Westville, the second town in size and importance in Adair County is located in the northern part of the county at the intersection of the Kansas City Southern with the Frisco Railroad, and is the only town in the county having the advantages of two lines of railroad. It now has a population of about eleven hundred and enjoys an altitude of about eleven hundred feet. It was established soon after the Kansas City Southern road reached that neighborhood in 1895 and when the Frisco railroad arrived in 1905 it began to aspire to become a city. Quite a good deal of good farm land surrounds the town, much of which has been developed into good farms. A large portion of the soil in this section of the county is also well adapted to fruit-raising and the citizens have already begun to realize this fact.
During the autumn of 1920, 150 carloads of apples were shipped from this point and a well organized fruit and berry association promises to make rapid improvement in systematic fruit-growing. During the year 1921, more than five hundred acres were planted to berries and grapes in this vicinity. Westville has quite a number of substantial brick business houses, many comfortable homes and several miles of cement sidewalks. The little city has its own electric light plant and water system, a good flouring mill, a cotton gin, a canning factory, a wholesale grocery, a wholesale flour and feed store, several general stores, two banks, two drug stores, two lumber yards, a weekly newspaper, two hotels, five churches and a good public school system in which eleven teachers are employed. Notwithstanding the serious financial depression which has checked the growth of many towns and cities, Westville built quite a number of new houses in 1921.
Quite recently the public spiritedness of the citizens of Westville was demonstrated when almost the entire population of the little city turned out and cut down a hill nearby in order to meet the requirements of the Ozark Trails’ Association, whose interstate highway was headed that way. Business and professional men donned their overalls and joined the laboring men-with picks and shovels,, while the women followed with their well-filled baskets of food. That sort of pluck and public spirit builds towns.
Adair has several small towns which afford good trading facilities for the farmers of their respective neighborhoods, among which are Watts, Ballard, Bunch and Proctor. Each of these villages maintains good stores, schools and churches, Watts being the largest of them. Watts has about five hundred people and it supports a larger public school system than is usually found in villages of its size, eight teachers constituting its faculty.
Source: Benedict, John D. Muskogee and northeastern Oklahoma, including the counties of Muskogee, McIntosh, Wagoner, Cherokee, Sequoyah, Adair, Delaware, Mayes, Rogers, Washington, Nowata, Craig, and Ottawa. 3 v. illus., ports., facsims. 28 cm. Chicago, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1922.