Another blog article started long ago, July 26, 2021, but never quite finished, until now. In 1982, Oklahoma was celebrating its 75th anniversary, the Diamond Jubilee of statehood, and it was one of the focuses (along with Korea) of the Smithsonian Institution's 1982 Festival of American Folklife. The program book...
What was here? Who owned it? What did it look like? There are a number of resources available for reconstructing Oklahoma's geographical past, and they're easier to use than ever. These are my go-tos when researching the history of a neighborhood or answering questions about the past. This is an...
For fun, I decided to look up the local newspaper from 50 years ago this weekend. I was particularly curious to see what kind of live entertainment was on offer, and what people were watching on TV. (News clips below are from newspapers.com. Click the image to see the original...
Tuesday, Februrary 14, 2023, is the annual school primary for all Oklahoma public school districts. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. You can view your sample ballot and find the address of your polling place at the Oklahoma Voter Portal. At least one school board seat in...
Two State Senate districts and six State House districts that overlap with Tulsa County have general elections on November 8, 2022. Neighboring counties add in four additional State House seats. Here's an overview with my recommendations in six of the races; details after the jump, and more to be added....
The last surviving Howard Johnson's restaurant, located in Lake George, New York, was recently found to have closed, evidently for good. An enthusiast, Alyssa Kelly, reported on Facebook over Memorial Day weekend that there were cobwebs on the door, a for-lease sign out front, and all the furnishings and...
Before Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System, before state highway officials collaborated to create a national highway numbering system in 1926, motorists traveling cross-country followed turn-by-turn directions contained in the Official Automobile Blue Book. These books are a time capsule of transportation history, not only mentioning routes, but road conditions, locations of...
Oklahoma State Question 805 would insert a new article into the Oklahoma Constitution to ban longer sentences for repeat felony offenders. The question arises from an initiative petition. (UPDATE: On October 30, 2020, I spoke with Jeremie Poplin, filling in for Pat Campbell on Talk Radio 1170 KFAQ, about both...
This past April 22, 2020, was the 131st anniversary of the land run that opened the central part of today's State of Oklahoma to homesteading by non-Indian settlers. These were lands owned by the U. S. Government and not assigned to any organized territory nor to any Indian nation or...
The United Kingdom will hold a general election tomorrow, Thursday, December 12, 2019. All 650 seats in the House of Commons, the popularly-elected house of the national legislature, will be on the ballot. Voters cast a ballot only for their local Member of Parliament (MP), but the leader of the...
Your membership in your local art or historical museum is worth more than free local admission thanks to the North American Reciprocal Museum Association. It acts as a season pass, providing member access to museums in all 50 states, Washington, DC, as well as several sites in Canada, Mexico, El...
Mapping Tulsa, a diverse collection of historical maps illustrating Tulsa's history and culture, is on display at the Henry Zarrow Center gallery, at the southwest corner of Brady Street and Cincinnati Avenue in Tulsa's Bob Wills Arts District. The gallery is open noon to 6 pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and...
Incumbent Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John Doak has hit his term limit. I will be voting for Donald Chasteen to replace him. Donald Chasteen is a Shelter Insurance agent based in Inola. He served as a Tulsa firefighter from 1988 to 2002. In 2006, he founded the Inola Wrecker Service, providing...
Mention Dan Hicks and the words that spring to mind are principled, persistent, hard-working, and humble. We need Dan Hicks and many more like him in the Oklahoma Legislature.
UPDATE: The funeral for Tommy Allsup will be held Wednesday, January 18, 2017, at 11 a.m., at First Baptist Church, Owasso. Flowers may be sent to Mowery Funeral Home 9110 N. Garnett Rd. Owasso, OK 74055. Legendary guitarist Tommy Allsup died yesterday, January 11, 2017, at the age of 85....
A bit of good news to break up the election stuff: Wayne McCombs, local baseball historian and executive director of the J.M. Davis Arms & Historical Museum in Claremore, is the subject of a profile in GTR Newspapers. The profile by Terrel Lester begins with the story of McCombs's first...
Originally posted on April 3, 2016. Bumped to the top for those who may have missed it during the election. We've been hearing lately that we need dams in our river to attract creative young people to Tulsa. Yeah, no, it doesn't make sense to me either, but given that...
Many thanks to the Tulsa County Election Board for providing scans of the campaign contribution filings for the candidates in the special election for Tulsa County Sheriff. (For a brief shining moment, campaign reports for candidates and committees in the state's largest counties were filed electronically with the Oklahoma Ethics...
The Oklahoma Historical Society has been scanning and posting documents from their archives, and there is a page full of links to architectural and historical surveys of Oklahoma cities and towns. The surveys were mainly conducted over the past 20 years, often by teams of students led by an architectural...
A lurid story involving a disgraced former elected official is all over the local news. Randy Baldridge, who served as a Rogers County, Oklahoma, Commissioner, and then served a term in a federal penitentiary for "conspiracy, fraud and misapplication of funds by a local government official, mail fraud, money laundering,...
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