalled, the service was less than ideal. Sometimes you could hear other people’s conversations like the old party line systems. And on at least one occasion, after dialing someone’s number, they heard a voice say “I’ll get it” before they picked up the handset.
But the town has grown… a little… and some things have improved… a little.
Beavers Bend IV