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Eclipse 2024 notes
Composite image of August 21, 2017, total solar eclipse, Madras, Oregon. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani) Monday, April 8, 2024, will be the nearest a total solar eclipse has come to Tulsa in my lifetime. The path of totality stretches from south Texas to northern New England. Oklahoma southeast of...
Tulsa and Oklahoma historical maps and aerial photos
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...
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...
Tulsa in the 1920 Official Automobile Blue Book
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...
2022 School & Municipal Primary Election: BatesLine ballot card
UNOFFICIAL RESULTS UPDATE, with all precincts counted: The conservative, pro-parent school board candidates have either won outright (Debbie Taylor in Broken Arrow) or made it into a runoff (conservative Tim Harris against Susan Lamkin, who had the endorsement of the GKFF-connected incumbent and the support of the TPS establishment; conservative...
Oklahoma school board filing period 2021 <s>underway</s> complete
This is a reworking of a post from two years ago, but it has been updated with current information about open seats and candidates, and there is some new information below. END OF FILING UPDATE, 2021/12/08: 5 of the 17 seats in Tulsa County had only one candidate (Berryhill, Collinsville,...
An open letter to Tulsa visitors on the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
To journalists, photographers, and visitors, pilgrims this week of the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: Welcome to Tulsa. Some context may help you interpret what you see and hear this week.
HB 1775 and Critical Race Theory
The substance of HB 1775 occupies a mere page and a third, 282 words by my count. So why should mainstream media mischaracterize the bill, when they could easily quote the entire text?
Coronavirus notes: 2020/03/16
News and opinion on the coronavirus plague, in reverse chronological order (mostly): Here is a coronavirus COVID-19 dashboard and interactive map showing current numbers of cases from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Here is the spreadsheet that feeds the map. As of 7 a.m....
Oklahoma school board filing period 2019 <s>underway</s> complete
UPDATE 2019/12/03: Here is the final list of candidates who filed for the February / April 2020 school board and municipal elections in Tulsa County. The following school board seats had only a single candidate file (Office No. 5, unless otherwise noted): Broken Arrow: Jerry Denton Glenpool: James Fuller Jenks:...
Tulsa detention pond threatens Paul Harvey's neighborhood
A stormwater detention pond planned by the City of Tulsa is displacing owners of historic homes, affecting Paul Harvey's childhood neighborhood.
Keystone dam release at 250k cfs; riverside neighborhoods at risk
The Tulsa Area Emergency Management Authority (TAEMA) has issued an advisory and a map showing the areas at risk of flooding as Keystone Dam release rates increase. Here is the full text of the advisory: (TULSA, OK) - This morning, The Army Corps of Engineers announced it would be releasing...
Greenwood Gap Theory: Tulsa's Green Book places weren't destroyed in 1921
A story published Monday by public radio station KGOU is another prime specimen of the cognitive dissonance that is the "Greenwood Gap Theory" -- the misconception that Tulsa's African-American neighborhood was never rebuilt after what is commonly known as the 1921 Race Riot (but more accurately described as a massacre)....
Mapping Tulsa: historical maps on exhibit downtown
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...
Santa Fe, Taos, Aspen and back
Late last night we returned from a quick five-day, nearly 2,000-mile trip to Aspen, Colorado, by way of Amarillo, Santa Fe, Taos, Buena Vista, the Great Sand Dunes, Capulin Volcano, and Black Mesa. We packed a lot into a short trip. Some notes: Downtown El Reno has a very nice...
Tulsa County plats, indexes online
Exciting news! Yesterday, Tulsa County Clerk Michael Willis announced that subdivision plats for Tulsa County are now online. You no longer have to subject yourself to downtown parking and courthouse metal detectors to access this fascinating trove of Tulsa history. We have a pretty big deal launching in the Tulsa...
Run for School Board; filing ends Wednesday
UPDATE Thursday, December 7, 2017: Filing is closed, and here is the final 2018 school board candidate list from the Tulsa County Election Board. Only three of 17 seats will be contested. Shawna Keller, the incumbent from District 4 in the eastern part of the Tulsa school district, has drawn...
Zoning should keep walkable neighborhoods walkable
Tulsan Sarah Kobos has another insightful essay up at the Strong Towns website, illustrated with her own photos of lousy urban design right here in our hometown. While she's willing to forgive the urban design errors of the post-World War II decades, she politely asks cities to stop making them...
"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.
Downtown and design guidelines: A review
A friend asked me recently where I stood on the issue of design guidelines in zoning, particularly as it affects property rights and a proposed overlay district for downtown Tulsa. I referred him to a sampling relevant articles from the BatesLine archive, in which I discuss zoning generally and...
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