Adair’s first settlers arrived soon after the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway (MK&T) was built in 1872. The town was established March 15, 1883, and was incorporated in 1897. It was named in honor of two prominent Cherokee brothers, William Penn Adair and Dr. Walter Thompson Adair. The town’s colorful history includes an 1892 train robbery by the Dalton gang.

The first Cherokee school in Adair was built in the 1880s. Circa 1907 statehood it was opened to white students. By the turn of the twenty-first century the school system had expanded to include kindergarten through twelfth grade. Seven large school buses were provided for rural students. In 1980 the enrollment existed of approximately eight hundred pupils taught by thirty-four educators. Today, approximately 988 students attend Adair Public Schools PK-12th grade. With a student to teacher ratio of approximately 15 to 1.

At one time the town supported several general stores, a drug store, a lumberyard, a grain elevator, a cotton gin, a stable, stockyards, two banks, and a newspaper. Today, Adair has a couple of restaurants, two convenience stores, a bank, workout gym, a coffee shop, nutrition spot, four hair salons, some boutiques and a few other businesses.