After the Army abandoned Fort Gibson in 1857, the Cherokee Nation took over the military stockade and renamed the town Keetoowah.

For several months, the Federal supported garrison had to fight off raids by Stand Watie and his Confederate backed Cherokee horsemen.

Sonuk Mikko, an officer in the Indian Home Guard, contracted smallpox while stationed at the Fort and succumbed to the illness.

[10] On May 20, 1898, the Articles of Incorporation for the town of Fort Gibson were established under the Arkansas Statutes, placing all of the densely settled areas under one jurisdiction.

[9] The townspeople considered Fort Gibson poorly located after suffering fires, mosquitoes, and other afflictions.

The first buildings had faced west toward the Kansas and Arkansas Valley Railway (later the Missouri Pacific Railroad) tracks.

In 1906 John C. Berd constructed a brick-and-stone building for his drugstore, and the commercial district grew around these two permanent features.

[12][14] In February 1828 the locale received a visit from a vessel called The Facility captained by one Philip Pennywit, and was within three years of that a regular steamboat stop.

[12] In 1832, noted author Washington Irving, who had spent twenty days traveling in Indian Territory—an experience documented in his book A Tour on the Prairies—departed the territory via steamboat at Fort Gibson.

[12] For example, the riverboat Philip Pennywit (part owned by the aforementioned captain) was advertising in February 1849 its regular runs from New Orleans to Fort Gibson.

[14] The Civil War curtailed riverboat activity, as when the Union steamer J. R. Williams was destroyed by Confederate forces on June 15, 1864 trying to make a supply run to Fort Gibson.

[12][17] Nevertheless, activity picked up again after the war, as shown by a report in 1870 that twenty cargo-laden steamboats averaging three hundred tons apiece were operating between Fort Gibson and various ports on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

[12] However, with the rise of railroads, riverboat usage trailed off and Fort Gibson declined as a transportation and commercial center.