Arkoma, OK

Arkoma is a LeFlore County town on the Oklahoma–Arkansas line, across the Poteau River from Fort Smith. The 2020 census counted 1,806 residents. Oklahoma Highways 9A and 112 meet at the town, and the Poteau and Arkansas rivers frame its northern and western edges. Arkoma Public Schools serve the community, while the short trip across the state line ties many daily jobs and errands to Fort Smith. The crossing also keeps Fort Smith's larger services close at hand.

Captain James Reynolds organized Arkoma around 1911 on land he owned near the border. He laid out a suburb of Fort Smith, built rental houses, and persuaded an interurban line to reach the new town. The streetcar ended in 1917, but the commuter pattern remained. A WPA school building followed in the 1930s, and Arkoma incorporated in 1946. The name combines Arkansas and Oklahoma, and the town still lives in that in-between space: an Oklahoma government and school system with a river crossing leading straight into Fort Smith.