Coalgate’s history is
mostly unwritten
The public archives hold just one old photo of Coalgate. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Coalgate was founded in 1889 as a coal mining camp named Liddle in Atoka County, a territorial-era county in the Pushmataha District of the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory. It was named for William "Bill" Liddle, a superintendent for the Atoka Coal and Mining Company, who had arrived in the fall of 1888 to locate a site for a new coal mine. The Southwestern Coal and Improvement Company, a subsidiary of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway (MK&T) developed the site. A tent city sprung up, followed by company-built houses. Work on the mine started January 2, 1889, and the first shipment of coal left Liddle on April 17, 1889. The town name changed to Coalgate on January 23, 1890. The new name was taken from the steel gate or "coal gate" that separated the trains from the coal mines north of town. Coalgate incorporated under the laws of Arkansas on November 25, 1898. It was platted and a…
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowStart Coalgate’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Coalgate’s history is told.
0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old view1940 Census Enumeration District …, 1880: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Coalgate, decade by decade
1990s
2 historic places in Coalgate
2 places in Coalgate are on the National Register of Historic Places, the country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
Where they are
When they were listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as 1940 Census Enumeration District Maps - Oklahoma - Coal County - ED 15-1 - ED 15-17 (1880) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (3) and the National Register (3). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.