This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/SaB.2ACI/1608.1 Message Board Post: I don't have direct answer, but maybe a brief history of the town might explain it in part. The town of Smithville, as we now know it, wasn't platted until 7 Dec 1912 ... a short distance south of it's previous location of Hatobi. By 1919, it had a population of an estimated 1000 people, 8 stores, 2 hotels, 2 restaurants, 2 lawyers, and 2 blacksmiths. But, there wasn't a city goverment until April of 1922. It continued to be very rural and isolated until past the 1930's. The "McCurtain County: A Pictorial History" (from which I get this data) states that for residents to travel to Idabel, they had to go to Cove, Arkansas and then take a train to Ashdown, Arkansas, then across to the community of Frisco, Oklahoma then to Idabel. The book I cite is available from the McCurtain County Historical Society, 302 SE Adams, Idabel, OK 74745. Further, there are several "locations" cited in the 1920 and1930 census for the county that no longer exist, and in many cases, people now-a-days don't even know where they were.