- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia
Red Oak is a town in Latimer County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 549 at the 2010 census.
Eight miles northeast of the present town is the original site of Red Oak. There in 1850 Thomas Edwards established a trading post on the Fort Smith–Boggy Depot Road. With the advent of the Butterfield Overland Mail and stage line in 1858, Edwards's already prosperous store became a stopping place for mail and passengers. In March 1868 the store became an official post office, with Edwards as postmaster. He named the post office Red Oak, probably because there were trees near the store. The official designation was Red Oak, Skullyville County, Choctaw Nation. Edwards's Store has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NR 72001069).
The present location of "new" Red Oak, southwest of Edwards's, served as a stage stop between Fort Smith and Texas from the 1860s. For several years there was a sawmill, a lumberyard, and a mill where the business section was located at the turn of the twenty-first century. In 1888 the Choctaw Coal and Railway (later the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway) surveyed a route across present Latimer County, linking Wister to McAlester. With the advent of the railroad a town started to grow. Around 1890 Edwards's Store closed, and the "old" Red Oak post office officially moved to the new community.
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