During the Indian Removal in the 1830s, Josiah Doak's 1820s trading post was the destination for Choctaws arriving in their new Indian Territory lands. Doaksville grew into the largest town and commercial center in the Choctaw Nation.

By the late 1830s, wagons on the Fort Towson supply roads and steamboats on the Red River supplied Doaksville with commercial goods and transported agricultural products to market. In the 1840s and 1850s, the town had more than thirty buildings with stores, jail, school, hotel and two newspapers. Doaksville was the Choctaw Nation's capitol by 1850.

Doaksville began to decline with the 1854 abandonment of Fort Towson. On June 23, 1865, the last Confederate General, Stand Watie, surrendered his Indian Brigade to Union forces near Doaksville.

The Oklahoma Historical Society interprest the Doaksville archaeological site. Major archaeological foundations of historic strcutures including wells, jail, store and hotel along with thousands of artifacts. A walking trail loops around the stabilized ruins with signs that tell the history of Doaksville and its citizens.