James Jackson McAlester (October 1, 1842 – September 21, 1920) was an American coal baron and politician active in Indian Territory and later Oklahoma.

McAlester was born in Arkansas in 1842, and enlisted in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

After the war, he received a detailed survey of coal deposits within the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory and traveled there to work as a trader.

He used his tribal citizenship to claim lands that contained valuable coal deposits, allowing him to become incredibly wealthy and influential in the territory.

[2] After the defeat of the Confederacy he returned to Ft. Smith where he met engineer Oliver Weldon who gave him details of the location of coal deposits in Indian Territory (near now-McAlester, Oklahoma).

In 1866 he moved to the Choctaw Nation and worked for the trading companies "Harlan and Rooks" and "Reynolds and Hannaford," before buying out the later.

[1] On August 22, 1872, he married Rebecca Burney (born 1841 in Mississippi - died May 5, 1919, in Oklahoma) a member of the Chickasaw Nation and they had five children.

[10] McAlester's selling of coal caused conflict with Choctaw Nation Chief Coleman Cole.

Marshal Rooster Cogburn in the 1968 novel True Grit by Charles Portis (and the subsequent 1969 and 2010 feature film versions).