Poteau is pronounced “po toe”. If you ask a local how to say it, they may tell you it is what you say when you stub your toe. “Oh my po toe.” Poteau is a French word that means "post" or "pole". There are two different beliefs on how the city was named. One is it was a trading post and the other is the name came from the river and the story goes that when the French explorers arrived in the area they had to use poles to navigate the shallow waters of the Poteau River. The latter story seems move likely as the town was developed well after the French explorers arrived. http://wikitravel.org/en/Poteau