Johns Valley, Oklahoma facts for kids

Johns Valley is a special place found deep within the Kiamichi Mountains in northwestern Pushmataha County, Oklahoma. Geologists, who study the Earth, call it a "basin" because it's completely surrounded by mountains, like a giant bowl.

Where is Johns Valley?

Johns Valley is about 22 miles north of Antlers, Oklahoma. You can find it using its exact location coordinates: N34.46510 latitude and W95.61359 longitude.

A Look Back: Johns Valley's History

The First Settlers

The very first person to settle in Johns Valley was Henry Amos Johns. He was a Choctaw Indian and a veteran of the American Civil War. After the war, around 1865, Johns moved to the valley and started a church there.

At that time, the valley was part of the Choctaw Nation in what was called the Indian Territory. Johns named the valley "Big Caney Valley" because of the many thick stands of cane plants he found. Later, other settlers started calling it Johns Valley, honoring Amos Johns.

Life in the Valley

Early Choctaw settlers, including Johns, used oxen teams to travel all the way to Fort Smith, Arkansas, to buy food and supplies. This long trip usually took about a month! Later, after the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad opened nearby in 1887, they could trade closer to home in places like Tuskahoma, Oklahoma, and Kosoma, Oklahoma.

The church Johns built was called Big Caney Presbyterian Church. It was the only church in the valley and was made from logs, with split logs used for the pews. A school also started in the valley, meeting inside the church. Later, a new school was built from lumber, but it didn't stay open all the time. It last reopened in the 1930s or 1940s but has been closed for many years now.

Work and Wildlife

The main jobs in Johns Valley were logging and cattle ranching. Companies cut down valuable hardwood and pine trees. After logging stopped, a huge cattle ranch called Basket Ranch took over. Many families lived and worked for the Baskets. When the Basket family moved away in the mid-1950s, most other families followed. Johns Valley hasn't had permanent residents since then.

When white settlers arrived, Johns Valley had lots of wildlife. Early Choctaw settlers lived alongside many bears and panthers. Bears sometimes bothered livestock, but panthers could be a bigger problem, leading to organized hunts.

Rattlesnakes were also very common and dangerous. Amos Johns' granddaughter once said that she knew at least four people who had died from rattlesnake bites. She remembered it being very risky to go out at night because the valley was full of large rattlesnakes. However, by the time she was interviewed in the 1930s, she believed there were far fewer rattlesnakes, thanks to the later settlers.

Post Office and Isolation

A United States Post Office was open in Johns Valley from 1912 to 1915. It was officially called Johns, Oklahoma, but everyone still knew the area as Johns Valley.

Johns Valley has always been quite isolated, with only one main road in and out. This road was so bad that in 1927, a group of geologists studying the area called it "one of the worst automobile roads imaginable."

World War II Air Crashes

During World War II, the Johns Valley area saw two serious air crashes. British pilots from a Royal Air Force base in Texas crashed into White Rock Mountain and Big Mountain, sadly killing four crew members. Big Mountain is considered the southern edge of Johns Valley.

Two planes were destroyed, and a third managed to crash-land safely nearby. To honor the fallen pilots, the AT6 Monument was dedicated on Big Mountain in 2000. Over 1,000 people attended, and news of the event was shared worldwide by the British Broadcasting Corporation and many newspapers.

You can find more information about Johns Valley and the Kiamichi Mountains at the Pushmataha County Historical Society.

Johns Valley's Amazing Geology

Johns Valley is an oval-shaped basin, about 4 miles (6.4 km) long and 3 miles (4.8 km) wide. It's surrounded by tall mountains. To the east are Pine Creek (1,460 ft), Wildhorse (1,260 ft), and Bull Creek (1,060 ft) mountains. To the west is Buck Creek Mountain (1,184 ft). To the north is Big Caney Mountain (1,467 ft), and to the south is Big Mountain (1,145 ft).

The Mystery of Rock Town

One of the most amazing things in Johns Valley is a formation of huge boulders called Rock Town. These giant rocks are scattered on top of the mountains. Scientists believe they are the "largest transported masses of rock on the North American continent." These boulders contain fossils that show they are from the Ordovician age, which means they are much, much older than the ground they sit on now.

The boulders vary in size, from small pebbles to massive pieces of limestone. The largest one is an incredible 370 feet long, 65 feet wide, and 20 feet thick! Some weigh over 50,000 tons.

For many years, geologists wondered how these enormous rocks ended up on top of mountains in Johns Valley. They spent decades trying to solve this mystery.

How the Boulders Got There

Scientists now believe that long, long ago, Johns Valley was covered by an ocean. Mountains like the Wichita-Criner and Red River Mountains (which are now gone or buried) were to the southwest and were thousands of feet tall. Geologists think that during an ancient ice age, ocean currents carried icebergs or glaciers that had picked up these huge boulders from those mountains. As the ice melted, the massive boulders sank to the ocean floor in what is now Johns Valley.

Other groups of transported boulders in the Johns Valley area are called the McKinley Rocks. These are found across the Kiamichi River valley, on mountains south of Tuskahoma, Oklahoma, and east of Clayton, Oklahoma. The only larger group of transported rocks known in the world is found in Sweden.