PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: Latimer County is genuinely home to Robbers Cave State Park, one of Oklahoma’s original seven state parks and one of the most storied outlaw hideouts in American frontier history; nestled in the rugged Sans Bois Mountains just north of Wilburton, the park’s sandstone caves and cliffs genuinely served as a refuge after the Civil War for some of the Old West’s most notorious desperados, including Jesse James, Belle Starr – the legendary “Bandit Queen,” who lived for a time in a cabin roughly 20 miles north of the cave – the Dalton Gang, the Younger Brothers, and the Rufus Buck Gang, all seeking to evade the “Hanging Judge” Isaac C. Parker and his Deputy U.S. Marshals out of Fort Smith; the park, originally named Latimer State Park, was renamed Robbers Cave in 1936 and beautifully developed between 1935 and 1941 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, whose rustic “Parkitecture” – cabins, trails, shelters, and roads – remains a highlight of the park today; the CCC’s restored bathhouse now houses both the park’s Nature Center and a Heritage Center exploring this outlaw history in greater depth; the park’s creation is also credited to local Wilburton legislator and editor Carlton Weaver, who so loved the region that he devoted years of his life to establishing it and asked only to be buried there – his grave remains near the park entrance today; the park spans more than 8,000 acres across three lakes (Coon Creek, Lake Carlton, and Lake Wayne Wallace) and draws visitors for rock climbing, rappelling, mountain biking, trout fishing, and equestrian trails; Latimer County itself was formally created at Oklahoma statehood in 1907, named for James L. Latimer, a Wilburton delegate to the 1906 state Constitutional Convention, and had previously been part of Gaines, Sugar Loaf, and Wade Counties within the Choctaw Nation
Notes: Robbers Cave State Park’s genuine, well-documented status as a real hideout for Jesse James, Belle Starr, and the Dalton Gang is one of the most colorful Old West outlaw histories found anywhere in this project.