Oklahoma: A Story Through Her People

CITY OF PRAGUE
Above: Prague City Park and gazebo.
Below: Saint Wenceslaus Catholic Church
and the National Shrine of the Infant Jesus
of Prague.
With a 9.7 percent population growth from
2000-2010, the City of Prague continues to
build on more than a century of history
toward continued development for the future.
Founded on November 28, 1902, Prague is
known as a “Small Town with a Big Heart.”
When the Sac and Fox Indian Reservation
land in Southeast Oklahoma opened for settlement
in the 1891 Land Run, its participants
included unrelated groups of Bohemians and
Germans who had come to North America to
escape political tyranny in their native countries.
They settled near where the Fort Smith and
Western Railroad would locate its coal chute
and train station in 1902, leading to the
platting of a new town. Eva Barta and other
settlers named the town “Praha,” which was
Anglicized to “Prague.”
The earliest post office was called Barta,
with the name changed after a few months to
Prague, Oklahoma Territory. By July 24, 1902,
Prague had 2 banks, 2 hotels, 5 restaurants,
2 barbershops, 6 saloons, a drugstore, furniture
store, 2 hardware stores, 2 meat markets,
2 lumberyards, a blacksmith shop, 3 doctors,
and 6 general merchandise stores. Materials
and stock had to be transported by wagon
from the nearest railroad, which was twentyfive
miles away. Residents utilized the rich
land for farming, with cotton as the most
important cash crop for some years. Relatively
high cotton prices led others to sell their
crops in Prague, and 10,000 bales were marketed
here in 1904, leading to a local boom.
Located only three miles from Indian
Territory, where prohibition was enforced, both
whites and Indians obtained their alcoholic
refreshments in Prague, which soon had
thirteen saloons, leading to law enforcement
problems during the next five years. Liquor
was shipped from the little town at the bottom
of trunks purchased from local merchants.
Tightly packed dry goods covered bottles of
whiskey on the trunks’ bottoms for shipment
to Indian Territory. After Oklahoma was
admitted to the Union in 1907, prohibition
was enforced and the Prague saloons closed.
A commission plan of city government was
adopted in 1902 with B. F. Whitmore as the
first mayor. In 1927 this was replaced by a
mayor-council type of government. A $47,000
bond election financed construction of water
and electrical systems built in 1909, and in
1925, another $30,000 in bonds provided
sewage disposal. Two years later the
city built its first white way lighting
system and natural gas lines.
Prague’s earliest students attended
school in a small wood building.
When it became overcrowded, classes
were taught in Bohemian Hall,
O. T. Garage and elsewhere. A four
room brick school was built in
1904, with a second story added
later. The high school was established
in 1905 and accredited in
1908. With a current enrollment
topping 1,000 students, more recent
additions to Prague’s school system
have included a new high school
O K L A H O M A : A S t o r y T h r o u g h H e r P e o p l e
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