Quapaw
Located on a site once occupied by the Quapaw Indians less than five miles from the Kansas State line, Quapaw is the easternmost town on Oklahoma Route 66. Cattle and hay were primary early resources, but it was the minig of zinc, begun around 1897, and specifically the ore churned out of the Dark Horse mine in the early 1900s that became the town’s mainstay.
Today, reminders of the boom years can be found along the highway in both directions, where mounds of waste rock called “chat” and associated relics of long-ago mining operations still decorate the landscape. Colorful murals painted on some of the town’s buildings have become a signet of this Route 66 cornerstone.
Quapaw was mentioned in a 1976 episode of the television show, M*A*S*H, a U.S. situation comedy. While Colonel Potter goes to Tokyo on R&R, his horse develops colic. B.J. mentions that his father-in-law Floyd, a resident of Quapaw, knows all about horses, prompting an urgent phone call for advice.
Quapaw is mentioned in the movie Oklahoma, as one of the towns in which the character Jud had worked at some point in the past. Jud also give a fictional account of a deadly arson that occurred there five years prior to the movie’s setting.
