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Boley is a town in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 1,184 at the 2010 census, a gain of 5.2 percent from 1,126 in 2000.〔(Oklahoma ) Retrieved November 26, 2014.〕 Boley was founded in 1903 as an all-Black town. The Boley Public School District is one of the smallest public school districts in the state of Oklahoma. For the most recent data available, it tied with Sweetwater for the smallest high school with 15 students. For a combined district, K-12, Boley finished first, just ahead of Clarita (58) and Sweetwater (60), with 51 students.〔(School District Database at the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) )〕 Boley is also home to BBQ equipment maker, Smokaroma, Inc, and the John Lilley Correctional Center. The Boley Historic District is a National Historic Landmark.〔(National Park Service )〕〔(Preservation Oklahoma - Boley Historic District )〕 Currently Boley hosts The Annual Boley Rodeo & Bar-B-Que Festival.〔(Boley Rodeo )〕 ==History== This area was settled by Creek Freedmen, whose ancestors had been held as slaves of the Creek at the time of Indian Removal in the 1830s. After the American Civil War, the United States negotiated new treaties with tribes that allied with the Confederacy. It required them to emancipate their slaves and give them membership in the tribes. Those formerly slaves were called the Creek Freedmen. At the time of allotments to individual households under the Dawes Commission, Creek Freedmen were registered as such on the Dawes Rolls (even if they were of mixed-race and also descended directly from Creek ancestors.) Creek Freedmen set up independent townships, of which Boley was one. The town was established on the land allotted to Abigail Barnett, daughter of James Barnett, a Creek freedman.〔( O'Dell, Larry. "Boley." ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''. ) Retrieved November 26, 2014.〕 The coming of the Fort Smith & Western Railroad allowed agricultural land to be more profitably used as a townsite. Property owned by the Barnett family, among other Creek Freedmen, was midway between Paden and Castle, and ideal for a station stop. With the approval of the railroad management, Boley, Creek Nation, Indian Territory was incorporated in 1905. It was named for J. B. Boley, an official of the railroad.〔 There were no other African-American towns nearby, it became a center of regional business. During the early part of the 20th century, Boley was one of the wealthiest Negro towns in the US. It boasted the first nationally chartered bank owned by blacks, and its own electric company.〔(Boley, Oklahoma, C. Sharp & Associates Inc., 2000 )〕 The town had over 4,000 residents by 1911, and was the home of two colleges: Creek-Seminole College, and Methodist Episcopal College. The Masonic Lodge was called "the tallest building between Okmulgee and Oklahoma City," when it was built in 1912.〔 Booker T. Washington visited Boley in 1905, and was so impressed that he included Boley in his speeches. Boley's development paralleled that of the railroad. After World War I, a fall in agricultural prices and the bankruptcy of the railroad caused Boley's failure. It went bankrupt in 1939 during the Great Depression. Before World War II, Boley's population had declined to about 700.〔 With the Second Great Migration underway, by 1960 most of the population had left for other urban areas.〔(Booker T. Washington and the adult education movement By Virginia Lantz Denton )〕〔(Integration Or Separation? By Roy Lavon Brooks (including a short history of Boley) )〕 So far the New Great Migration has not benefited Boley. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Boley, Oklahoma」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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