Salina, OK

Salina is a Mayes County town on the eastern shore of Lake Hudson, where the Grand River widens into a reservoir. The 2020 census counted 1,085 residents. State Highways 20 and 82 meet here, with Pryor about nine miles west and Spavinaw farther northeast. The place’s older story reaches back to trading posts, Osage and Cherokee country, a local salt works that gave Salina its name, and a ferry and mercantile business established by Cherokee chief Samuel Houston Mayes in 1906.

The lake now sets the town’s daily horizon. Fishing, shoreline roads, and the bridge toward Pryor sit alongside Salina Public Schools, churches, local businesses, and the Chouteau Memorial Museum’s fur-trade history. The shoreline also places the town in the recreation orbit of Grand Lake country, with water and road traffic sharing the same approach. Chouteau Day, held each October, keeps the early trading-post chapter on the calendar. Salina is an eastern Oklahoma town where Lake Hudson, the Grand River, Cherokee and Osage history, and a road-and-school center come together.