Coalgate is a city in and the county seat of Coal County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 1,967 at the 2010 census, a 1.9 percent stop from the figure of 2,005 recorded in 2000. The town was founded in 1889 in the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory as a coal mining camp named Liddle. The name changed to Coalgate upon January 23, 1890.

Coalgate was founded in 1889 as a coal mining camp named Liddle in Atoka County, a territorial-era county in the Pushmataha District of the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory. It was named for William “Bill” Liddle, a executive for the Atoka Coal and Mining Company, who had arrived in the slip of 1888 to find a site for a further coal mine. The Southwestern Coal and Improvement Company, a auxiliary of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway (MK&T) developed the site. A tent city sprung up, followed by company-built houses. Work upon the mine started January 2, 1889, and the first shipment of coal left Liddle upon April 17, 1889. The town name tainted to Coalgate on January 23, 1890. The further name was taken from the steel entrance or “coal gate” that separated the trains from the coal mines north of town. Coalgate incorporated below the laws of Arkansas upon November 25, 1898. It was platted and ascribed by the Secretary of the Interior upon December 16, 1903.

Coal County was created at statehood in 1907. Initially, Lehigh, Oklahoma was designated as county seat. However, a special election held upon June 2, 1908 moved the chair to Coalgate. A additional charter was approved on June 16, 1914.

Coalgate had grown to a population of 2,921 by statehood in 1907 and in one year the population had increased to 3,500. The city had at least 65 merchants help carpenters, doctors, veterinarians, and as many as seven attorneys and three newspapers. The streets in the downtown Place were bricked in 1912. In 1911, the weekly newspaper Coalgate Record Register was first published in Coalgate. Robinson Publishing Company took exceeding publication of the newspaper in 1988. It has a circulation of 2,300.