Muskogee Company

The Muskogee Company, although a Philadelphia company, was founded in Delaware on February 27, 1923. The company officers were brothers C. Jared Ingersoll, industrialist, as president, and John H. W. Ingersoll, attorney and industrialist, as vice president and treasurer. The Muskogee Company owned large interests in the coal mining industries of Northeastern Indian Territory, later Oklahoma and large interests and later control of several of the region's railroads.

According to a historical summary written by the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University, which holds the archives of the Muskogee Company, the company history actually began in the 1890s, when a group of Philadelphia businessmen, headed by C. J. Ingersoll, built the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad (CO&G), which ran from Hartford, Arkansas to McAlester, Oklahoma (then known as Indian Territory). These men intended the railroad to serve their coal mines in Arkansas, the most notable of which were:the Sebastian County Coal & Mining Co., American Smokeless Coal Co., Mazzrad Coal & Mining Co., and Garland Coal & Mining Co.^[1]

In 1902, Ingersoll's group sold the CO&G to a competitor and began the Midland Valley Railroad, which would run from Ft. Smith, Arkansas to Wichita, Kansas. The route was to go northwest from Ft. Smith through Muskogee, Tulsa and the Osage Nation into Kansas, where there were other coal interests.^[1]

Coal shipments from company owned mines to colder western regions of the United States via the Muskogee Company owned Midland Valley was the original plan for profit. Oil discoveries in Oklahoma later produced lucrative revenues for the Muskogee Company railroads that were strategically located in high production areas of the state.

The railroads that fell under the control and common management of the Muskogee Company commonly were referred to as the Muskogee Roads. The Muskogee Roads were made up of the Midland Valley Railroad, Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway, and the Oklahoma City-Ada-Atoka Railway. C. Jared Ingersoll was a majority owner of the Midland Valley since its beginning on February 1, 1903. The Kansas Oklahoma & Gulf in receivership was acquired by Ingersoll and then merged with the Midland Valley on May 1, 1926. Finally the Oklahoma City-Ada-Atoka Railway was purchased in April 1929. The Muskogee Company assets were sold to the Missouri Pacific Railroad in 1964.

Citation

References

• Lloyd E. Stagner. 1996. Midland Valley: Rails For Coal, Cattle, & Crude. David City, Nebraska, South Platte Press, ISBN 0-942035-36-4
• Weigley, Russell F., editor. 1982. Philadelphia: A 300-Year History, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, New York, 1982