The brothers, grown, with families of their own, established homesteads from the Arkansas line to Durant. Pierre Durant and his four sons, all of French-Choctaw origin, made the journey up the Trail of Tears on the way to the southeastern part of the Choctaw Nation in 1832. Chickasaw land extended west to the boundary that would divide Indian Territory from Oklahoma Territory after passage of the Oklahoma Organic Act in 1890. In 1855, the Choctaw and Chickasaws formally divided their land into two separate nations, with Durant remaining in Choctaw territory on the east. The Choctaw Nation originally extended from the Mexican border in the west (now part of the Texas panhandle) to the Arkansas Territory in the east, from the Red River in the south to the South Canadian River in the north. During the Indian removals the Choctaws followed the Choctaw Trail of Tears from their ancestral homeland in Mississippi and Alabama into this area. During the 1820s and 1830s the area was designated as part of the Choctaw Nation in the southern Indian Territory. The Durant area was once claimed by both Spain and France before officially becoming part of the United States after the Louisiana Purchase and Adams–Onís Treaty. History Bryan County Courthouse and Confederate monument The city and its micropolitan are a major part of the Texoma region. The city is officially known as the Magnolia Capital of Oklahoma. It became the county seat of Bryan County in 1907 after Oklahoma statehood.ĭurant is home to Southeastern Oklahoma State University and the headquarters of the Choctaw Nation. The city was founded by Dixon Durant, a Choctaw who lived in the area, after the MK&T railroad came through the Indian Territory in the early 1870s.

Durant is also part of the Dallas–Fort Worth Combined Statistical Area, anchoring the northern edge. The city is the largest in the Choctaw Nation, ranking ahead of McAlester and Poteau. Durant is the principal city of the Durant Micropolitan Statistical Area, which had a population of 46,067 in 2020. The population was 18,589 in the 2020 census. Durant ( / d uː r æ n t/) is a city in Bryan County, Oklahoma, United States that serves as the headquarters of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

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