Cherokee Telephone Memorial

A small monument in downtown Tahlequah marks the site of the Cherokee Indian Telephone Company, which in 1887 established the first commercial telephone exchange west of St. Louis. The Cherokee businessmen who organized it were responding to the same commercial pressures as telephone companies elsewhere in the country, but they were doing so as citizens of an independent tribal nation — one that happened to have its own government, courts, and commercial infrastructure.

The memorial is modest and easy to miss, but it makes a useful complement to a visit to the Cherokee National Capitol nearby. Taken together, the two sites illustrate the depth and sophistication of Cherokee civic life before Oklahoma statehood dismantled the tribal governments in 1907.

things to do sight
A story
In 1887, a group of Cherokee businessmen organized the Cherokee Indian Telephone Company and installed the first commercial telephone line west of St. Louis, connecting Tahlequah to Muskogee. The Cherokee Nation was at that point a self-governing entity with its own government, and this early adoption of telephone technology reflected both the nation's prosperity and its deliberate modernization program. Oklahoma statehood in 1907 ended the Cherokee Nation's formal independence; the telephone memorial survived.