Panama, OK

Panama is a Le Flore County town nine miles north of Poteau on State Highway 59. Its post office opened on January 14, 1898, when the place was still in Indian Territory, Skullyville County, and the Moshulatubbee District of the Choctaw Nation. That setting matters more than the town's borrowed-sounding name: Panama was already on the map before the isthmus was chosen for the canal route in 1902. The name may sound like a canal reference, but the local record predates that connection.

The town's everyday orientation is simple—Highway 59 north to Poteau, Le Flore County around it, and the Choctaw Nation's Oklahoma history underneath the modern road grid. Panama is a town rather than a CDP, so it has its own local government, but much of its regional traffic follows the highway and Poteau's county-seat pull. The local scoop is that an Indian Territory post office, a Choctaw district, and a name that seems out of sequence all meet in one small Oklahoma town.