Spavinaw is a town in Mayes County, Oklahoma, in the forested hills of the northeastern part of the state, within the larger Grand Lake region. It sits along the northwestern shore of Lake Spavinaw, the reservoir for which it is named, and had a population of 350 at the 2020 census. The town was incorporated on March 17, 1930. Spavinaw's place in Oklahoma history rests on two claims. It is best known as the birthplace of Mickey Mantle, the Hall of Fame baseball player born in the town in 1931. It is also the site of one of the state's most significant water projects: the Spavinaw Dam, completed in 1924 as the first man-made lake in northeastern Oklahoma, supplied the city of Tulsa through a roughly fifty-to-sixty-mile gravity-flow pipeline that was the longest of its kind in the United States at the time. Much of the original townsite was relocated to higher ground when the lake was created. Lake Spavinaw remains a principal raw-water source for Tulsa, joined in the 1950s by Lake Eucha, a second reservoir on Spavinaw Creek. The lakes and their protected watersheds continue to anchor the region's infrastructure and landscape, and the town's identity is inseparable from the water. For residents, Spavinaw offers a small lakeside setting with fishing, camping, and boating close at hand. The Spavinaw Area at Grand Lake State Park provides public campgrounds and swimming, and the town's small PreK-8 school district serves younger students, with high school students attending neighboring systems. Its identity blends a famous native son, a century of water-supply history, and the quiet recreation of the northeastern Oklahoma lakes region.