Woven with Resilience: Mahota Textiles Thrives after Tornado

SULPHUR, Okla. — The Chickasaw traits of perseverance and determination were needed to get Mahota Textiles back in business after its flagship showroom was damaged beyond repair during an April 27, 2024, EF3 tornado.
The staff at Mahota Textiles — the first business of its kind envisioned and owned by a First American tribe — have worked tirelessly recovering from the devastation and now celebrate the launch of two new collections this year.
Mahota creates textiles that are inspired by Southeast First American heritage and elevate the beauty and treasured culture. Each piece is designed in Oklahoma and woven in the U.S.

Teamwork was vital for the recovery of the business owned by the Chickasaw Nation, Mahota Business Manager Bethany McCord said.

As the two-year anniversary of the storm approaches, Mahota Textiles is settled into a new downtown location, 500 W. Muskogee, just a few blocks from the original store. Plans are also in the works to rebuild at the original site.

Mahota Textiles has also recently launched the 2025 Satori Collection and plans to release another collection by the end of the year.

Satori is a Japanese Buddhist term meaning enlightenment or spiritual enlightenment, McCord said.

“The collection includes Brent Greenwood’s “Stomp Dance Revelation” and our Sun Symbol and Mound Builders designs,” she said.

Featured artist Brent Greenwood is an award-winning contemporary First American artist of Chickasaw and Ponca heritage. The dancer’s profile in “Stomp Dance Revelation” emerged through Greenwood’s early exploration of color and form. This stomp dancer served as the impetus for all the figurative works that Greenwood now creates.

Mahota’s interpretation of “Stomp Dance Revelation” is a vibrant piece. The woven design features navy, pale green, striking yellows and magenta that emulate the nighttime sky and embers of the ceremonial fire. The spirit of song and dance reaffirms the connections of Chickasaw lifeways past and present.

The Satori collection also brings back the sun symbol — one of Mahota’s most sought-after designs. Originally featured in the first Mahota collection, the Heritage Collection, the design has been sold out for years.
The Sun Symbol blanket was designed by Mahota Textile’s founder, Margaret Roach Wheeler. Sun symbols, also referred to as sun circles, are a common artistic motif throughout the history of Southeastern tribes. These designs often feature elements such as spirals, rings within rings, crosses, or inverted scalloped patterns enclosed in a circle. Such symbols continue to represent the deep connection between humans, the earth and the sun, which provides consistent light, warmth, and energy. The Mahota design takes inspiration from these patterns, using vivid colors and circular forms to evoke the sun’s radiance.

The Mound Builder blanket is designed by Chickasaw citizen Tanner Hudson. This design takes inspiration from the Cox Mound, or Woodpecker, gorget style. Estimated to have been created around 1350 CE, these gorgets have been found in graves in what is now modern-day Tennessee. The designs typical of the Cox Mound style include several icons: a central cross representing sacred fire, a shining sun which represents a sky deity and a looped square representing wind. These designs were engraved on shells, black slate, or bone fragments. Together, these elements form a symbol evocative of strength and balance.

The collection will be complemented with pillows and handbags.

Mahota Textiles features a different artist in each new collection. The art of Chickasaw artists Brenda Kingery, Faithlyn Seawright, Dustin Mater, Bill Hensley and Joanna Underwood-Blackburn has been featured in past collections.

Tia Healey, Mahota’s design and operations coordinator, works directly with the featured artist to coordinate a design that complements the yearly collection. Healey, a Chickasaw citizen, also oversees shipping, receiving, quality control and social media product promotion.

Since its launch in 2018 by Wheeler, an award-winning Chickasaw artist, and McCord, a Chickasaw citizen, Mahota Textiles has risen to national prominence.

The First American Art Magazine named the founding of Mahota Textiles to its Top 10 Native Art Events of 2018, Smithsonian magazine profiled Mahota in 2021 and HGTV ranked Mahota Textiles among the top 11 First American-founded home brands.

Chickasaw Nation employees with 25 years of service are gifted a Mahota blanket of their choosing, which is embroidered with the person’s name and years of service.

Mahota’s designs are prominently featured at OKANA Resort and Indoor Waterpark in Oklahoma City. In the guest rooms, headboards feature the Mahota Chickasaw Map design, and benches are covered in the Sun Symbol pattern.

Onward and Upward

The colorful, quaint storefront on the west end of the business district does not hint at the effort it took to recover from the tornado.

The original Mahota showroom, located at 309 W. Muskogee, in downtown Sulphur, was one of many businesses and homes damaged or destroyed by the historic Saturday night storm.

McCord said it took a couple of days just to be able to get to the building and survey the damage.

At first glance of the wreckage, a hopeless feeling washed over her, she said.

“Our storefront had a giant window that was gone, and everything that was in our showroom was lost.”

The building’s roofline had been pulled up, and a garage door in the rear of the building was blown in.

“Our rolls of fabric were strewn everywhere, but oddly enough, our blankets were sitting perfectly on this beautiful maple shelving that we had. They weren’t touched,” McCord said, still in disbelief.

“That was amazing because if we had lost the blankets and a lot of the inventory that we were able to salvage, it would have taken at least a couple of years to come back.”

McCord’s hopeless feelings subsided when an army of volunteers arrived to help with the recovery and cleanup, she said.

“The Chickasaw Nation had a ton of volunteers come out for community in general, but specifically for Mahota, we had our department. Chickasaw Nation Deputy Secretary of Outreach Services Kara Berst had sent people to help us.”

The staff’s family members, friends and others pitched in to help.

“Our whole family just showed up. They just immediately went to work. We had tarps laid out (to sort) what we could keep and what had to be thrown away or was damaged. We surprisingly filled several trailers full of items we were able to keep.”

The next challenge was finding a temporary place to store the inventory.

“It was emotional because at the time we knew that we were able to salvage some stuff, and we were grateful, but we were like, ‘Where do we go?’”
The answer took more teamwork and creativity. In total, about five locations were utilized to store the inventory, including the Chickasaw Visitor Center.
The staff persevered with a can-do attitude, finding solutions to unique challenges.

“Bethany was always positive. She never said, ‘We can’t do this,’” Wheeler said.

A few days later, a space on West Broadway was secured, and by May 7, move in began, less than a dozen days after the tornado.

Once again, friends and family helped with the move. McCord worked long hours setting up inventory displays.

“We had everything set up and looking good within probably a week,” she said.

There was an urgency to reopen. A feature story in Cowboys & Indians magazine about Mahota had just been published, but there was not a store or a working phone number for customer inquiries. The website was also paused during this time. McCord and the staff were determined to open as soon as possible.

“For a few days, I would work until a certain time and then go home and sleep a couple of hours and then come back and do it again,” McCord said. “I was running on pure adrenaline for two weeks, but it was all worth it.”

A small victory was celebrated when maintenance manager Gary Pierce delivered the original Mahota sign and hung it above the door. The Mahota sign features concentric circles designed by Wheeler, which represent her Chickasaw heritage.

In the midst of setting up the new location, McCord was also volunteering to help her neighbors and community members recover from the storm.

“My daughter and I would be at the Murray County Expo Center (which served as a resource center) as early as 5 a.m. to help prepare breakfast, and we would drive around and hand out meals,” she said.

The influx of volunteers from across the country — all eager to help — made a deep impression on McCord, a Sulphur resident.

Looking forward

Mahota Textiles opened its current location in downtown Sulphur in August 2025. The original sign hangs above the door. Appointments are recommended.

Mahota products are also available in nearly 50 locations across the U.S., including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution – National Museum of the American Indian, both in New York; the Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles; Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, Santa Fe, New Mexico; and the First Americans Museum, Oklahoma City; among many others.

Mahota Textiles draws its namesake from Wheeler’s great-great-grandmother, Mahota.  Wheeler’s lineage provided her cultural context as she developed as a painter, sculptor, educator, First American historian and award-winning weaver. She used the concentric circles of the Mahota Textiles logo to illustrate these connections.

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