Address:4 miles northeast of Wilburton, OklahomaCounty:Latimer
Started:Completed:
Agencies:CCC, WPANRHP:August 23, 2002

Current Usage

State Park

Discussion

Believed to be used throughout history as an outlaw and deserter’s hideout the cave located on the Fourche Maline Creek. A.R. Reeves described this creek as a beautiful stream that winds its way through natural scenic beauty and picturesque landscapes into deep gorges, waterfalls, lofty cliffs and rugged towering bluffs. Relatives of Belle Starr who were living in Latimer County at the time the Oklahoma Planning Board chose the site for a state park insisted that the outlaw used the cave and surrounding Ouachita Mountains as a rendezvous for a lot of her incidents.

Carlton Weaver, a Wilburton newspaper editor and state representative first donated 120 acres surrounding the cave to the Boys Scouts of America for use as a camp in 1929. Mr. Weaver was a vice president of the Boys Scouts’ Choctaw Council in the region. Just after the land was initially donated the warren at McAlester State Penitentiary arranged for a group of skilled inmates to help improve the site. The inmates using a local quarry built a kitchen and several buildings to use as headquarters for different troops. Initially named Camp Tom Hale, that honored a McAlester businessman and Boy Scouts of America supporter, this and other adjacent lands were donated to the state fish and game commission to create a game preserve. [1]

In 1933 CCC Company 1825, an all veterans company, established a camp four miles north of Wilburton and were initially only to stay one year, but the citizens of Wilburton petition for the company to state in the region since most of the veterans in the company were from that area. Later WPA funding help erect low water dams and Lake Clayton Dam. During their time established at the park the CCC constructed:

  • 2 Bath/Community Buildings
  • Boathouse
  • 24.5 miles of fencing and guard rails
  • 5 pumphouses and wells
  • 15 fireplaces
  • 18 Picnic tables
  • 9 Acres of camping grounds
  • Ranger house
  • .4 miles of trails
  • 21.7 miles of roads
  • And many other works with a total cost of $263.950.00

“It was an impressive undertaking to train CCC enrollees to the necessary skills needed to build rustic architecture. The NPS employed at each camp a technical staff who trained CCC men in particular skills. For example, technicians trained some men as stone cutters while training others to make wood shingles. All aspects of the construction took a particular skill. It was the combined skills of all men that produced the quality craftsmanship that went into building park structures. The contribution of the CCC and the vision of NPS architects produced lasting structures that are today a national treasure.” [2]

Sources

  1. Oklahoma Landmarks Inventory Database
  2. TravelOk.com
  3. National Register of Historic Places Nomination

Supported Documents

  1. Larry O’ Dell, “Robbers Cave State Park,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=R002
  2. Schrems, Suzanne H. A Lasting New Deal Legacy: The Civilian Conservation Corps, the National Park Service, and the Development of the Oklahoma State Park System, article, Winter 1994; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc2031743/: accessed October 17, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.

Photos