five smaller rooms for the national officers, and five committee rooms. It was heated by numerous fireplaces. Almost immediately, a bustling town sprang up by the capitol building. Several hotels, boarding houses, barber shops, stores, blacksmith shop, photographer's tent, and homes were built. But when the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway built its tracks through the Kiamichi River valley in the mid-1880s, they ran two miles to the south of the capitol. Business flocked to the vicinity of the new Tuskahoma railroad station and the Capitol precinct was abandoned, except during sessions of the government. This twist of history altered Tuskahoma's prominence. The Choctaw Nation constitution directed the constitutional officers, such as Principal Chief, National Secretary, National Treasurer, National Auditor and National Attorney to reside "at or near the seat of government", but this provision was never enforced. During the National Council's first session in its new capitol, the principal chief of the day, J.F. McCurtain, proposed building five homes on the site to accommodate the national officers, but this was never done. In addition to serving as a government center, Tuskahoma was also intended to be a cultural center and was the location of the Choctaw Nation's national girls' school. Tuskahoma Female Academy [or Institute] opened in 1892 at nearby Lyceum, with Peter J. Hudson serving as superintendent. The academy, also known as the Choctaw Female Academy, occupied a classical-style two-story colonnaded building. It burned in 1925 and was not rebuilt. [Noted Choctaw educator Anna Lewis, who had attended the school, bought the site and used materials from the ruins to build her family home, which she called Nunih Waiyah.] From that time forward, Tuskahoma's role as a center of education ceased. Tuskahoma's new site along the railroad prospered, and became a vibrant community and trading center. Banks, hotels, stores, churches, a school, and numerous homes lined its commercial district and residential streets. Its importance began to wane during the middle and later years of the 20th century, as commerce shifted to nearby Clayton or elsewhere, following the construction of highways and shifting of transport off the railroads. Prior to Oklahoma's statehood, Tuskahoma and the Choctaw Capitol Building were in Wade County, Choctaw Nation. More information on Tuskahoma may be found in the Pushmataha County Historical Society. Geography Local transportation was revolutionized during the 1950s by the construction of U.S. Highway 271, which provided paved all-weather highway connections