Salina is a town in central Mayes County, Oklahoma, in the wooded hills of Green Country, the state's northeastern region. It sits on State Highway 20 just east of Lake Hudson, a reservoir on the Grand River, and roughly an hour east of Tulsa. The town's name and history are tied to salt: a salt well drilled in the area accidentally struck oil in 1859, an event often cited as Oklahoma's first oil discovery, decades before the great booms that would later define the state. The community took shape as a trading and rail point when the Missouri, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway built southeast through Mayes County toward Wagoner in the late nineteenth century. By 1898 Salina had an estimated two hundred residents, and it grew through the early twentieth century as a small service center for surrounding farms and the emerging lake and river economy. Today Salina is a modest town of about 1,085 people, with a compact grid of homes, Salina Public Schools' elementary, middle, and high school, and a Main Street that reflects its rural Oklahoma character. Its defining geographic feature is the water: Lake Hudson, just west of town, provides fishing, boating, and shoreline recreation, while the Grand River and nearby Grand Lake O' the Cherokees extend the region's lake-country identity. The surrounding Mayes County countryside mixes cattle pasture, hay fields, and hardwood timber, and the lake draws anglers, campers, and seasonal visitors. Residents value the quiet pace and the outdoors, while employment opportunities span agriculture, lake recreation, manufacturing around Pryor, and the broader Tulsa region. Snowdale State Park, a small day-use area on Lake Hudson about a mile west of Salina, offers shoreline access that anchors local recreation.