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Lawsuit over new Brookside Library on Wright School playing fields
The City of Tulsa Board of Adjustment (BOA) has granted a special exception and a variance to allow the new Brookside Library to be built on the playing fields of the former Wright Junior High School, on the northeast corner of Madison Place and 46th Place South. A group...
Oil in Oklahoma: Tulsa TV 50 years ago
I have finally gotten around to reading Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, in anticipation of the Martin Scorsese film to be released in October. I'm about halfway through, and I was skimming ahead. (It's OK. I already knew who the bad guys were.) I was surprised to...
Tulsa's Moton Memorial Hospital
This past Saturday morning, after visiting the Greenwood Farmers and Artisans Market, I took some photos of the old Moton (Morton) Health Center complex just west of Rudisill Library, on the north side of Pine Street between Greenwood Avenue and Greenwood Place. According to the cornerstone, the original three-story,...
Paul Harvey remembers Tulsa and his neighborhood
In March 1994, national radio commentator Paul Harvey, whose thrice-daily broadcasts were carried on over 1400 stations nationwide on the ABC radio network, reaching an audience in the tens of millions, returned to Tulsa to speak at a Salvation Army benefit. After his visit, he spoke on the air about...
"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.
David Brumbaugh, RIP
Oklahoma State Representative David Brumbaugh died Saturday night, April 15, 2017, of a heart attack. Brumbaugh, a Republican who had represented House District 76 in Broken Arrow since his first election in 2010 and chaired the House Republican Caucus, was 56 years old. He is survived by his wife and...
August 27, 1922: Cornerstone laid for Tulsa's Jewish Institute
From p. 3 of the August 23, 1922, edition of the Tulsa Daily World: A building permit was issued Tuesday to the Jewish Institute, which is to be located at 629 N. Main street. The plans call for a one-story building and basement, with a large assembly hall. The cost...
Tulsa Election 2013: Proposition 2: The "Improve Our Tulsa" sales tax
In addition to voting for mayor next Tuesday, Tulsans will also decide whether to re-elect or replace the City Auditor, and will vote on three ballot propositions. Prop. 1 involves raising the city councilor salary to $24,000 per year. Prop. 2 and 3 are collectively called "Improve Our Tulsa" and...
HB 1986: Brumbaugh's county budget reform bill
While putting together the previous entry, I came across a spreadsheet of newly-filed legislation for the 54th Oklahoma Legislature (on the home page of thehouseandsenate.com), and found yet another reform worthy of notice and support. State Representative David Brumbaugh, a Broken Arrow Republican, has filed legislation to increase county budget...
Vision2 imponderables
By the way, I'm speaking at the Tulsa Republican Club luncheon today about Vision2. It's at the Summit Club, 30th floor of the Bank of America Building, 15 W. 16th St. Buffet lunch ($20) served starting at 11:30, program begins at 12 noon. You can join the club for $25...
Airport sales tax catch-up: Extra money at the county?
This past week, Talk Radio 1170 KFAQ's Pat Campbell spoke to a Tulsa County commissioner, the Tulsa County assessor, the mayor, the chairman of the City Council, a former city councilor, and a Tulsa Metro Chamber official this last week about the proposed Tulsa County tax increase to fund airport...
Tulsa Then and Now: historical photo iPhone app
Via TulsaGal, we learn of a cool new way to use modern technology to explore local history. In my Government 2.0 feature story for This Land, I mentioned last October's Tulsa Hackathon, in which teams of beer-and-pizza-fueled developers created mobile applications for local agencies and non-profits. One of the apps...
Tulsa's mystery places and mystery faces
Some years ago, I suggested that the Tulsa Library or Tulsa Historical Society put the Beryl Ford Collection on Flickr as a way to make the photos easier to tag and to make it easy to collect comments and annotations that would add context to the pictures. Several world-renowned archives,...
Paul Harvey's backward glance at Tulsa
While looking for something else, I came across this, entered into the Congressional Record by Illinois Congressman Phil Crane on August 4, 1994 (p. E1664). Crane describes it as a speech Paul Harvey gave in Tulsa on April 2, 1994, but it reads more like a radio commentary reflecting on...
Tulsa blog roundup 2010/02/01
Photographer Erin Conrad has decided to blog every day this month: That seems like an appropriate thing to do for the shortest month in the year. Blog every day of it. So perhaps I should try to do the same -- get back in the habit of posting on a...
Tulsa streetcar and interurban lines in Google Maps
In response to a thread at TulsaNow's public forum, here is a map showing the routes of Tulsa's three streetcar/interurban lines: Red is the Tulsa Street Railway, blue is Oklahoma Union Traction, and green is the Sand Springs Railway. The latter two lines had interurban routes to Sapulpa and Kiefer...
The story of Mt. Zion Baptist Church
Pastor J. H. Dotson during the construction of Mt. Zion Baptist Church. The photos appear to show the remnant of the ruins of the 1921 structure, which had been roofed in 1937 and was being used for worship, being incorporated into the new structure, c. 1948. Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary...
Forgotten West Tulsa lives on in book form
If you've read BatesLine long, you'll know that I'm fascinated with forgotten bits of local history, such as the history of Greenwood between the 1921 destruction and rebuilding and its second destruction by urban renewal in the early '70s. It's wonderful to see old photos and to read reminiscences that...
My city was gone: Clinton Middle School, Tulsa Club, Tiger Stadium
Notes about demolition and neglect, here and elsewhere: From the Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society. Red Fork's oldest remaining high school building is to be demolished. The 1925 building served for most of its history as Clinton Middle School, but when first...
Preservation conference continues
The 2008 National Preservation Conference is underway right here in Tulsa. On Wednesday some conventioneers took buses to field sessions here in Tulsa and around northeastern Oklahoma, while others attended panel discussions and workshops on various topics related to historic preservation. Late in the afternoon was the opening plenary session,...
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