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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...
Oklahoma Election 2022: Do Republican legislative leaders want Stitt to lose?
Do Republican legislative leaders want so badly for Gov. Kevin Stitt to lose his bid for re-election that they're willing to accept half-measures on child mutilation in the name of "gender confirmation"? That's the question posed by a recent report by Harry Scherer in The American Conservative, "The Fight Over...
1936 Tulsa County WPA Maps
During the Great Depression, the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Oklahoma Tax Commission (OTC) commissioned a series of maps in 1936 to document land ownership and taxable value. An example of the maps are shown above. Each map covers a Public Land Survey System (PLSS) township (6 miles...
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...
Lee Roy Chapman <em>curriculum vitae</em>
What follows is mainly from Lee Roy Chapman's LinkedIn profile. I thought that his list of accomplishments and the tributes from the people who worked with him needed a more permanent location. (You can read my tribute to Lee Roy Chapman here.) I will be adding to the list and...
President Washington's Thanksgiving proclamation
Yesterday was the 225th anniversary of the America's first national day of Thanksgiving, as proclaimed by President Washington at the behest of Congress. The heart of this particular observance was thankfulness to God for "an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness." Washington...
Council-suer, SOT member announce picks for City Council (UPDATED)
We're beginning to see components of Tulsa's establishment coalesce around certain candidates for City Council, the candidates they believe will best represent the establishment's interests at City Hall. Burt Holmes and Ben Latham have selected a partial slate of candidates, according to an email from Latham soliciting contributions for their...
Getting to know a new city
Natasha Ball (Tasha Does Tulsa) has posted the notes from her presentation last week at Ignite Tulsa 3 -- 19 Ways to Get to Know Your Town (Even If It's Not Tulsa). All the suggestions are good (except maybe 17 -- if I ever do Foursquare it'll be under a...
Yale demolishes its history
I just learned that the Yale, Oklahoma, Board of Education -- the school board in Jim Thorpe's hometown -- is demolishing its school auditorium, named in honor of long-time teacher Norma Velvin. That's bad enough, but what's worse is that they've left school trophies and memorabilia inside the building, along...
Bob Wills on NPR
This first ran in 2003, but it's still worth a listen. NPR's Morning Edition ran an 11-part series called "Honky Tonks, Hymns and the Blues." A couple of years later, it was turned into a two-hour radio documentary. Part 10 is all about Bob Wills and western swing. The eight-minute...
The dance hall at Glenoak, Oklahoma
Along US 60, halfway between Bartlesville and Nowata, there are a pair of curves that shifts the road south by a mile as you go east. On the northside* of the road, near the western curve, there was a gas station and a few houses. Once upon a time, way...
Lessons from Mom and Dad
An edited version of this column appeared in the May 28, 2008, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is no longer available online. Posted online November 18, 2014. Philip Larkin wrote, in a poem with an unforgettable and unprintable first line, that parents "fill you up with the...
Blogging the Iowa caucuses
The Iowa caucuses are less than a month away, and you may be thinking, "Are there any bloggers in Iowa that can give us a perspective on the caucuses that we won't get from national media?" There are indeed. Russ from Winterset, an Iowan active in Republican politics and a...
<em>Preposterous Papa</em>: Max Meyer's rules for tourist court clerks
In memory of Max Meyer and the natural stone tourist court he built on Route 66 north of Kellyville, an excerpt from Preposterous Papa by Lewis Meyer (pp. 99 - 102, 132-135): Papa was a compulsive builder. He went on building binges the way an alcoholic goes on drinking sprees....
LaFortune out?
It's been the guess of many a Republican insider that Tulsa Mayor Bill LaFortune would end up not seeking re-election. For one thing, it fits the pattern of his career to date. He was appointed to fill a vacancy as District Attorney, but didn't even finish out the term, much...
Life of Reilly
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, I started reading John Kennedy Toole's hilarious novel A Confederacy of Dunces, set in New Orleans in the early '60s. (It's on the bookshelf at Double Shot Coffee.) The protagonist, Ignatius J. Reilly, is an unforgettable character, a medievalist out of place in...
Edison stadium a dim-bulb idea
The recall campaign is over but yard signs are still sprouting up around midtown Tulsa. The campaign is not aimed at the general electorate, but at the board of Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) and the committee putting together the next school bond issue, slated for the November ballot. A group...
<em>Tulsa Tribunal</em> hits the east side
Just got word from Mom and Dad that they received the Jim Mautino edition of the Tulsa Tribunal in the mail today. Mom said it was disgusting, and if it's at all like the edition from a couple of weeks ago targeting Mautino's fellow City Councilor, Chris Medlock, I can...
A billion dollars but nothing to fix I-44
The yeasayers are telling us that we have to raise local taxes to fund additions to state colleges because we can't count on the state to fund Tulsa campuses adequately. If that's so, there should have been money in this package to fund a far more pressing need -- completing...
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