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Oklahoma County
Ottawa County, Oklahoma
Mickey Mantle's Commerce birthplace and the Tar Creek Superfund disaster - from Commerce's Mickey Mantle Birthplace (the greatest switch-hitter in baseball history - 536 home runs, three MVP awards, seven World Series championships with the Yankees - was born in Spavinaw and grew up in Commerce, where his father Mutt Mantle raised him in the zinc mining shadow) to the Tar Creek Superfund Site (one of the most contaminated locations in the United States - the former zinc and lead mining operations in Ottawa County left behind a landscape of chat piles and acid mine drainage so toxic that Tar Creek and the surrounding communities were designated a Superfund site in 1981, with cleanup challenges persisting for decades) and Quapaw Nation's gaming enterprise.
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Related: Ottawa County 911 Coordinator for Addressing – 123 East Central, Ste 101, Miami, OK 74354, (918) 542-1688.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: Historic Route 66 and US-59/60/69 serve Miami, the county seat, in the far northeastern corner of Oklahoma
Transit: Limited; primarily auto-dependent – confirm current regional options directly with the county.
Business & Permits
BUILDING & PERMITS
Office: City of Miami Office of Engineering – (918) 542-6685
Notes: Ottawa County Clerk – 102 East Central Avenue, Miami, OK 74354, (918) 542-2801. Commerce, Afton, and other towns issue their own in-town permits.
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
County VSO: Ottawa County Veterans Service Officer – Ottawa County Courthouse, Miami, OK
Libraries
LIBRARIES
System: Miami Public Library – 200 North Main, Miami, OK 74354 | (918) 541-2292 | Hours: Mon–Fri 9 AM–7 PM, Sat 9 AM–1 PM (closed Sun)
Services: Genuinely serving Miami and Ottawa County since 1921; free library cards (3-year validity) for anyone residing, working, or attending school in Ottawa County, $20/year for others; genealogy department open during all library hours; ebooks via The Palace Project app, digital-only cards available.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: Ottawa County’s seat, Miami, is genuinely home to the Coleman Theatre, a strikingly ornate 1929 Spanish Colonial Revival movie palace built for local mining magnate George Coleman, featuring an elaborate Louis XV-style interior and a still-functioning pipe organ that accompanies silent films just as it did nearly a century ago – the theater sits directly on Historic Route 66 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places; the county is also genuinely the childhood home of baseball legend Mickey Mantle, who grew up in nearby Commerce, where his modest home still stands as a preserved local landmark; Ottawa County’s mining history carries a genuine and difficult legacy as well – the county was once part of the Tri-State lead and zinc mining district, among the most productive in the world through the mid-20th century, but decades of subsurface mining left the area, particularly the former town of Picher, severely contaminated; declared a federal Superfund site in 1983, the Tar Creek site became one of the largest and most complex environmental cleanup efforts in the country, and after studies found extremely elevated childhood lead exposure, state and federal buyout programs relocated nearly all of Picher’s residents, effectively dissolving the town – cleanup and remediation efforts led by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality continue in the area today, with real redevelopment progress reported in nearby Miami and Commerce; the county is also home to the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma (for which it is named), as well as the Modoc Nation and the Quapaw Nation, headquartered in the town of Quapaw
Notes: Ottawa County pairs the genuine glamour of the Coleman Theatre and Mickey Mantle’s hometown with the serious, well-documented environmental history of the Tar Creek Superfund site – one of the most consequential mining-contamination stories in American history.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
GIS Portal: Ottawa County GIS – accessible via ottawaok.gov
Parcel Search: Ottawa County Assessor – 102 East Central Avenue, Miami, OK 74354, (918) 542-9418
Addressing/911: Coordinated through Ottawa County 911 Coordinator for Addressing
Animal Services
ANIMAL SERVICES
Facility: Miami Animal Shelter (City of Miami Animal Control) – 725 D Street Northeast, Miami, OK 74354 | (918) 541-2275 | Hours: Mon–Fri 7 AM–4 PM (appointments available 7 days a week)
Services: Dogs/cats not reclaimed within three business days may be adopted, spayed/neutered and vaccinated prior to adoption; residents limited to five animals per address (max 3 dogs or 3 cats).
Related: Miami Animal Alliance Inc. – (954) 608-4918.
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Environmental Complaints: Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) – deq.ok.gov
Notes: Contact your specific municipality directly for current refuse collection and recycling program details. Ongoing Tar Creek Superfund cleanup is coordinated by DEQ; contact the agency directly for current site status and community health resources.
NOTES
Ottawa County is home to both the ornate 1929 Coleman Theatre on Route 66 and, in Picher, one of the most significant environmental Superfund histories in the country. All contact information above was sourced from official county, city, library, and shelter pages as of this writing; phone numbers and hours should be reconfirmed directly with the relevant office before a visit.
About Ottawa County
Ottawa County is northeastern Oklahoma’s baseball legend and environmental disaster county – birthplace of Mickey Mantle and site of one of America’s most challenging Superfund cleanups.
Commerce (population ~2,400) is where Mickey Mantle grew up – his father Mutt Mantle, a zinc miner, named his son Mickey after catcher Mickey Cochrane and coached him relentlessly on the baseball fundamentals that led to a Hall of Fame career with the New York Yankees. The Mickey Mantle Museum in Commerce honors Oklahoma’s most celebrated baseball son.
The Tar Creek Superfund Site – covering much of Ottawa County – is the legacy of the Tri-State Mining District’s zinc and lead extraction. Acidic groundwater flowing through abandoned mine shafts has contaminated Tar Creek and surrounding waters, and enormous chat piles (mine tailings) contaminated with heavy metals dot the landscape.
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Ottawa County Assessor at 102 E. Central Avenue, Suite 101, Miami, OK 74354, phone 918-542-3110. OK homestead assessed at 11% of fair cash value. Appeal to Board of Equalization.
Courts & Legal
Ottawa County District Court at 102 E. Central Avenue, Miami, OK 74354, phone 918-542-2801, handles probate.
Marriage & Vital Records
Marriage licenses, divorce records, and birth & death certificates are handled by the following office(s):
COUNTY CLERK
102 East Central Ave, Miami, OK 74354
(918) 542-3332
COURT CLERK
102 East Central Ave, Miami, OK 74354
(918) 542-2801
Genealogy
County-level record sources
Ottawa County District Court, Miami (probate/estate case files – see Probate section above).
Ottawa County is home to several federally recognized tribes with local offices, including the Ottawa, Peoria, Miami, Quapaw, and Wyandotte Nations.
Local societies
No dedicated Ottawa County genealogical society was confirmed in available directories.
Probate & Estate
Losing someone and having to deal with courts and paperwork at the same time is hard. This section won’t make that easier, but it should tell you what to expect, what it costs, and where to go – so at least you’re not walking in blind.
Where to go
Ottawa County District Court 102 East Central Avenue, Suite 203, Miami, OK 74354 (918) 542-2801 Ottawa County is in the far northeastern corner of Oklahoma, seated in Miami.
Step 1: figure out which path applies
Oklahoma has NOT adopted the Uniform Probate Code, maintaining its own probate statutes under Title 58 of the Oklahoma Statutes. Probate cases are handled by the District Court in each of Oklahoma’s 77 counties.
Small Estate Affidavit (58 O.S. § 393) – available when the total value of probate personal property (not counting real estate) is $50,000 or less. At least 10 days must have passed since death. This process skips court entirely: the affidavit is signed, notarized, and presented directly to whoever holds the asset (a bank, for example), along with a certified death certificate. Real estate can never be transferred this way – even a small estate with real property still needs some form of court proceeding.
Summary Administration – available when the total probate estate does not exceed $200,000, or when the decedent has been dead more than 5 years, or lived outside Oklahoma. This is an abbreviated form of probate – still court-supervised, but faster and less expensive than full administration.
Regular (Full) Administration – the standard court-supervised process, required for larger or more complex estates, or wherever real property is involved and the shortcuts above don’t apply. A personal representative (executor or administrator) is formally appointed by the court.
Step 2: filing for administration
A Petition for Probate is filed in the District Court of the county where the decedent resided; if there’s a will, the original is filed with the petition.
The court sets a hearing date and requires notice be given to heirs and interested parties.
The court appoints a personal representative (executor if named in a will, administrator if intestate) and issues Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration.
Creditors are notified; claims against the estate must be presented within the statutory period.
The personal representative inventories assets, pays valid debts and taxes, and distributes what remains according to the will or Oklahoma’s intestacy laws.
The estate is closed once a final accounting is filed and approved by the court.
What it costs
Filing fees vary by county – check with Ottawa County directly for current fees.
Oklahoma has a statutory attorney fee schedule for probate, which provides more predictability than states without one.
No state estate tax, no state inheritance tax. Only the federal estate tax could apply, and only to very large estates.
Probate filings, estate administration, and guardianship matters are handled by the following office(s):
Public Safety & Arrests
Arrest records, inmate search, and law enforcement services are handled by the following office(s):
SHERIFF
102 East Central Ave, Miami, OK 74354
(918) 542-3494
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
ELECTION BOARD
102 East Central Ave, Miami, OK 74354
(918) 542-2894
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
Health Department
220 East Central Ave, Miami, OK 74354
(918) 540-2372
Department of Human Services
340 South Main St, Miami, OK 74354
(918) 540-4300
Public Health Information
PUBLIC HEALTH
Office: Ottawa County Health Department – Miami, OK
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Last verified June 2026
County Facts
County Seat: Miami
Population: 31,000
Established: 1907
Tier: 3
Public Records
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