Pushmataha County, at statehood, was considered an agricultural paradise. Local residents believed the soil to be fertile and the weather enviable and moderate… such that almost any fruit or vegetable could be grown. Most residents at the time were farmers, and lived off their land. Cotton was king, for the county’s first few decades. It was grown throughout the Kiamichi River valley. Growers hauled it into Antlers, Clayton, Albion, and other places to be weighed, and shipped away to distant markets on the Frisco Railroad.