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History · Haileyville

Haileyville’s post office opened in 1901, and 26% of its homes were built before 1940

1901first post office
0on the National Register
26%homes built before 1940
2famous people
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Quick answers

How Haileyville began

When was Haileyville founded?

1901

The Haileyville post office opened in 1901, the earliest record of the town by name.

2020 census: 716125 years
Founding year: the first Haileyville post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Haileyville’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Haileyville are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Old housesHalf of Haileyville’s homes were built before 1962.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Haileyville’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Haileyville’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story

How Haileyville came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Haileyville.

Read it all →

Located in Pittsburg County, Haileyville lies at the junction of U.S. Route 270#OklahomaU.S. Route 270/State Highway 1 and State Highway 63, fourteen miles east of McAlester and a little more than one mile west of Hartshorne. The French explorer Jean Baptiste Bénard de La Harpe first mapped the site of Haileyville in 1719 during his expedition to the Arkansas River. In 1898 D. M. Hailey, M.D., established the town of Haileyville, when he claimed a tract of land east of McAlester and opened the area's first coal mines. A Confederate veteran, Hailey had first moved into Indian Territory in 1868 to practice medicine and before long had become involved in several business ventures. His mining investments began when he and James Elliot started the Hailey-Ola Mining Company, leasing coal land from the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad, which laid tracks in the area in 1889–90. The first min…

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Haileyville, 1901 to 1929

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 20th century
  2. 1901Post officeThe Haileyville post office opens
  3. 1927Born hereJames Townsend is born here
  4. 1929Born hereBuckskin Bill Black is born here
By decade

Haileyville, decade by decade

Today1 recent
OKMap-doton-Haileyville2004OKMap-doton-Haileyville
Famous people

2 famous people were born in Haileyville

Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.

See all →
J
James TownsendAmerican politician in Oklahoma · b. 1927
B
Buckskin Bill BlackAmerican children's television show host · b. 1929
Stories next door

History across the town line

Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.

Hartshorne1 historic placeB−

Questions about Haileyville’s history

What year was Haileyville founded?

The Haileyville post office opened in 1901, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
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Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.