IDABEL, Oklahoma (AP) — So many North Texas residents cross the border into McCurtain County in far southeastern Oklahoma each week that the area has been nicknamed the “Dallas-Fort Worth Hamptons.”
With its clean rivers and lakes, these forested foothills of the Ouchita Mountains are dotted with luxury cabins, and a tourism boom over the past two decades has fueled a renaissance in the region. Jobs are no longer limited to the lumber industry or the chicken processing plant, and parents are more optimistic that their children won’t have to leave the community to find work.
But growing optimism about the county’s future took a hit last week when the local paper identified several county officials, including sheriff Kevin Clardy and a county commissioner, who were caught on tape talking about killing journalists. and the lynching of black people. One commissioner has already resigned and elected officials, including Idabel mayor and Republican governor Kevin Stitt, have called for the others to resign.
“Just hearing it on audio and coming from the mouths of our elected officials at a meeting made my stomach turn,” said Lonnie Watson, a lifelong county resident and 7th grade teacher and coach who is black. “It was shocking. It was sad. It was painful. Just to hear the hate… was just heartbreaking.
For its part, the sheriff’s office has released only one formal statement since the McCurtain Gazette-News published the story last weekend in which the sheriff’s office did not comment on the comments, but claimed the recording was obtained illegally.
“Unfortunately, all of our attorneys tell us we’re supposed to keep quiet,” Undersheriff Mike Manning told The Associated Press on Thursday, declining further comment. “I would like everyone to hear both sides of the story.”
On Friday, the governor, who has called on Clardy and others allegedly involved in the taped conversation to resign, released a letter he sent to Attorney General Gentner Drummond asking him to investigate whether Clardy might was removed from office for willful misconduct.
“As I understand it, Sheriff Clardy has at least willfully failed or failed to diligently and faithfully ‘keep and preserve the peace’ of McCurtain County,” said the letter signed by Stitt. “Should you believe there is reasonable cause for such a complaint, I urge you to initiate proceedings to remove Sheriff Clardy from office.”
A spokesperson for Drummond did not immediately return messages to The Associated Press for comment on Saturday.
While many county residents say the racist remarks hark back to a bygone era, they are still concerned about the negative impact the incident will have on the community’s reputation.
“We have concerns. We do. Anyone in their right mind would,” said Tommy “Blue” McDaniel, owner and operator of the county’s first legal distillery, Hochatown Distilling, in the heart of the county’s tourist region. “But that stuff down there is a few individuals. It’s not what McCurtain County is, and it certainly isn’t what Hochatown is.
“It’s a diverse community, a welcoming community.”
McDaniel’s assessment was shared by many in the county. With a population of approximately 31,000 and bordering both Arkansas and Texas, the county is part of the state known as “Little Dixie” due to the influence in the area of white Southerners who migrated there after the Civil War. While about 60% of the county is white, there are significant numbers of Native American (18%), Black (8%), and Hispanic (7%) people.
Like many communities across the country, particularly in the South, McCurtain County towns were historically segregated, but have become more integrated since the 1960s. Idabel, the county seat, was the scene of racial violence in 1980 when a riot broke out after a local black teenager was fatally shot outside an all-white club. Tensions ran so high that martial law was declared and the governor called in the National Guard, said Kenny Sivard, a local historian.
“What didn’t help was that the Ku Klux Klan’s Grand Imperial Wizard came to Idabel’s courthouse and appeared,” Sivard said. “That didn’t help matters at all, as you can imagine.”
The county also has a long history of lawlessness dating back to pre-state days in 1907, when Oklahoma was Indian Territory and outlaws sought refuge in the mountainous region, said Bob Burke, a McCurtain County resident who has written more than 100 non-fiction books. has written about Oklahoma and its people.
With its clean rivers and remote locations, the area also became a haven for moonshiners who set up stills in the heavily wooded hills. That reputation for going outside the law continued into the later part of the 20th century, as the methamphetamine epidemic swept through the area. Even today, although Oklahoma was the last state to ban cockfighting in 2002, animal rights activists say the blood sport still takes place in the region and local law enforcement sometimes turns a blind eye. A state legislature from nearby Atoka County is still working to reduce penalties for cockfighting.
Still, McCurtain County has worked hard to shake off its reputation for lawlessness and race strife, aided in large part by the construction of Broken Bow Lake in the heart of the county in the late 1960s. Fed by the Mountain Fork River, the clear lake surrounded by forested hills has been a huge tourist attraction that continues to this day.
The Choctaw Nation Historic Preserve encompasses all of the county and most of southern Oklahoma, and the tribe has pioneered a $165 million, 200,000-square-foot (18,580-square-meter) resort hotel and casino near the lake and Beavers Bend State Park which will open later this year.
It’s projects like this and the growing tourism industry that residents, like McDaniel, the distillery operator, hope McCurtain County will become known for.
“I see a bright future,” said McDaniel. “We have some issues that we need to work through, but those issues are some dying relics. Those are some death cries from people here who want to keep the old ways, but we’re moving forward, and moving forward doesn’t include what’s happening down there.
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Follow Sean Murphy on Twitter: @apseanmurphy
