SALLISAW

city, seat (1907) of Sequoyah county, eastern Oklahoma, U.S., just north of the Arkansas River and the Robert S. Kerr Reservoir, near the Arkansas state line. Settled in the 1880s, it was named for the nearby Sallisaw Creek (from the French salaison, meaning salt provisions, because of local salt deposits). The settlement developed as a trading post and is now a service point for a recreational and diversified farming area (cotton, spinach, soybeans, and cattle) and has some light manufacturing. Dwight Mission, 7 miles (11 km) northeast, was founded in 1828 and functioned for more than a century; it was one of the most important educational institutions in the Indian Territory prior to the American Civil War. Sequoyah, who invented the Cherokee alphabet that enabled his people to become literate, built a log cabin in the hills near the mission; it is preserved as a state monument and houses his mementos and tools. Pop. (1990) 7,122.