Locust Grove, OK

Locust Grove is a Mayes County town in northeastern Oklahoma, seven miles south of Salina and eleven miles east of Chouteau, with U.S. 412 and State Highway 82 at its edges. The 2020 census counted 1,371 residents. The town's name comes from the locust thickets where Union troops surprised a Confederate force on July 3, 1862. A post office followed in 1873, and the town later grew around schools, stores, churches, and the road through the southern county.

Locust Grove has an unusually creative downtown map. The Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry occupies a space on East Main Street, bringing readings, exhibits, wordplay, and literacy programs to a small Oklahoma town. Sculptor Willard Stone's former home is still tied to the community through the Willard Stone Museum, whose collection is being prepared for a future move into the 1912 bank building at Ross and Broadway. Locust Grove Public Schools serve the town, while the Neosho River and nearby Lake Hudson and Fort Gibson Lake widen the outdoor map. Civil War ground, art, poetry, and lake country all meet here.