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Bobby Koefer, steel guitar wizard, RIP
Steel guitarist Bobby Koefer, one of the last surviving members of the Texas Playboys who recorded and toured with Bob Wills, has died at the age of 95. Here is Bobby's obituary, written by western swing historian Buddy McPeters for publication here at BatesLine: John Robert 'Bobby' Koefer, passed away...
Segregation by Design: Greenwood and I-244
Tulsa is the focus of another recent article from a UK newspaper website: A story in the Guardian Online about the impact of expressway construction on Tulsa's Greenwood neighborhood, and the possibility of reviving the neighborhood by removing the north leg of the Inner Dispersal Loop. Twenty-five years before Don...
"There is no Negro business district anymore"
Relevant to yesterday's post on the Smithsonian Channel documentary that misrepresented the history of Greenwood, Tulsa's historic African-American neighborhood that its residents rebuilt after it was sacked and burned in the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. The rebuilt neighborhood thrived and prospered for decades, becoming known as Black Wall Street, before urban renewal and expressway construction destroyed it again in the late 1960s. Here is a news story from the time that illustrates the social and financial impact of the decision to route the expressway through the heart of the Deep Greenwood commercial district.
April 21, 1914: Tate Brady offers to raise Indian cavalry for Mexico war
The Tulsa Daily World and the Tulsa Democrat both ran front page stories about Congress authorizing President Wilson to use the Armed Forces to intervene in Mexico. The World's front page was almost entirely devoted to the impending Mexico invasion. Above the masthead, a red banner headline read "LAND MARINES...
Heifetz, Rachmaninoff, Pavlova play Tulsa, 1922
I've been told that Leon Russell's voice is being used to greet travelers at the Tulsa International Airport, and that, in his greeting, he mentions seeing world-renowned violinist Jascha Heifetz at the Tulsa Municipal Theater, now known as the Brady Theater. Heifetz appeared in Tulsa, at what was then known...
1967 Tulsa USGS aerial photos
Tulsa history expert Paul Uttinger pointed me to a couple of amazing U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) aerial photos from 1967. It captures an interesting point in time, as land was beginning to be cleared for I-244 and the Inner Dispersal Loop. Tulsa had, about a year earlier, tripled its...
Purging Tulsa's map of doers and enablers of evil
FINAL UPDATE! Council votes 7-to-Patrick to change the name within the IDL to M. B. Brady Street in honor of the Civil War era photographer, thus preserving the street name while clarifying that we don't wish to honor W. Tate Brady. Not sure if I should applaud the finesse of...
The Brady name game
The debate over purging the name Brady from Tulsa streets and landmarks has made international news. Tulsa City Council researcher Jack Blair discovered a December 24, 1907, street-naming ordinance that shows that Archer, Brady, and Haskell streets had different names in the initial draft -- Archer was Atchison, Brady was...
Bob Wills tour bus returns to Tulsa
About four years ago, Lee Roy Chapman set out on a quest to find Bob Wills's 1948 Flxible Clipper tour bus. He found Bob's bus, and a companion -- the bus of Wills's good friend, western swing bandleader Hoyle Nix -- rusting in a field near Big Spring, Texas, Nix's...
Lackmeyer: Kanbar mothballing could complicate future renovations
Steve Lackmeyer of the Oklahoman wrote a response to my item from last week about the possibility that Kanbar Properties may be selling its entire downtown Tulsa portfolio and reportedly will be mothballing some buildings pending their sale. Lackmeyer sees a pattern at work: Tulsa, it seems, gets so close,...
Greenwood since the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
The story of Tulsa's Greenwood District did not end in 1921.
DTUBAR: 1981 plan for Brady District
In preparation for an upcoming column, I spent some time last night photographing the Downtown Tulsa Unlimited vertical file at Central Library. Vertical files are newspaper clippings organized by topic, and they're often the best way to get a sense of the evolution of some aspect of the city over...
Film of Oklahoma's 1920s black communities available through Global ImageWorks
UPDATE: The films discovered by Currie Ballard, filmed by Rev. Dr. Solomon Sir Jones, are now available for viewing and download on the website of Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. More about the Rev. Dr. Solomon Sir Jones and his films here. A couple of years ago,...
Greenwood's streetcar: The Sand Springs Railroad
In this week's issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly I wrote about the proposed look for the new downtown ballpark, and I mentioned the location's connection with two railroads and the Greenwood district: From the 1910s until sometime in the 1990s, the site was bisected by the M. K. & T....
A Tale of Two Texas River Cities
An edited version of this column appeared in the April 2, 2008, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive. Posted on August 4, 2018. A Tale of Two Texas River Cities By Michael D. Bates On a recent business trip to San Antonio,...
Tulsa 1957: Restaurant map
As I mentioned in my initial Tulsa 1957 post, I wanted to be able to create maps showing where things were back then. I finally figured out a relatively easy way to do it, using Google Earth, and I found a number of online tools to minimize the amount of...
SCAD
The prime force behind the restoration of Savannah's historic institutional buildings is the Savannah College of Art and Design. Founded 25 years ago, SCAD began in the armory in the Historic District. As the college expanded, it continued to acquire and restore individual buildings across the Historic District and in...
Envisioning Elgin as the new Main Street
Our route into downtown was the Broken Arrow Expressway, then north on US 75, to the 7th Street exit. The first stoplight you hit on 7th Street is Elgin. I know that turning there will take me to the Blue Dome district, but to the unenlightened visitor, there is no...
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