Marietta: Named for a Wife and a Sister

Marietta, the county seat of Love County in southern Oklahoma, came into being when the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway laid tracks northward from the Texas border in eighteen eighty-seven. The town was incorporated on June second, eighteen ninety-eight, with a population of about five hundred fifty. Its name carries a story, though accounts differ.

By one telling, the first postmaster, Jerry C. Washington, combined the names of his wife Mary and his sister Etta to create Marietta. Love County itself was organized at Oklahoma statehood in nineteen oh seven and named for Overton Love, a prominent Chickasaw farmer and entrepreneur.

The county's first courthouse went up on Main Street in nineteen ten, three years after statehood, and Marietta has served as the county seat ever since.