Johnston County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,272. Its county seat is Tishomingo. It was established at statehood on November 16, 1907, and named for Douglas H. Johnston, a governor of the Chickasaw Nation.
Milburn is a town in Johnston County, Oklahoma, United States, along the Blue River. The population was 317 at the 2010 census, an increase of 1.6 percent from the figure of 312 in 2000. The town is notable as the location of the Chickasaw White House, the former home of Chickasaw Governor Douglas H. Johnston. This home is now a museum and is listed on the NRHP.
Tishomingo is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Johnston County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 3,034 at the 2010 census, a decline of 4.1 percent from the figure of 3,162 in 2000. It was the first capital of the Chickasaw Nation, from 1856 until Oklahoma statehood in 1907. The city is home to Murray State College, a community college with an annual enrollment of 3,015 students. Tishomingo is part of the Texoma region.
Bromide is a town in Coal and Johnston counties in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The population was 165 at the 2010 census.
William Henry Davis "Alfalfa Bill" Murray was an American educator, lawyer, and politician who became active in Oklahoma before statehood as legal adviser to Governor Douglas H. Johnston of the Chickasaw Nation. Although not American Indian, he was appointed by Johnston as the Chickasaw delegate to the 1905 Convention for the proposed State of Sequoyah. Later he was elected as a delegate to the 1906 constitutional convention for the proposed state of Oklahoma; it was admitted in 1907.
Johnston Murray was an American lawyer, politician, and the 14th governor of Oklahoma from 1951 to 1955. He was a member of the Democratic Party. In 1956, Murray switched parties and joined the Republican Party.
The University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma (USAO) is a public liberal arts college in Chickasha, Oklahoma. It is the only public college in Oklahoma with a strictly liberal arts–focused curriculum and is a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. USAO is an undergraduate-only institution and grants bachelor's degrees in a variety of subject areas. The school was founded in 1908 as a school for women and from 1912 to 1965 was known as Oklahoma College for Women. It became coeducational in 1965 and today educates approximately 800 students. In 2001, the entire Oklahoma College for Women campus was listed as a national historic district.
The Chickasaw Nation is a federally recognized Native American tribe with headquarters in Ada, Oklahoma, in the United States. They are an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, originally from northern Mississippi, northwestern Alabama, southwestern Kentucky, and western Tennessee. Today, the Chickasaw Nation is the 13th largest tribe in the United States.
Billy Joe Anoatubby is the 30th Governor of the Chickasaw Nation, a position he has held since 1987. From 1979 to 1987, Anoatubby served two terms as Lieutenant Governor of the Chickasaw Nation in the administration of Governor Overton James, after being popularly elected to office. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
South Central Oklahoma is an amorphous region in the state of Oklahoma, perhaps encompassing 10 counties. It is centered on the Arbuckle Mountains, an ancient, eroded range traversing some 70 miles (110 km) across the region, and surrounded by rivers and lakes, notably Lake Texoma, Lake Murray and Lake of the Arbuckles. For tourism purposes, the Oklahoma Department of Tourism has more narrowly defined South Central Oklahoma, which they refer to as Chickasaw Country, as being a seven-county region including Pontotoc, Johnston, Marshall, Garvin, Murray, Carter, and Love counties. A ten-county definition might also include Coal, Atoka, and Bryan counties, although the Department of Tourism includes those in Choctaw Country. The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma covers the eastern third of the region. Its headquarters is in Durant, and its capitol building, now a museum, is in Tuskahoma. The Chickasaw Nation lies within the region, with the tribal capitol building located at Tishomingo and its headquarters in Ada. The Chickasaw Nation, which runs "Chickasawcountry.com"., promotes the idea of Chickasaw Country as the 13 south-central Oklahoma counties that comprise the Chickasaw Nation, being the Tourism Department’s seven counties plus Coal, Bryan, Jefferson, Stephens, Grady, and McClain counties.
The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education is the agency of the government of Oklahoma that serves as the governing body of the Oklahoma State System of Higher Education, which is the largest provider of higher education in the state of Oklahoma. The State System consists of all institutions of higher education in Oklahoma that are supported by direct legislative appropriations from the Oklahoma Legislature.
Douglas Hancock Cooper Johnston, also known as "Douglas Henry Johnston", was a tribal leader who served as the last elected governor of the Chickasaw Nation from 1898 to 1902. He was re-elected in 1904 and, after the Dawes Act changed how tribal lands were allocated and regulated in Indian Territory to allow statehood in 1907, he was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 as governor of the tribe under federal authority. He served until his death in office in 1939.
The 2010 Oklahoma gubernatorial election was held on November 2, 2010, to elect the governor of Oklahoma. Due to term limits established by the Oklahoma Constitution, incumbent Democratic Governor Brad Henry could not seek re-election. The race had been hotly contested by both political parties, with several well-known Oklahomans announcing their candidacy up to two years before the election. This was the first time a woman challenged another woman for Governor of Oklahoma.
Dustin Rowe is an American attorney from Oklahoma who has served as a justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court since 2019. He is a former city attorney and one-time city councilman. From 1994 to 1999, he was mayor of Tishomingo, a city of about 3,000 people in the U.S. state of Oklahoma.
Mary Frances Thompson Fisher, best known as Te Ata, was an actress and citizen of the Chickasaw Nation known for telling Native American stories. She performed as a representative of Native Americans at state dinners before President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1957 and was named Oklahoma's first State Treasure in 1987.
Overton James was an educator and Governor of the Chickasaw Nation. After graduating from college, he taught school in Oklahoma. He was first appointed Governor in 1963 and served until 1971. He was then elected to that position and served until his last term ended in 1987. In 1985, he was alleged to have accepted illegal kickbacks for construction contracts within the Chickasaw Nation. He was indicted, pleaded guilty, and sentenced to a short prison term.
The First Oklahoma Legislature was the first meeting of the legislative branch of the government of Oklahoma, composed of the Oklahoma Senate and the Oklahoma House of Representatives. The meeting took place from December 2, 1907, to May 26, 1908, in the Guthrie City Hall Building during the first year of the only term of Governor Charles Haskell.
Estelle Chisholm Ward was a Chickasaw teacher, journalist, and magazine publisher from Oklahoma. She was active in politics both civic and tribal and was elected as county treasurer of Johnston County, Oklahoma. Ward was the first woman to represent the Chickasaw Nation as a delegate to Washington, DC.
The Chickasaw Capitol Building housed the government of the Chickasaw Nation during its last six years of existence. The government ceased to exist on March 4, 1906, a little more than one year before Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory combined to form the present state of Oklahoma. The building was sold to Johnston County, Oklahoma, in 1992, which used it as the county courthouse. The Chickasaw Nation repurchased the structure and has turned it into a museum.
