[2] The county was created at statehood in 1907 and named for James L. Latimer, a delegate from Wilburton to the 1906 state Constitutional Convention.

Living in what is now southeastern Oklahoma, these peoples were direct ancestors of the Caddo Nation, a historic confederacy of tribes that flourished in east Texas, Arkansas and northern Louisiana before removal to another area of Indian Territory.

These hunter-gatherers were physically healthier than later descendants in more complex cultures who depended on maize agriculture, but they were also often beset by warfare.

This archeological site continues to be studied and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Choctaw Nation, by contrast, divided its counties using easily recognizable landmarks, such as mountains and rivers.

[3] The beginning of large-scale coal mining attracted railroad construction to the area to get the commodity to market.

The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway (Katy) completed a branch line from North McAlester to Wilburton in 1904.

[3] As a prelude to Oklahoma being admitted as a state to the Union, the Dawes Act was extended to the Choctaw and others of the Five Civilized Tribes.

By 1912, the newly organized county had 27 mines; some 3,000 miners produced 5,000 tons of coal per day.

Native-born whites held most of the jobs as miners, but African Americans, European immigrants from the British Isles and Italy, and Mexicans also worked as laborers in the mining industry.

Mining towns lost almost half of their populations, and at one point, 93.5 percent of those remaining in the country were surviving on government relief, through programs started by the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Federal construction projects to build infrastructure and invest for the future provided many jobs for the unemployed.

Locally such projects included Wilburton Municipal Airport, schools at Panola and elsewhere, and road-paving works.

The war veterans could build cabins here and grow their own food, living year round in a community.

However, the industry collapsed during the 1920s due to labor disputes, competition from petroleum-based fuels and the onset of the Great Depression.