The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad sold lots for the town site in 1902 and company secretary William S. Fears named it Broken Arrow.

[6] Members of that community were expelled from Alabama by the United States government, along the Trail of Tears in the 1830s.

The Creek founded a new community in the Indian Territory and named it after their old settlement in Alabama.

The town's name in the Muscogee language was Rekackv (pronounced [ɬiˌkaːtʃkə]), meaning "broken arrow".

The new Creek settlement was located several miles south of present-day downtown Broken Arrow.

The community of Elam, located in present-day Broken Arrow near 145th East Avenue and 111th Street, began around 1901.

For the first decades of Broken Arrow's history, the town's economy was based mainly on agriculture.

[9] The Haskell State School of Agriculture opened in the Broken Arrow, Oklahoma Opera House on November 15, 1909.

The front of cornerstone reads, "Haskell State School / Of Agriculture / J. H. Esslinger Supt.

Broken Arrow has the typical eastern and central Oklahoma humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa) with uncomfortably hot summers and highly variable winters that can range from mild to very cold depending on whether the air mass comes from warmed air over the Rocky Mountains or very cold polar anticyclones from Canada.

The racial makeup of the city was 79.3% White, 4.3% African American, 5.2% Native American, 3.6% Asian (1.0% Vietnamese, 0.7% Indian, 0.4% Chinese, 0.3% Korean, 0.3% Hmong, 0.2% Pakistani, 0.2% Filipino, 0.1% Japanese),[20] 0.05% Pacific Islander, 2.2% from other races, and 5.4% from two or more races.

[5] Some of the city's more notable employers include: Located in Broken Arrow since 1985, FlightSafety International (FSI) designs and builds aviation crew training devices called Flight Simulators at its Simulation Systems Division.

over 675 employees located there, of which about half are engineers, FSI is the largest private employer in the city.

A new full-service hospital and medical office building were constructed nearby in 2010 as an anchor to another large commercial development that will include retail space and two hotels.

Some of the plans include a new 3-story museum to house the historical society and genealogical society, a farmer's market and plaza, a new performing arts center, updates and expansions to area parks, the conversion of the historic Central Middle School on Main Street into a professional development center, infrastructure, and landscape improvements, and incentives to encourage denser infill, redevelopment, and reuse of the area's historic structures.

Numerous buildings and homes have since been renovated, many new shops and offices have moved to downtown, and new townhomes are being built.

The city also sets strict new design standards in place that all new developments in the downtown area must adhere to.

In October 2012 Downtown Broken Arrow's main street corridor was named the Rose District.

[32] At the federal level, Broken Arrow lies within Oklahoma's 1st congressional district, represented by Kevin Hern.

[33] In the State Senate, Broken Arrow is in District 25 (Joe Newhouse) and 36 (Bill Brown).

[34][35] In the State House, District 75 (Karen Gaddis), 76 (Ross Ford), 98 (Michael Rogers) covers the city.

[38] Some far southeastern areas with Broken Arrow postal addresses are zoned to Coweta Public Schools.

The Coweta portion also includes large unincorporated tracts of land that may eventually be annexed into the city of Broken Arrow.

[40] Broken Arrow is also home to Rhema Bible Training Center, established in 1974 by Kenneth E. Hagin; located on 110 acres (45 ha), it has graduated over 40,000 alumni and has seven ministry concentrations.

[44] The Tulsa World, northeast Oklahoma's major daily newspaper, also features Broken Arrow news regularly.

The staff at the Ledger featured journalists and photographers Lesa Jones, Doug Quinn, and G. B. Poindexter.