Black Towns on the Rails
I placed fifty of Oklahoma's historic all-Black towns on the railroad map as it grew, line by line, and measured how far each town stood from the nearest track.
What the map shows
All fifty towns, and Greenwood
Distances are in miles from the town point to the nearest line in operation in each year of the rail layer, computed when the page loads. Select a row to show the town on the map.
Method and sources
Towns. The list combines the Oklahoma Historical Society's map of thirty-seven towns (revised October 2025) with my master list of fifty, built from the Stantec 2023 survey for the State Historic Preservation Office. Founding dates come from that survey's Table 7 unless a row says otherwise.
Locations. Fifteen towns that are still incorporated are placed at their Census Bureau place point. Fifteen lost towns are placed at the quarter section their postmasters reported to the Post Office Department, located on the Bureau of Land Management's survey grid. Nine more are placed at a USGS Geographic Names point. Eleven have no reliable location yet and stay off the map.
Rail. Lines and their dates come from Jeremy Atack's historical railroad database, which records each segment by the census-era map that first shows it: 1872, 1877, 1881, 1889, 1893, 1898, 1903 and 1911. A line first shown in 1911 opened sometime from 1904 to 1911, so the sequence column gives a range. Where the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture dates a line that Atack shows late, I use that date instead: the Fort Smith and Western, Midland Valley, Katy lines to Tulsa and Arcadia, Santa Fe at Tecumseh, Shawnee, Oklahoma and Missouri, and Missouri, Oklahoma and Gulf. The town record names the line and its source. The database stops at 1911.
Checks. Where a postmaster's site report gives a distance to the railroad, I compared it with the measured distance. Most agree within a fraction of a mile. Each disagreement is flagged in the town record.
- Jeremy Atack, “Historical Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Database of U.S. Railroads for 1826–1911” (Vanderbilt University, August 2015; revised layer “RR1826-1911Modified103123”), via ArcGIS Online and Atack data downloads.
- Post Office Department, Reports of Site Locations, 1837–1950, National Archives microfilm M1126, rolls 470–485, Record Group 28, National Archives Catalog.
- George H. Shirk, Oklahoma Place Names, 2nd ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974).
- U.S. Geological Survey, Geographic Names Information System, Domestic Names and Historical Features files for Oklahoma (accessed October 1, 2026).
- U.S. Census Bureau, TIGER/Line 2024 Places, Oklahoma; Cartographic Boundary Files 2023, counties.
- Bureau of Land Management, National PLSS CadNSDI, Indian Meridian sections.
- Oklahoma Historical Society, “Historic All-Black Towns of Oklahoma” (map, last revised October 2025).
- Stantec Consulting Services, Architectural and Historical Survey of Oklahoma's All-Black Towns, Phase I, for the Oklahoma State Historic Preservation Office (2023), Tables 7 and 8.
SOURCE Atack railroad database, 1826–1911; Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture; NARA M1126 site reports; Shirk, Oklahoma Place Names (1974); USGS GNIS; U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line; BLM PLSS.