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Boswell, Oklahoma

Everything Boswell is known for

1 song mention this city

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Music in Boswell

Songs About Boswell

my texoma mona and my texarkana anna
jeremy castle
21%

Artists From Boswell

No artists from Boswell in the database yet.

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Rivers & Roads in Song near Boswell

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Boswell.

Red River 88 songs Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad 3 songs Sulphur River 2 songs

History of Boswell

The Town Named for a Single Phone RoadyGoat

Here's the honest story behind that road sign. Back in eighteen eighty-six, this little settlement in northeastern Fannin County had exactly one telephone, and it hung on the wall of the general store. When the storekeeper — most accounts name him Hindman — went to open a post office, the postal authorities kept turning him down. Every name he sent in was already taken by some other Texas town. He even tried the name Telegraph, and that one was rejected too, because another Texas community had already claimed it. So he looked around his store, saw that one telephone on the wall — the only one for miles — and simply wrote down Telephone. This time the postal folks approved it, and the post office opened that same year. So the name honors the device itself, that single ringing box on the store wall. Not Alexander Graham Bell by name, not a family, not a river. Just one phone, in one store, in a town that decided that was distinctive enough to put on the map. And you know what? It was. There is only one Telephone, Texas.

RoadyGoat → · 19.0 mi away

Mister Watson, Come Here RoadyGoat

Since this town is named for the telephone, here's the moment that device was born — and it's a related story, not the reason for the town's name. The telephone came from a man named Alexander Graham Bell. On the seventh of March, eighteen seventy-six, Bell was granted the patent for transmitting the human voice over a wire. Just three days later, on the tenth of March, he made it actually speak. Working with his assistant, Thomas Watson, in the next room, Bell spilled some acid — at least that's how the tale is often told — and into his instrument he said the first clearly transmitted sentence in history: "Mister Watson, come here, I want to see you." And Watson, down the wire, heard it. Think about that timeline. Bell proved his invention worked in eighteen seventy-six. And only about ten years later, way out here in rural Fannin County, one of those very devices was already hanging on a general store wall — rare enough that a whole town got named after it. That's how fast this thing spread across the country.

RoadyGoat → · 19.0 mi away

It Almost Got Called Telegraph RoadyGoat

You might assume a town called Telephone was always meant to be Telephone. Not so. The truth is a little funnier. When the folks here first tried to name their new post office, the name they reached for was actually Telegraph — the older technology, the one that sent dots and dashes down a wire long before voices could travel. But postal authorities rejected it, because Texas already had a place using that name. In fact, the storekeeper reportedly sent in name after name, and every single one bounced back as a duplicate. Somebody else in Texas had always gotten there first. So he settled on the newer gadget instead: the telephone, that one device sitting in his store. And that name, finally, was free to use. It's a small reminder of how these things really happened out here. Town names weren't always grand or planned. Sometimes a place got its name because it was the only name left that nobody else in the whole state of Texas had already grabbed. Telegraph was taken. Telephone was open. And so here we are, driving through Telephone, Texas.

RoadyGoat → · 19.0 mi away

Telephone - Named for the Postmaster's Bragging Rights

1886

Tiny community in northeast Fannin County near the Red River. Postmaster Pete Hindman, applying for a post office in 1886, suggested the name after installing the first telephone in that part of the county.

15.7 mi away

Everything Near Boswell

16 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

  • Boswell · Eohc

    You're driving through Boswell, Oklahoma, a town with roots stretching back to the mid-1800s. Originally, this area was home to the Choctaw settlement of Mayhew, established around 1839 with a mission school and church.…

  • Bennington · 9.8 mi · Eohc

    You're driving through Bryan County, just east of Durant, and you're passing through Bennington. This town's story started way back in 1853 as a Presbyterian mission called Mount Pleasant. A few years later, it moved…

  • Watkins, Wesley Wade · 9.8 mi · Eohc

    You're rolling through Bryan County, Oklahoma, the hometown of Wesley Wade Watkins. Born in Arkansas in 1938, Watkins grew up near Bennington. He went on to serve in the Oklahoma National Guard, run a real estate…

  • Soper · 9.9 mi · Eohc

    You're driving through Soper, Oklahoma, a town born from a railroad line in 1902. It was named for Pliny L. Soper, an attorney for the Arkansas and Choctaw Railway. Right here, the Snippee Store building became the…

  • Bokchito · 15.6 mi · Eohc

    You're driving through Bokchito, a town born from the railroad and the Choctaw people. The name itself, meaning 'big creek,' hints at its deep roots. In 1900, a new railway line spurred the town's creation, and just a…

  • Telephone - Named for the Postmaster's Bragging Rights · 15.7 mi · Historical Marker

    Tiny community in northeast Fannin County near the Red River. Postmaster Pete Hindman, applying for a post office in 1886, suggested the name after installing the first telephone in that part of the county.

  • Kingsbury, Cyrus · 18.1 mi · Eohc

    You're driving through what was once the heart of the Choctaw Nation, and right here is where Cyrus Kingsbury spent the last decades of his life. Known as the 'Father of the Missions,' Kingsbury dedicated over six…

  • Surface Mining · 18.1 mi · Eohc

    You're driving through Oklahoma, and right here, the ground beneath your feet has been a source of wealth for centuries! Long before settlers arrived, Native Americans quarried flint and dug for minerals like hematite.…

  • Chahta Tamaha, Indian Territory · 18.9 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Right here, in what might look like just another field, you're near the former heart of the Choctaw Nation: Chahta Tamaha. This area started growing in the 1840s around the Armstrong Academy, a school for Choctaw boys…

  • The Town Named for a Single Phone · 19.0 mi

    Here's the honest story behind that road sign. Back in eighteen eighty-six, this little settlement in northeastern Fannin County had exactly one telephone, and it hung on the wall of the general store. When the…

  • Mister Watson, Come Here · 19.0 mi

    Since this town is named for the telephone, here's the moment that device was born — and it's a related story, not the reason for the town's name. The telephone came from a man named Alexander Graham Bell. On the…

  • It Almost Got Called Telegraph · 19.0 mi

    You might assume a town called Telephone was always meant to be Telephone. Not so. The truth is a little funnier. When the folks here first tried to name their new post office, the name they reached for was actually…

Show all 16 nearby places
  • Two Longs and a Short · 19.0 mi

    Out in country places like this one, the telephone didn't work the way it does today. For decades, rural folks shared a single wire — a party line. Two, five, sometimes ten or more households, all hooked to the same…

  • The Only Telephone in Texas · 19.0 mi

    As you roll through here, hang onto this. There is exactly one Telephone, Texas — and it has stayed remarkably small the whole time. It started with about thirty residents around eighteen ninety. It swelled to a couple…

  • How Your Voice Rides a Wire · 19.0 mi

    Ever wonder how an old telephone actually turned your voice into something that could travel down a wire? Here's the clever trick at the heart of it, and it fits a town named Telephone. Inside the mouthpiece of those…

  • Antlers Frisco Depot and Antlers Spring · 20.0 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Pull over here for a sec. This is where Antlers came alive, thanks to the railroad and a reliable water source. In 1902, the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, nicknamed the Frisco, built a depot right here. The adjacent…

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