Broken Bow is a city in McCurtain County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 4,120 at the 2010 census. It is named after Broken Bow, Nebraska, the former hometown of the city’s founders, the Dierks brothers.
The land that would become Broken Bow was owned by the Choctaw tribe prior to being settled by colonizers. Growing around a lumber company started by two brothers, Broken Bow had a population of 1,983, just a decade after its incorporation in 1911.[5] The city lies within the Little Dixie region of Oklahoma, an area originally settled largely by Southerners seeking a new start following the American Civil War.
The city was the location of the wounding and capture of murderer Richard Wayne Snell in 1984, following his shootout with local police.[6] Snell had shot and killed two men in Arkansas, a pawn shop owner and Arkansas State Trooper Louis P. Bryant.[7]
At the time of its founding, Broken Bow was located in Bok Tuklo County of the Apukshunubbee District, one of three administrative super-regions of the Choctaw Nation.