Tullahassee Mission Site

Tullahassee Mission Site
LocationTullahassee, Oklahoma
BuiltMarch 1, 1850
Built byRev. Robert Loughridge
NRHP reference No.71000674[1]
Added to NRHP1971

Tullahassee Mission was a Presbyterian mission and school, founded on March 1, 1850, in the Creek Nation, Indian Territory by Robert Loughridge. This Presbyterian minister had been serving there since 1843, when he founded Koweta Mission.[2][3] This mission was also originally built for Muscogee Creek students, and the community of Tullahassee developed there.

After a devastating fire in 1880, the Muscogee transferred their children to Wealaka, another mission school. The community of Tullahassee had become increasingly settled by descendants of Creek Freedmen, and the number of Muscogee had declined there. The Muscogee gave the Tullahassee mission and community to the Creek Freedmen, and it is one of the few surviving all-black towns in the state. The Muscogee paid to replace the damaged main Tullahassee building.[4]

It reopened in 1883 as Tullahassee Manual Labor School.[4] After statehood, the federal government took over control of the property and sold it in 1914 to Wagoner County. In 1916 the African Methodist Episcopal Church bought the property for use as Flipper-Key-Davis College. The private junior college was the only institution in the state for higher education for African Americans. It closed in 1935 during the Great Depression.

  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. ^ "Augusta Robertson Moore, A Sketch of Her Life and Times". Oklahoma Historical Society. Retrieved January 15, 2008.
  3. ^ "Church's 1875 origin linked to missionary". Tulsa World. Retrieved January 15, 2008.
  4. ^ a b "Historic All-Black Towns in OK Tullahassee". Tulsa Library. Archived from the original on October 16, 2007. Retrieved January 15, 2008.