What are foundation conditions like in Choctaw, Oklahoma?

Reviewed by Preston · Updated 2026-11-12

In short: Only about 7% of Choctaw is mapped in high shrink-swell soil; 73% rates low ¹. The soil survey also maps bedrock within 40 inches under about 39% ¹. Which of these a house sits on decides whether clay swell, water, rock or soft ground is the thing to watch.

What does the soil survey show for Choctaw?

Choctaw covers about 27 square miles ² and had 12,182 people in the 2020 Census ².

Which soils matter most for houses in Choctaw?

• Stephenville, about 19% of the area ¹: Moderately deep, well drained, soils formed in material weathered from sandstone of Permian age ³.
• Harrah, about 18% of the area ¹: Soils that are very deep to sandstone bedrock, well drained soils that formed in sandy and loamy colluvium weathered from sandstone of Permian age ⁴.
• Littleaxe, about 11% of the area ¹: Deep, well drained, moderately permeable soils that formed in materials weathered from weakly cemented sandstone interbedded with weakly cemented shale of Permian age ⁵.
• Darnell, about 10% of the area ¹: Shallow, well drained to somewhat excessively drained soils formed in material weathered from sandstone of Permian age ⁶.
• Tribbey, about 6% of the area ¹: Very deep, somewhat poorly drained soils that formed in loamy alluvium of recent age ⁷.
• Urban land, about 4%, is ground the survey maps as covered by buildings and pavement rather than classifying its soil ¹.

What does this mean for houses in Choctaw?

Shallow rock. Where bedrock is close to the surface, lots are often cut into rock on one side and built up with fill on the other, so fill settlement and slope creep matter more than clay swell, and piers can stop at very different depths across one house. See depth to rock from borings.

Flood-prone soils. Floodplain soils are layered stream deposits: softer, wetter and more variable than upland soils, and they flood. See soft soil consolidation and Quaternary alluvium and terraces.

Which soils cover Choctaw?

ZIP codes in Choctaw

ZIP 73020

Looking for a foundation company near Choctaw?

Companies that serve Choctaw can appear on the company map in the Homeowner Hub. Paid listings there are marked Sponsored; the library and the AI guide don't rank or recommend any of them.

Buying or selling a house in Choctaw? Realtors who serve the area can be on the same map, also marked Sponsored, and for realtors covers the seller disclosure form, inspections and the sale timeline. Seeing cracks at home? Start with for homeowners.

How were these numbers measured?

We overlaid the city limits from the Census Bureau ² on the USDA soil survey's map units ¹ and added up the area of each soil. Where a map unit is a mix of soils, its area was split by the percentages the survey lists for its major soils, so shares leave out minor inclusions and do not add to 100%. Shrink-swell is rated by the linear extensibility of a soil's most expansive layer, the survey's measure of how much it changes length between wet and dry (6% or more is high). Water table, bedrock and flooding come from the survey's map-unit summaries: the shallowest water table in any month, the shallowest bedrock, and the most common flooding frequency. Bedrock here includes soft, weathered sandstone and shale that a pier can push through, so it is not the depth where piers stop. These are mapped averages, not a test of any one lot; fill, grading and the soil actually under a house can differ, which is why a site visit or soil boring still decides a repair.

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