The Sans Bois Mountains are a small mountain range in southeastern

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

and part of the larger

Ouachita Mountains The Ouachita Mountains (), simply referred to as the Ouachitas, are a mountain range in western Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. They are formed by a thick succession of highly deformed Paleozoic strata constituting the Ouachita Fold and Thru ...

. The range is a frontal belt of the Ouachita Mountains and is located in

Haskell Haskell () is a general-purpose, statically typed, purely functional programming language with type inference and lazy evaluation. Designed for teaching, research, and industrial applications, Haskell pioneered several programming language ...

and Latimer counties. is a French term meaning 'without forest' or without wood' in English. Wright, Muriel H. "Some Geographic Names of French Origin in Oklahoma." ''Chronicles of Oklahoma''
Volume7, Number 2. June, 1929. Accessed March 28, 2016.

History

Humans have inhabited the area since prehistoric times. According to the ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture'', the earliest inhabitants were

hunter-gatherer A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived Lifestyle, lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, esp ...

s and foragers from about 10,000 to 8,000 BCE. Later indigenous people began farming about 1 BCE along streams with suitable topography. The

Wichita people The Wichita people, or , are a confederation of Southern Plains Native American tribes. Historically they spoke the Wichita language and Kichai language, both Caddoan languages. They are indigenous to Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. Today, Wi ...

moved in and established large villages during the Historic Era. The

Choctaws The Choctaw ( ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States, originally based in what is now Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw ...

, forced to leave their previous homeland in the southeastern U.S., started displacing other tribes in about 1830. During the 19th century, this area became an important source for timber. Later in the century, production of coal and natural gas became economic mainstays, continuing into the 20th century.

Geography

The highest peaks of the Sans Bois Mountains are above sea level. Robbers Cave State Park is in the middle of the mountains. The

Poteau River The Poteau River is a river located in the U.S. states of Arkansas and Oklahoma extending 141 miles (227 kilometers).U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed June 3, 2011 It is the ...

drains the area, and one of its tributaries, Sans Bois Creek, was the namesake for the mountains. Although the mountains have relatively light forests, they do have deposits of coal and natural gas, which provided the basis for economic development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

References

{{Mountains of Oklahoma Mountain ranges of Oklahoma Landforms of Latimer County, Oklahoma Landforms of Haskell County, Oklahoma Geography of Oklahoma