Skullyville was founded in 1832 during the removal of the Choctaws to what is now Oklahoma. The first Choctaw Agency in the West was established there with Major F.W. Armstrong as agent. Its name came from the Choctaw word "Iskuli," meaning a piece of money, because Choctaws received annuity payments there and called it "Money Town," or Skullyville. The Choctaw Nation had three districts, and Skullyville was the capitol of one. The artist Catlin stopped there for a time in 1834. When the Chickasaws moved west in 1838, many landed from boats at Fort Coffee and passed through Skullyville to new homes farther west, and the Seminoles also came that way. In 1858, when the Butterfield-Overland Mail Route was established between St. Louis and San Francisco, one of its stations was at Skullyville and was operated by Tandy Walker. This center of Choctaw culture and political life began to decline at the close of the Civil War, and after the old agency building was destroyed by fire in 1947, Skullyville became only a memory.