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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...
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,...
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:...
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)....
The Israel Bible
A little break from the political: I was intrigued a couple of months ago to receive an email announcing a new study edition of the Scriptures with notes highlighting the relationship between the land and people of Israel. The Israel Bible, published by Israel365 and Menorah Books (an imprint...
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...
Boston Beer Garden, 1937-1983
Found while looking for something else: In the Tulsa Library's growing digital archive, a December 22, 1983, Tulsa Tribune, story about the the Boston Beer Garden, destroyed by fire in the wee hours of December 21, 1983. The fire took the life of the bar's janitor and night watchman, Lennis...
Michael Willis for Tulsa County Clerk
On Tuesday, June 28, 2016, Republican voters in Tulsa County will decide which of two candidates will be our next County Clerk. The incumbent is not running for re-election, and only two Republicans filed for the seat: Michael Willis and Nancy Rothman. Online access to public records is a big...
Oklahoma historical congressional district maps
I've been watching politics for a very long time, going back to my childhood, so it's funny to observe the media's new-found concern about gerrymandering -- the practice of manipulating election district boundaries to benefit one party over another. The media's concern seems to have emerged with the growing dominance...
Run for School Board
Next Monday through Wednesday, December 7 - 9, 2015, is the filing period for public school board positions in Oklahoma. Most school districts will have a single seat, Position No. 1 up for election to a five-year term. Skiatook will have one additional seat on the ballot to fill an...
Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt: EPA and "waters of the United States"
Second in a series of reports from BatesLine's interview with Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt at Americans for Prosperity's Defending the American Dream Summit, August 29, 2014, in Dallas When Scott Pruitt took office as Oklahoma's Attorney General in 2011, he established what he calls his special ops team, a...
Historical surveys of Oklahoma cities and towns
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...
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...
Do new OKC skyscrapers have to go downtown? A Parisian possibility
Steve Lackmeyer has a story in today's Oklahoman about the dilemma facing Oklahoma City as surface parking downtown is being replaced with new development. Now, [Stage Center] is set to be torn down to make way for a tower rising at least 20 stories into the skyline. And if one...
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