Bokoshe ( bə-KOH-shə) is a town in Le Flore County, Oklahoma, United States. It is part of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma metropolitan statistical area. Bokoshe is a Choctaw word meaning “little creek”. The population was 512 at the 2010 census, a 13.8% gain on zenith of the figure of 450 recorded in 2000.

Bokoshe was a Choctaw deal in 1886, when a make known office was established, with William A. Sanner serving as the first Postmaster. At the become old of its founding, Bokoshe was located in the Moshulatubbee District of the Choctaw Nation. The principal thing was a coal mine that employed 10 miners. By 1900, the population was 153. The Fort Smith and Western Railway built tracks in 1901 to this Place to ship the coal elsewhere. The Midland Valley Railroad built its own descent in 1903-1904. The town moved south from its initial location to the intersection of the two railroads. Two supplementary coal mines soon opened nearby, and the population grew to 483 by 1910. By 1920, the census reported a population of 869.

Bokoshe’s mines fared better during the Great Depression than those elsewhere in the state. By 1930, the population had declined to 690, and continued dropping to 431 in 1960. The coal industry recovered and the town’s population rebounded to 588 in 1970, then fell over to 403 in 1990. The population was 450 in 2000 and 512 in 2010.

On February 1, 1958, the town was the location of a train collision upon the Midland Valley Railroad. Westbound train 41 collided head-on following eastbound train 42 on the curve at Bokoshe. Four crew members died and seven were injured. This was the and no-one else serious accident in the chronicles of the Midland Valley system.