Chickasaw National Recreation Area

Chickasaw National Recreation Area
IUCN category V (protected landscape/seascape)
Travertine Creek, in the Chickasaw National Recreation Area
Map of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area
Location	Murray County, Oklahoma, USA
Nearest city	Sulphur, OK
Coordinates	34°30′2″N 96°58′20″W / 34.50056°N 96.97222°W / 34.50056; -96.97222Coordinates: 34°30′2″N 96°58′20″W / 34.50056°N 96.97222°W / 34.50056; -96.97222
Area	9,899 acres (40.06 km2)
Established	July 1, 1902
Visitors	1,212,139 (in 2011)
Governing body	National Park Service
Website	Chickasaw National Recreation Area

Chickasaw National Recreation Area is a National Recreation Area situated in the foothills of the Arbuckle Mountains in south-central Oklahoma near Sulphur in Murray County. It includes the former Platt National Park and Arbuckle Recreation District.

The area was established as Sulphur Springs Reservation on July 1, 1902; renamed and redesignated Platt National Park on June 29, 1906; combined with the Arbuckle Recreation Area and additional lands and renamed and redesignated on 17 March 1976. Of the park's 9,888.83 acres (4,002 ha), water covers 2,409 acres (975 ha). The park contains many fine examples of 1930's Civilian Conservation Corps architecture. CCC workers created pavilions, park buildings, and enclosures for the park's many natural springs.

The Chickasaw National Recreation Area preserves partially forested hills of south-central Oklahoma near Sulphur. Named to honor the Chickasaw Indian Nation, who were relocated to the area from the Southeastern United States during the 1830s (and who later sold the original 640 acres (260 ha) of land for the park to the Federal government), the park's springs, streams, and lakes provide swimming, boating, fishing, picnicking, camping, and hiking. As part of the Chickasaw tribe's arrangement with the U.S. government, the park does not charge an admission fee.

When the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes were forced to move from their former lands in the southeastern United States, they found an area within the new Chickasaw nation that contained a number of natural fresh and mineral springs that they believed had healing powers. Fearing that developers would turn the springs into a private resort, as had happened earlier at Hot Springs, Arkansas, the Chickasaw sold a 640-acre parcel to the U. S. Government, which named it the Sulphur Springs Reservation in 1902.

In 1902, Orville H. Platt, a senator from Connecticut, introduced legislation to establish the 640-acre Sulphur Springs Reservation, protecting 32 freshwater and mineral springs, in Murray County, Oklahoma (then part of Indian Territory). The reservation officially opened to the public April 29, 1904. On June 29, 1906, Congress re-designated the reservation as Platt National Park, named for the senator, a year after his death. It had the distinctions of being the seventh and smallest national park created in the United States, as well as the only national park in Oklahoma.