HOCHATOWN – You have to want to get to Hochatown, because it’s a haul to get there.
Nestled in far southeastern Oklahoma, in the area many call Little Dixie, the currently unincorporated town of Hochatown lies off U.S. 259, roughly 10 miles north of Broken Bow. It’s just about a mile west of Beavers Bend State Park and Broken Bow Lake.
Once a bustling lumber and mining community, Hochatown lost its post office in 1963.
And for hundreds of hundreds of people it’s where they escape.
The current Hochatown isn’t the original, though. The first Hochatown lies under 200 feet of water from Broken Bow Lake, doomed after the Mountain Fork River was dammed to create Broken Bow Lake.
For years, it was just a sleepy little place travelers drove past on their way to someplace in Arkansas or maybe Texas.
Then, about 20 years ago, things changed.
With the onset of legalized gaming, Oklahomans traveled south, and their Texas neighbors came north, both converging in the southeastern part of the state. Because everyone needed a place to stay, they built huge, beautiful state-of-the-art houses all around Hochatown and Broken Bow Lake.
These weren’t primary residences. Instead, these “cabins” were rented out a good portion of the year to gamblers, hunters and those who craved the idea of trees and water over traffic and concrete.
Slowly Hochatown grew.
Today, thousands of tourist flock to far southeastern Oklahoma each year. They come to fly fish at the Lower Mountain Fork River or to trek through the woods of the Oklahoma end of the Ouachita National Forest Some kayak the lake, while others swim or hike.
“Hochatown is a great place to stay and relax,” said Dian Jordan, the town’s unofficial mayor. “It’s beautiful and there are quiet, peaceful places.”
It’s also working to become an official incorporated town.
Earlier this year Jordan helped organize a petition drive, seeking a vote on whether or not to incorporate the town. In March, more than 125 residents had signed the petition. Jordan said the group needed 107 to get on the ballot.
Thought the issue of Hochatown’s incorporation has been contentious for several years, Jordan said the main issue clouding the debate is a strip of land that was annexed by the city of Broken Bow in 1998 for a water main from water treatment plant to Broken Bow.
Since then, the fight has gone back and forth in district court.
At present, Hochatown residents are waiting for the McCurtain County Commissioners to put the vote on a ballot.
“We have seen tremendous growth,” Jordan told Southwest Ledger earlier this year. “We’ve grown 20 percent every year for the past 20 years. For some it seems like Hochatown is an overnight sensation, but it’s not. We’ve been working on this for 20 years.”