Stilwell, OK

Stilwell is the Adair County seat in the Cherokee Nation, eight miles west of the Arkansas line and 23 miles east of Tahlequah. The 2020 census counted 3,700 residents. U.S. 59 and State Highways 51 and 100 cross here, making the city a natural stop between eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. The Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railway put Stilwell on the map in the late 1890s, and Adair County grew out of the old Going Snake and Flint districts of the Cherokee Nation. The place also sits at the end of the 1838 Trail of Tears route, a forced-removal story remembered in Cherokee as nu na da ul tsun yi, the place where they cried.

Strawberries made the city's nickname famous. The first Stilwell Strawberry Festival arrived in 1948, and Oklahoma named Stilwell and Adair County the Strawberry Capital of the World the following year. The crop is smaller now, but the second Saturday in May still belongs to the festival. Cherokee Nation services, the United Keetoowah Band, Indian Capital Technology Center, and the old train depot museum give the city a strong local center. Stilwell's local scoop is a Cherokee Nation crossroads where a railroad town, strawberry country, and the state line all meet.