Wynnewood quickly became a market town for the surrounding area. In 1887, Presbyterian missionary Mary Semple Hotchkins moved her school for Chickasaw children from Cherokee Town to Wynnewood. In 1901, local citizens paid for building Indianola College. A promotional brochure published in 1907 called Wynnewood "the Queen City of the Famous Washita Valley." It could soon boast of having an opera house, electric lights, telephones, and the thirty-room Eskridge Hotel.
