North of the thick pine and oak forests of the Ouachitas Mountains, in the foothills beyond the Kiamichi and the Winding Stair Mountains, two trails crossed in the rolling valley nestled between the Shawnee Hills and the Sans Bois Mountains. In the early 1800s, that valley became the home of the Mississippi Choctaw tribe, part of the U.S.-designated Indian Territory. When the railroad boom of the late 1800s occurred, the tracks followed the same cattle trails and pioneer roads, creating a transportation hub at the point where rail lines intersected, a place that later became the county seat of Pittsburg County. Larry J. Hoefling is a winner of the Scripps-Howard Journalism Award and Columbia University's Armstrong Award for Journalism. His previous works include Chasing the Frontier: Scots-Irish in Early America and Last of the True Irish, as well as the radio documentary Is There a Justice?, winner of two National Journalism Awards.