Johns Valley is a geographic feature and place name located in the Kiamichi Mountains in northwestern Pushmataha County, Oklahoma.
Using the Public Land Survey System commonly in use in Oklahoma it is located in Section 5, Township 1 South, Range 16 East.
At the time the valley was part of Jack's Fork County of the Choctaw Nation, in the Indian Territory.
Johns arrived there from San Bois County in the Choctaw Nation, which was north and east of present-day McAlester, Oklahoma.
Jack's Fork County was a geographic behemoth—it was bounded by the Kiamichi River on the east and Muddy Boggy River on the west, Beaver Creek (south of present-day Antlers, Oklahoma) on its south, and the mountains north of present-day Sardis Lake on its north.
Johns and later Choctaw Indian settlers drove oxen teams to Fort Smith, Arkansas, to purchase groceries and other goods.
Regardless of family affiliation, all residents of the valley worked together for mutual benefit when a large labor force was needed such as when baling hay or rounding up cattle.
Early-day Choctaw settlers coexisted—sometimes peaceably and sometimes not—with a fairly large bear population, and a great many panthers.
[citation needed] Difficulties of another sort—with international repercussions—were experienced during World War II, when the Moyers and Johns Valley areas were the site of two lethal air crashes.
Over 1,000 people attended the ceremony, and the story was carried by the British Broadcasting Corporation and many newspapers around the world.
More information on Johns Valley and the surrounding Kiamichi Mountains may be found in the Pushmataha County Historical Society.
These boulders contain fossils identifying them as dating from the Ordovician age—very much older than the Caney shale formations on top of which they presently sit.
Although the boulders by themselves are of great interest, the story of how they came to rest there formed a mystery which geologists spent decades unraveling.
Additional groupings of transported boulders in the Johns Valley region are known as the McKinley Rocks.