MADE IN OKLAHOMA: OKLAHOMA MATTRESS CO.

The Oklahoman – Wednesday, July 8, 2009

CUSTOMIZED PRODUCTS MAKE IT A ‘DESTINATION’

When interior decorator Steve Callahan was tasked with outfitting upscale condominiums at The Centennial in Lower Bricktown, he went to the only business in town that creates cotton-tufted mattresses by hand.

Owner Jim Hunter boasts he’s not just the only guy creating beds such as the ones used a century ago. He insists he’s one of the few shops creating custom-made hand-tufted cotton mattresses anywhere.

“I’m really proud of what we do, and I think it’s really great when people realize there is something else out there,” Hunter said. “They don’t have to choose a store-bought mattress. People get scared at the word ‘custom,’ but when they come in and see what we do and our prices, they laugh. It’s often less than what you find elsewhere.”

Things don’t change much at Oklahoma Mattress Co. Charlotte Guerin still answers the phones, as she has for 30 years. The storefront has been home to the business since World War II (the original owners first opened shop at Ollie and NW 6).

The business was started by W.C. McKinney, and for a while, it sold furniture and mattresses, Hunter said. Hunter’s cousin bought it from the founders, and Hunter came by needing a job in 1973.

“I had just gotten out of high school … I got married very young – at 18 – and I needed to work and go to school,” Hunter said.

Six years later, Hunter bought the business and survived the economic turmoil of the 1980s and the blight that threatened to overtake the south side of the MidTown area. Now he’s surrounded by redevelopment.

Just this week, he spent an hour working with a young couple shopping for a mattress after helping a lady from Texas pick up a bed to haul back to her home. He fields orders for custom-made mattresses for boats, trailers, hospitals and hotels across the country.

“I’m a destination place,” Hunter said. “Somebody goes to Mathis Brothers. They own Lady Americana. They own the franchise. But if somebody goes there and says they need an odd size to fit their motor home, guess where they’re told to go? Serta does the same thing. I’m the guy.”

- Steve Lackmeyer

Kenyon Morgan was a graduate architecture student at the University of Oklahoma in 1973 when he began working with Sam Bowman at the Neighborhood Services Organization to assemble a plan for the Riverside Neighborhood Association.

As part of that plan, and in preparing a proposal for Mesta Park, Morgan became interested in how the city was using money from the federal 312 loan program. It was then he learned about the city’s plans to tear down dozens of buildings to make way for what civic leaders hoped would be a downtown “Galleria” shopping mall.

The mall was part of an ambitious downtown urban renewal plan developed by architect I.M. Pei.

The clearance plan required demolition of the Warner Theater, the Midwest Theater, Beverly’s restaurant, the Globe Life Insurance headquarters, the YWCA, Local Federal Bank, John A. Brown’s Department Store, and the heart of downtown’s Main Street retail corridor.

Morgan surveyed the targeted area, capturing images of the buildings on Kodachrome film just months before their demise. Morgan attended a city council meeting to share his photos and concerns. He recalls being told by Ward 8 City Councilman Merle McCollum that his effort was in vain, adding “young man, you’re delaying progress.”

The images Morgan hoped would sway the city in its plans serve as a reminder of what was lost when leaders attempted to implement the Pei Plan.

Morgan was not alone in voicing concerns about the continued implementation of the Pei Plan. But such protests failed to sway city leaders who continued with the demolition of hundreds of downtown structures through the late 1970s. The site for the mall was cleared by 1978. Two office towers were built on the northeast corner of the project area. Efforts to develop the mall continued, unsuccessfully, through the late 1980s at which time the plan was officially abandoned. The site remained a parking lot for 30 years.

Much of the clearance site, including the former home of the Warner Theater, was developed into a new, 50-story Devon Energy Center headquarters starting in 2008.

To learn more about Morgan, visit www.kenyonmorganarchitects.com. To learn more about the Pei Plan, visit www.impeiokc.com, a site developed by Retro Metro OKC in cooperation with the Oklahoma City/County Historical Society and the Oklahoma Historical Society.

— Steve Lackmeyer
Scanning by the RetroMetro OKC Resources Committee

Leo C. Sanders was born in Union City, Oklahoma (south of El Reno), on April 2, 1894. He worked his way through the University of Oklahoma, earning his degree in civil engineering in 1920. A laborer at 19, a general contractor sought after by the nation’s leading builders at 35. It was said that Sanders could level entire business blocks overnight, set foundations over weekends and left eastern capitalists generally amazed at finding such a dynamo of speed and efficiency in the vast pampas of North America, where 10–story buildings were still exciting.

A January 18, 1931, Oklahoman article said, “’If it can’t be done, let Sanders do it’ has become more than expression among many of the southwest’s largest builders who have found where speed is as vital as carefulness, Leo Sanders, Oklahoma City contractor, accomplishes the seemingly impossible in combining cyclonic speed with minute accuracy.”

Leo Sanders Construction projects included the following:

- Montgomery Wards: One of Sanders’ early projects was clearing the surface for, and then creating the foundation of, the Montgomery Wards building at Main and Walker, in 1929.

- Exchange Avenue Viaduct: Construction of the Exchange Avenue Viaduct over the North Canadian, took place in 1930. This project should not be confused with a later replacement (1954-1955) bridge which contract was awarded to his son, J.C. Sanders, but over which Leo was the project director.

- The Rock Island Depot: Sanders was contracted in 1930 to raze the old Rock Island Depot on the immediate north side of the Skirvin Hotel (roughly where the Skirvin’s ballroom areas are today). Sanders’ job was to demolish the depot within the space of four days’ time. On Jan. 14. 1931, the Oklahoman reported “Last month Rock Island railroad officials were doubtful about being able to clear their station off the right of way in the four days they were allowed. They called on Sanders. In 24 hours the station was just a memory.”

- YWCA: Another job completed by Sanders in 1930 immediately south of the Oklahoma County Courthouse at Park and Hudson.

- Ramsey Tower: Perhaps the most remembered of Sanders’ projects was is doing the foundation work for the Ramsey Tower in 1931. He also had the job of clearing the buildings that Ramsey Tower would replace.

- Skirvin Tower : Sanders was hired to do the foundation for the Skirvin Tower in 1931. In 1936, he built the tunnel under Broadway connecting Skirvin Tower and the Skirvin Hotel – a tunnel that started what is now known as “The Underground” pedestrian tunnels.

- Santa Fe Depot and Railway Elevation: Leo Sanders Construction built the current Santa Fe Depot in 1930 and the adjoining railroad elevation that separates Bricktown from downtown.

- Will Rogers Courts. The federal government selected Mr. Sanders to construct a Works Projects Administration (WPA) low income housing project adjacent to and north and west of Rotary Park, near Packingtown.

During the two years that it took to complete the 37 acre project in 1937, he was besieged in controversy. He would be assailed and vilified by unions and union leaders for having an “open shop” and he was attacked by the City of Oklahoma City for his not allowing city plumbing inspectors into the project. Warrants were even issued for his arrest. This was a federal project and he perceived that the matter was none of the city’s business. Aided by his attorney, John Shirk, he succeeded in avoiding the city’s claims and charges against him by resorting to and succeeding in federal court litigation. Sanders completed the project, which provided housing for 1,420 people and still stands today.

He died in Oklahoma City on December 22, 1980. The Leo Sanders Collection photos were provided to Retro Metro OKC by founding member Norman Thompson and Sanders’ grandson, Chris Sanders.

— Doug Loudenback and Steve Lackmeyer
Scanning by the RetroMetro OKC Resources Committee

The Veazey Drug Company story begins with the arrival of Stephen F. Veazey in Oklahoma City from Gibson County, Tennessee in 1900. The company narrative maintains that Veazey came to town with $20 and learned the pharmacy business through a series of jobs in local drugstores. This may be true but, Veazey and his brother James appear to have had a grocery store back in Dyer, Tenn. so he wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the retail business.

In 1906, Veazey partnered with Thomas Roach to buy the W. B. Armour drugstore at Robinson and California. With growing success, they moved to the southeast corner of Main and Harvey after purchasing the drug store of Julius Seaforth in 1908. Though they had incorporated as Security Drug Company, they changed the name to Roach & Veazey Drug Company the following year.

After about a decade together, Roach and Veazey parted ways and Stephen’s brother James came out from Tennessee to partner with his brother in a newer, larger store at 135-137 W Main. The new partners removed Roach’s name from the store and operated as Veazey Drug Company.

Veazey Drug prospered during the 1920s and by Stephen Veazey’s twentieth year as a druggist the brothers embarked on an aggressive expansion plan. Following the city’s residential settlement patterns, Veazey’s (as it was popularly referred to) opened eight new suburban stores in the two-year period from 1927-1929 and four more in the early 1930s. In 1938 they championed their fiercest rivals, the Crown Drug Store chain, and added the Crown stores to Veazey’s for a total of 21 stores.

The Veazey brothers continued their success until their deaths in 1955. Both brothers died within months of each other – Stephen in June and James in August. Stephen’s wife Violet purchased controlling interest in the company from Mrs. James Veazey; their son William became the vice president of the company. The remainder of the 1950s saw the chain remodel and reinvent itself, ultimately contracting to 17 stores. In March, 1962, the firm was sold to the Adams drug store chain of Rhode Island. Adams retained the Veazey name in the Oklahoma City area. Later that year they also purchased the smaller Katz Drug chain and converted those stores into Veazey stores. The original Veazey #1 moved across the street into the Katz downtown location at 200 W Main, site of the famous civil rights sit-ins of a few years earlier.

Veazey’s was the last big drug store in a downtown retail area ravaged by suburban shopping malls. The store finally locked its doors for the last time when its air conditioner gave out in 1972; it cost more to repair the cooling equipment than the store made in profit. At any rate the building was already scheduled for future demolition by the Urban Renewal Authority.

The last Veazey Drug closed at NW 63 and Portland in 1974. A handful of former Veazey store buildings are extant including the original #8 at 728 E Culbertson and the renumbered #8 at 2624 W Britton in the old Puddin’ Lane Shopping Center. Two notable examples are store #3 now occupied by James E. McNellie’s Public House in the restored Plaza Court building and #21, a former Crown Drug, at 4200 N Western has been occupied by VZD’s Restaurant and Club since 1976. The current tenants pay homage to the original occupants by featuring photographs and fixtures from the old drug store.

— Larry Johnson
Scanning by the RetroMetro OKC Resources Committee

Springlake Amusement Park was a popular Oklahoma City attraction from the 1920s through the 1970s. Admission to the park was free and rides and the pool were on a pay-as-you-go basis. If you just wanted to picnic by the lake there was no charge. Although the amusement-park no longer exists, its memory is honored by the presence of the Metrotech educational facility in its stead on at Martin Luther King Boulevard and NE 38.

Oklahoma City boasted three amusement parks in the mid-twentieth century: Wedgewood, Springlake, and Frontier City. In 1924, after his spring-fed pond in northeast Oklahoma City had been open to swimming and picnicking for six years, Roy Staton built a swimming pool there. Later expanding his park, he bought many of the rides from the defunct Belle Isle Park, built a ballroom, and in 1929 added the Big Dipper roller coaster, a fixture in the park for almost fifty years.

The height of Springlake’s popularity extended from the 1950s into the 1960s, and the park attracted top entertainers of the era including Johnny Cash, the Righteous Brothers, Roy Acuff, and Conway Twitty.

Demise

Springlake’s glory days, however, are remembered by the city’s black community as a time when the park restricted its attractions to whites only. By the 1960s, laws, attitudes and the changing demographics of the neighborhood made such discrimination increasingly unacceptable.

Once located in an all-white section of the city, the park figuratively became a white island in a black sea. Prior to the 1950s, Oklahoma City’s black residents lived mainly on the city’s near northeast side, south of NE 23. By the mid-1950s black families had moved northward into the immediate vicinity of Springlake park. Residents like Ruthie Forshee, a black woman residing on Springlake Drive in the mid-1950s, remembered watching the park’s Independence Day fireworks display from her yard. She was not welcome to participate in a celebration to commemorate her nation’s freedom.

With the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, black residents were no longer reluctant to enter the park. However, there remained an area of the park where blacks still were not welcome. Although many whites were willing to share the park’s midway with blacks, sharing the swimming pool was quite another matter. Staton could not lawfully deny blacks access to the pool, but if he let blacks in, he risked losing many white patrons. Faced with a dilemma, his choice of action did not come easy.

To avoid a clash between whites and blacks over the pool issue, Staton closed the pool to everyone except the members of an exclusive Aquatic Club, an evasive policy he soon abandoned. When Wedgewood Park opened its pool to everyone, Staton had little choice but to lift the membership requirement. Finally integrated, Springlake’s pool, open since 1924, closed forever after the 1967 season. It became a Sea-Aquarium, where dolphins frolicked in water once reserved for humans. The lost revenue from the swimming pool would be sorely missed in the years to come.

Racial tension remained an issue for the park. News of a large riot that erupted in 1971 in the park between whites and blacks frightened away potential customers and hastened Springlake’s demise. A change of ownership, poor maintenance, and fire led to the park’s 1981 sale to the Oklahoma City Vo-Tech Board, which closed Springlake for good.

— Doug Loudenback, author of “Springlake” (Arcadia Press)
Scanning by the RetroMetro OKC Resources Committee

The Collection

The bulk of these photos were kept by Marvin Staton, son of Roy Staton, and then left with Norman Thompson, a founding member of Retro Metro OKC.

The original collection was not organized as far as we are aware. In the interest of easier access and smoother browsing, the Springlake Collection photos have been sorted into five categories. These categories were created according to the type of photo or the perceived intent of the photographer and specific topics may appear in many categories (e.g. a search for ‘rollercoaster’ may return results from several categories rather than just the ‘Rides’ category).

It started with a gunshot – Legally, there were no residents at all in Oklahoma City when gunshots rang out on April 22, 1889. The shots heralded what may be one of the most sudden births of a city in the history of mankind. The Land Run of 1889 offered hope and opportunity for anyone brave enough to stake their lots and gamble their fortunes that a great city would rise at Oklahoma Station. With a river flowing through it and ample rail access, this new city’s population quickly swelled to 10,000.

One area of this new city, however, was initially off limits. Troops from Fort Reno established an outpost east of the Santa Fe tracks. Once convinced that law and order had been established, the troops withdrew, making the area ripe for development. A decade after the land run, Congress instructed the city to plat the area and sell the properties with proceeds benefiting public schools. The deal also called for creation of Riverside Park along the North Canadian River and construction of a school.

Boom Times:

The former outpost was fertile ground for industrial development. Wholesalers and distributors, many from Chicago, early on set up shop along the Santa Fe tracks. Rock Island tracks and Katy tracks formed the south and north borders to the city’s new wholesale district. Some industries flourished. Wholesale grocers like Williamson Halsell and Fraiser, and Carroll Brough & Robinson became major regional distributors. Oklahoma Sash & Door and the Federal Steam Company helped build the new city. The First State Ice Company kept the new city cool, and also provided the critical element to ensuring wholesalers’ success. Households were furnished and maintained with goods from the Miller-Jackson Company and Oklahoma City Hardware. The Iten Biscuit Company, meanwhile, put bread on families tables, while the Steffen’s dairy provided them with milk and ice cream.

The wholesale district also became an important regional hub for agriculture and cotton production. Implements dealers with names of Kingman, Rock Island Plow and International Harvester set up shop to provide everything a farmer might need while taking care of the business in the big city. The wholesale district persevered and continued to grow through World War I and beyond. Grand new passenger depots were built by the Santa Fe and Katy railroads. And even in the midst of the Great Depression, the city and the Sante Fe Railroad joined together to build a raised viaduct that would allow for safe passage of cars and pedestrians under the busy tracks.

The wholesale district was rarely without some fun or mischief. Employees of the Fox-Vliet Drug Company played baseball against employees of Carroll, Brough & Robinson. The Southern Club offered cigars, liquor, gambling and loose women all while trying to claim it was just a respectable gentleman’s club. And ‘Big Anne’, well, she made no such pretense as she operated her bordello at the foot of the Walnut Avenue bridge along Main Street. Families came to the wholesale district as well to grab a free ice cream at Steffen’s or sample some treats at the Walter Williams Candy Company.

The ties between the black community and the wholesale district were strong. The Walnut Avenue bridge connected the all black Deep Deuce to hundreds of jobs. Children from Deep Deuce cross the bridge to attend Douglass High School. It was here that jazz legends Jimmy Rushing and Charlie Christian perfected their craft under the tutelage of Zelia N. Breaux.

By the 1930s the wholesale district was a handsome collection of sturdy brick warehouses and plants that were the pride of the city. Companies like Oklahoma Furniture Manufacturing built ornate brick buildings and painted their name in big letters on the side. Corporate leaders of these plants and warehouses were convinced their legacies would last for decades – that the wholesale district would continue to bustle forever. And as if to put an exclamation point on that belief, the discovery of the Oklahoma City Oil Field created a forest of oil derricks as a southeast backdrop to the district.

FADING SIGNS

The dreamers and corporate titans were wrong. The very progress that made the wholesale district great began to turn against it. The loss of too many important businesses like the Cotton Exchange to fire began to have its toll on the area’s vitality. Civic leaders began to plot a new industrial district north of downtown that they hoped would thrive with more space to grow than the original wholesale district. The Great Depression killed more major wholesalers. The railroads began to suffer as they lost passenger travel to the emergence of airliners. The closure of the Douglass High School and relocation of its student body further east seemed to mark the start of decay. Obsolete structures were no longer likely to be torn down and replaced with new industry. The overall stature of companies that still called the wholesale district home dropped precipitously.

Construction of the Interstate 40 Crosstown Expressway cut the wholesale district off from the once thriving cotton exchange area. And the start of Urban Renewal eliminated what wholesalers remained on the west side of the Santa Fe tracks after construction of the railway viaduct. Train depots closed, entire track spurs went silent.

By the 1970s blight was spreading throughout the area. Once grand buildings began to fall to the wrecking ball. Without a savior, there would be no need for Urban Renewal to come through and clear-cut the area as it had west of the tracks. Time and neglect were taking care of the job quite effectively.

BRICK TOWN U.S.A.

Neal Horton was considered crazy, and not a savior, when he began to buy up properties at the start of the 1980s. After a stint in banking, Horton caught the development bug from one of his acquaintances. During trips to Colorado, Horton saw historic preservation in Denver’s Larimer Square. Much of downtown Oklahoma City’s oldest and finest buildings had been razed by Urban Renewal, but a few had survived. After an unsuccessful attempt to buy the Cravens Building at Robinson and Park Avenues, Horton got his shot with nearly-century-old Oil and Gas Building down the street. But much of the building had been covered with metal siding, and so much of the original building had been damaged that he had to erect a new brick façade. Moving further south along Robinson Avenue, he got another shot at historic preservation with the Colcord Building. And it was while he was looking out of an office window at the Colcord that Horton saw the old wholesale district.

Where others saw the wholesale district as an eyesore, Horton saw a historic district that would draw people who thought all of Oklahoma City’s architectural heritage had been destroyed. Attorney Bill Peterson, meanwhile, saw an opportunity with the Iten Biscuit plant. He entered into negotiations to buy the property and commissioned an architect to draw up plans to convert the warehouse into a retail mall. Peterson lost the deal to U-Haul, however, and the building was instead turned into a storage facility. But Peterson’s effort caught the attention of Horton, and the two teamed up to form the Warehouse Development Company. They recruited one more partner, John Michael Williams, who had previously worked as a land attorney with the city. Together, they began doing deals with wholesale district property owners, many of whom were now living out of state.

Despite its abundance of brick warehouses and brick streets, the name Bricktown did not originate with any of the three partners. Instead, it was thought up by a potential San Francisco investor being solicited by Horton and Peterson. When asked what they were going to call their development, the pair admitted they didn’t have an answer. It was then the investor, looking out of Horton’s office at the Colcord, responded “Why don’t you call it Bricktown?”

The plan for Bricktown (initially marketed as “Brick Town U.S.A.”) seemed simple at first. The oil boom in the early 1980s was going in full swing and downtown office space was virtually full. The partners agreed to double-digit interest rates on construction loans fully anticipating they could capture a lease rate of $15 a square foot or better. They dreamed up lists of potential tenants – a candy store, an antiques shop, clothing stores, a radio station, cleaners, music stores, restaurants, bars, delis and art galleries. Horton made presentations where he suggested Bricktown would be a great place to introduce a “new concept” – a bed and breakfast inn.

Just as renovations were getting underway on the first pair of buildings, the boom turned to bust. Wheeling and dealing at Penn Square Bank in northwest Oklahoma City led to it being closed by the FDIC. The bank’s collapse then triggered failures throughout the oil and gas industry as loans based on handshakes went bad. Occupancy rates downtown plummeted as companies went bankrupt. Horton, Peterson and Williams had gone too far to stop – they had to continue on and hope that the downturn would be temporary. They continued to promote Bricktown as the state’s first urban entertainment district and tried to negotiate deals for offices and restaurants.

The Warehouse Development Company was going broke. In addition to buying up properties, Horton had gone on trips across the country and throughout Europe buying up old furnishings and fixtures for the delis, shops and restaurants that did not yet exist. Horton’s car was reposed as he tried to negotiate a deal with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to get a grant for a parking garage. Horton was mocked behind his back and city planners suggested he might have fared better by razing all the warehouses and starting from scratch with a new office park.

Jim Brewer – “Mayor of Bricktown”

The demise of the Warehouse Development Company, however, did not end Bricktown. A new group of owners would come in and keep Horton’s dream alive. They included Jim Tolbert and Don Karchmer, turn-around experts who bought the two nearly finished buildings along Sheridan Avenue. They completed the job and moved in, and thus maintained a stable presence in an area still avoided by the public. Williams, meanwhile, recruited a fellow southsider, a gritty oilman who had survived the bust with his assets intact. Jim Brewer had pulled himself out of poverty by working his way up from operating a transmission shop to opening successful nightclubs to his luck in the oil patch. When touring the former wholesale district, Brewer brought along some acquaintances. They included Craig Brown, who previously had been involved in development of Crossroads Mall. Brewer and Brown together realized the old Hunzicker Lighting building, filled with Horton’s antiques, reminded them of a haunted warehouse. After touring a similar operation in Kansas City, they did a deal with bankers to lease the Bricktown warehouse. The Bricktown Haunted Warehouse was a huge success, and Brewer instantly became the P.T. Barnum of Bricktown.

Brewer had succeeded where Horton had failed – he had found a way to draw crowds to Bricktown. Slowly, the district’s fortunes began to turn around with a few offices leased by Tolbert and Karchmer and clubs lured in by Brewer. The final spark to set Bricktown in motion, however, would be the opening of Spaghetti Warehouse in 1989. Founder Robert Hawk followed a blueprint for choosing where to expand. Only an old building in a run-down urban setting would work, and the community had to have a population of at least 100,000. Bricktown fit the bill perfectly, and lines formed outside the restaurant nightly when it opened in the old Oklahoma Furniture Manufacturing factory.

Spaghetti Warehouse’s success opened the floodgates for other restaurants and shops wanting to capitalize on the public’s sudden love affair with Bricktown. Brewer kept the momentum going with festivals and promotions aimed at portraying the district as being busier than it really was. Having once operated nightclubs as a younger man, Brewer went back into the business with O’Brien’s, an Irish bar with dueling piano players and karaoke. The re-establishment of the old minor league Blazers ice hockey team, and launching the minor league Calvary basketball team, provided a stream of sports fans to visit Bricktown before and after games at the Myriad Arena just west of the Santa Fe tracks.

Maps:

Oklahoma City started the 1990s with momentum, but was also still dogged with poor self-esteem. A new mayor, Ron Norick, won voters’ support for a series of tax initiatives aimed at luring new industry. But despite the best of incentives packages, Oklahoma City was repeatedly rejected. He visited Indianapolis after that city won the competition for a new airline maintenance plant. He saw a vibrant downtown and a city that took pride in itself. He returned home with renewed enthusiasm to get Oklahoma City to re-invest in itself. His timing was good – veteran advertising man Ray Ackerman was leading a similar discussion as chairman of the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber. The resulting vision was the Metropolitan Area Projects, which called for multiple projects downtown, including a RiverWalk-style canal and a vintage-style ballpark in Bricktown. The proposition was passed, but not before Horton died from emphysema. Horton had never recovered from his failure in Bricktown, and in the months leading up to his death he was destitute and one point homeless.

The Metropolitan Area Projects, or MAPS, proceeding at a turtle pace that frustrated the public. Early bids came in over budget and timelines were slipping. The ballpark was to be the first project built, located on the site of the old Douglass High School. When it opened in 1998, the ceremonies were attended by some of the greatest names in baseball. The ballpark won rave reviews from the public.

Oklahoma City residents were not sure what to think of the next project – the Bricktown Canal. Planners had originally suggested building it south of Reno Avenue. It was then moved to California Avenue where construction would require excavation at basement level of some of the city’s oldest buildings. Property owners debated design plans. Brewer even yelled and cursed at engineers as he insisted the canal included walkways at both water-level and street-level.

New property owners including orthodontist French Hickman – also a musician known as “Doc Blues” – bought some of the most prominent buildings along the future canal with plans of attracting shops, restaurants and clubs. When the canal opened on July 2, 1999, the ceremonies were mobbed with people wanting to witness history. Long lines formed night after night to ride water taxis that simply traveled to one end of the canal and back again.

A decade later, Bricktown is a regional destination admired and studied by civic delegations across the country. The district is home to hotels, shops, restaurants, condominiums, theaters and even a bowling alley and a massive outdoors store. The district continues to evolve, and is once again one of Oklahoma City’s most important commercial hubs.

COMING SOON:

Retro Metro OKC’s Bricktown historical exhibit is almost complete and will be unveiled soon in the Bricktown Marketplace, 121 E California (Miller-Jackson Building) along the Bricktown Canal.

The Collection:

Steve Lackmeyer, president of Retro Metro OKC, is considered the city’s historian on Bricktown, having conducted extensive interviews with key players including the widow and partners of original developer Neal Horton and years of discussions with the late Jim Brewer. These photos represent acquisitions made by Lackmeyer over more than a dozen years and include materials provided by Horton’s Warehouse Development Co., the Brewer and McLain families, the Oklahoma Historical Society, the City of Oklahoma City and various contractors, architects, businesses and merchants. Lackmeyer authored two books detailing Bricktown’s history – “OKC Second Time Around” (with co-author Jack Money) and “Bricktown.”

— Steve Lackmeyer
Scanning by the RetroMetro OKC Resources Committee

The advent of a public high school was heralded as a major cultural achievement for young Oklahoma City in 1892. A couple of schools began in the city as early as June, 1889, but these were private schools operating by subscription as no legal authority (and thus funding mechanism) existed for public education at the time. The creation of Oklahoma Territory made public education possible in the new city.

The first high school began in 1892 in a rented store front at 319 West California where Mary D. Couch presided over the students. Available evidence is sketchy, but it seems that Ms. Couch was teaching advanced courses, but this early version may not have been quite a fully formed high school. At the time, students across the country generally attended school up to the eighth grade and high school was reserved for those learning skilled trades or as preparation for those going on to college. The city’s school population had increased to about 1200 students and officials believed a sufficient number of students could benefit from a high school.

That following year the federal government reverted ownership of Military Hill, the land east of the Santa Fe tracks which made up the military reservation, to the city with the stipulation that the land be designated for educational use. It was determined that a high school building should be built on this land when funds became available. Socialite Mrs. Selwyn Douglas (Julia) was selected to organize the high school when it could be built. But Mrs. Douglas, known for her boundless energy (she would later found the first public library), did not wait for a building. She immediately arranged for classes to begin in the former Army post’s barracks. Ethel McMillan, in History of the Public Library of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, writes,

“There was no building, but what was that to thwart one with the ability, courage, and authority to worthily direct the opportunities for youth teeming with life at high tide? So to the four-room log house recently used as a barracks on the Military Reservation, gathered these young people from the various sections of the nation with the background of characteristics of all these areas and could any young people have been more fortunate in leadership?”

By 1896 the high school building at NE 4 and Walnut was completed in fine Richardsonian style. This building would eventually be known as Irving School but to everyone in town it was “the high school.”
During the great population and building boom of 1909-1910, prolific local architect Solomon Layton designed a grand structure at 801 N Robinson at the southern end of “Church Row.” The new school was built in the Collegiate Gothic architectural style and provided excellent facilities for a complete high school education. Among these were an auditorium, a two-tiered gymnasium, a swimming pool, and specially equipped classrooms for courses such as home economics and shop. For its first sixteen years, the facility was known as Oklahoma High School, but after the construction of Classen High School (1919) and the proposed Capitol Hill High School (1928), the name was changed to Central High School in 1926.

The school reached its peak usage in the 1950s, but declines in enrollment caused by increased suburbanization sent the school into decline in the 1960s. Central High School essentially ceased to function as school in 1968 when it was reclassified as a junior high school. The building remained school board property until 1981 when it was sold to the Southwestern Bell Corporation which remade the now decrepit building into its Oklahoma headquarters.

Throughout its history Central produced dozens of successful graduates whose names adorn buildings and streets all around the city and a few corporate boardrooms and Hollywood marquees as well. Central’s alums were possessed of much loyalty and school spirit and ultimately formed the Central High School Alumni Association which cooperated with Southwestern Bell in creating a Central High School Museum in the remodeled building. Though no longer located in that building, the Association’s collection contains a trove of artifacts from the school’s traditions including the photographs they have shared with Retro Metro OKC.

— Buddy Johnson
Scanning by the RetroMetro OKC Resources Committee

In the late 1920s railway executives determined the Santa Fe Train Station that had served the city since statehood needed to be replaced. And that change would include a new set of elevated tracks. The $5 million elevation would allow a free flow of traffic under bridges to be built under the new tracks. But the East Side Civic Improvement League quickly expressed concerns that the project would not allow ample east-west crossings and asked that bridges be added at NW 6, NW 1 (Park Avenue) and Noble Avenue.

The project ground to a halt in 1930 as the debate continued. Engineers with the Santa Fe Railroad advised the city would have to pay $500,000 to accommodate the requested changes. City planning consultant S. Herbert Hare backed the civic league’s requested changes. In October, 1930, the city and the railroad struck an agreement to provide the requested crossings at a cost of $347,000 to be paid by the city. Protests continued, however, when engineers revealed plans called for a deep dip along NW 6 as it passed under the tracks.

After briefly considering abandoning the project in late 1930, the Santa Fe Railroad and city agreed to the compromised plan (including the dip at NW 6). Leo Sanders Construction started work in the spring of 1931. The entire project, including the construction of a new Santa Fe Train Depot, was completed in 1934.

The Collection

These photos were provided by Stan Hall, president of the Oklahoma Railway Museum. The photos were taken by the Santa Fe Railway recording the progress of the elevation construction in 1931 and also capture rare views of surrounding industry.

To learn more about the Oklahoma Railway Museum, visit http://oklahomarailwaymuseum.org

— Steve Lackmeyer
Scanning by the RetroMetro OKC Resources Committee

The Oklahoma Railway Co. operated from 1903 to 1947 and during its heyday it was the chief means of transportation for residents throughout central Oklahoma.

On February 6, 1903, the Oklahoman headline read, “Car Service Next Monday,” and indeed it was. The article tells a brief story about a “Boomer” who had witnessed a trial run. He had sighted “the modern electric flyer” moving north on Broadway, and “His amazement was apparent.”

Leaning forward, with his hands thrown out, sombrero tilted back, this survivor of the picturesque band of intrepid adventurers which effected the opening of Oklahoma to white settlement stood with his eyes riveted upon the receding car until it disappeared from view over the crest of the North Broadway divide, when, straightening up and heaving a great sigh, he exclaimed:

“Well, by thunder! They’ve sure got them cars toted by lightnin.”

With this solitary comment the” boomer” entered the nearest saloon and quieted his nerves by swallowing a four-finger quantum of fire water with a toast to “civilization and the memory of David Payne.”

The article noted there would be two lines, the University Line (South Broadway to University Heights) and the Maywood Line (Stiles Park to Colcord Park and Delmar Garden). If that be so, the routing would quickly change … When Oklahoma Took The Trolley says that, “The original plan called for a four-mile double-tracked loop around the downtown district on Main Street and Grand Ave., but by February 7, 1903, cars were operated on a more elaborate system including a line from Choctaw and Broadway north to 13th and Broadway; a line from Main and Broadway west to Western; a line from Reno and Harvey north to Fourth, west to Walker and north to 13th, and a line from Stiles Park from Fourth and Broadway via Harrison Ave.”

Oklahoma City’s trolley and interurban system was not funded by public funds. It was funded by leading city businessmen Anton Classen and John Shartel who poured millions of dollars into developing and maintaining the system.

After obtaining a franchise from the city, it was pretty much up to a company to develop the lines as they saw fit (in the absence of a city council’s prohibition of placing track on a particular street). If they knew what they intended, land, and lots of it, could be acquired before the line was actually developed … of course, by other companies who not coincidentally were at least partially owned by the same principal stockholders of the traction lines themselves. By controlling the trolley routes, Classen and Shartel guided much of the city’s early day growth.

The system continued to growth through the early 1920s, with ridership peaking at 25.5 million in 1920. The city’s population that year totaled 91,000, which, if broken down by just locals, averages out to 280 rides for every man, woman and child.

With 130 miles of tracks to maintain and operate, and the emergence of the automobile, the Oklahoma Railway Co. struggled financially throughout the 1920s. In 1924 the company was forced into federal receivership, and while that ended in reorganization in 1927, the turmoil continued.

By the start of the 1940s, the company started a plan to replace lines with buses. The last Oklahoma City streetcar ran on April 13, 1947, followed by the final Interurban run on September 27, 1947.

The Collection:

Dr. George Winn was one of Oklahoma City’s leading allergists and was one of the key players in building the Oklahoma City Allergy Clinic at the Oklahoma Health Center.

Winn’s dedication to recording and preserving the history of the Oklahoma Railway Co. – including the Oklahoma City streetcars and Interurbans – is a priceless snapshot of our city’s past.

Winn was a life long train enthusiast, enjoyed collecting miniature trains and also filming full size trains among other subjects and taking photos.

He was a noted member of the Cinematographers Club of Oklahoma City, and started in that hobby by taking his own home movies on 16mm film starting in the late 1920s on. He and his wife traveled the world, as much by train as other modes.

George filmed trains and streetcars, because he found them interesting. The different types and configurations caught his attention, as did the scenery or street traffic in the background. He knew the local streetcar and interurban lines were being converted to buses in the 1940s, which inspired him to record the final operations on film.

In addition to filming the streetcars as they traveled through downtown, the OU Medical Center and surrounding suburbs, Winn contributed a collection of Oklahoma Railway Co. memorabilia to the Oklahoma Railway Museum at 3400 NE Grand Boulevard.

Thanks goes to Steve Davis, who along with fellow train enthusiast Willis Bottger transferred the Winn films to video, and then made them available for display by Retro Metro OKC.

— Doug Loudenback and Steve Lackmeyer
Video transfered by the RetroMetro OKC Resources Committee

Step inside the Skirvin Hilton Hotel, Balliet’s or any trendy restaurant, and chances are there will not be any customized matchbooks provided by the host. But throughout much of the 1900s, matchbooks were commonplace in the hospitality industry – and were a thriving conduit for advertising around the world.

According to the American Matchbook Collecting Club, tens of thousands of advertisers were using matchbooks by the 1920s, making it one of the most popular means of advertising at the time.

For about $5 a case for 2,500 professionally printed matchbooks, a small business could get enough professionally printed matchbooks. Matchbook production peaked at 500,000 in 1945, and then went into a slow decline with the advent of lighters followed by anti-smoking laws.

The Collection:

Hundreds of matchbooks have been provided for display by Retro Metro OKC by Kyle Anderson, owner of Kyle’s 1025 restaurant and Retro Metro OKC founding member Norman Thompson.

The Vintage OKC Matchbook Collection includes some stunning examples, including a matchbook for Beverly’s restaurant that shows a full color logo printed on the actual matchsticks. The Kerr’s Department Store matchbook is unique in that it is designed to close at the top of the two covers instead of at the strike strip.

Each matchbook was staged and photographed by Retro Metro OKC webmaster Justin Tyler Moore to allow for a full view of each item. The matchbooks provide a glimpse at advertising campaigns for some of Oklahoma City’s most beloved businesses, and also show the broad appeal of matchbook advertising during an era when smoking was commonplace in hotels, restaurants, shops and offices.

— Steve Lackmeyer
Photography by the RetroMetro OKC Resources Committee

For Oklahoma City, Dolores Restaurant is just a memory – another great restaurant that faded away after being a local favorite for decades. But for Los Angeles, the legend continues.

Confused?

This story starts back when drive-through restaurants were brand new – an innovation prompted by the sudden explosion of cross country automobile travel.

It was in the early 1920s that Ralph Stephens took his first shot at the restaurant business, opening first at NW 4 and Olie, and then later at Main and Broadway where competition and a lot of debt led him to flee in 1923 with his wife, Amanda, sons Vince and Bob, and daughter Dolores.

The family made its first stop in Dallas, where Stephens later said he saw “a pig stand with what looked like a thousand cars around it.” Indeed Dallas was where the very first pig stand (forerunners to drive-through restaurants), Kirby’s, had opened in 1921.

Stephens was hired by one of the Dallas pig stand chains and learned the operation in Dallas before setting out to open a stand in Little Rock. Before going to his post, Stephens took his family to his wife’s family house in Hannibal, Mo. And it was there that Stephens, visiting with his father-in-law, a carpenter, decided it made more sense to open their own business rather than work for someone else.

The family “slept in the stand” while it was being built, and in June 1925, Goody-Goody Barbeque opened for business. Business initially boomed. But the crowds disappeared once cold weather settled in.

Once again, Stephens was a failed restaurateur.

“We closed, and being sort of soldiers in fortune, we took off for Florida,” Stephens explained in a 1968 interview. “The land boom was on then and we went to Tampa and opened one restaurant, then another. They had told us there were no rooms in Tampa so we bought a tent and slept under that until we almost flooded out.”

The crash of 1929 once again killed Stephens’ short-lived success story. The family returned to Oklahoma City with Stephens determined to settle his debts and prove he could be a successful restaurant operator.

And this time, he was coming with a secret weapon. While in Hannibal, Amanda Stephens obtained a recipe for “comeback” sauce from a barbeque stand in nearby Quincy, Ill. And what a comeback it would be.

Dolores Restaurant, named after Stephens’ daughter, opened at 33 NE 23 on April 15, 1930.

“The Depression hadn’t hit Oklahoma yet and the first year our volume was $52,000,” Stephens said. “We never closed our doors when the Depression hit, but we were selling hamburgers and malts for a dime each to stay open.”

The Stephens continued to add their own touches, even inventing “Susi-Q potatoes” in 1938. They wowed customers with their black-bottom pie and salad dressings. And Stephens also continued the idea of “drive-in” service, establishing parking stalls behind the restaurant, which at the time was located along the heavily-traveled Route 66.

By the 1940s Dolores was becoming a top pick for Route 66 guidebooks. Duncan Hines recommended the restaurant in his 1941 book “Adventures in Good Cooking,” saying “I enjoy eating here, especially their steaks and Susi-Q potatoes and barbequed ribs. They have the best biscuits I have found anywhere in America, made by Neal, a colored woman, who does not use a recipe, but has a remarkable sense of feel, which tells here when the mixture is right – served twice a week (I suggest you wire ahead requesting these remarkable biscuits). Their menu provides a variety of good salads and other things, and I hope you are fortunate enough to find Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Stephens there, so you may meet them personally.”

Dolores Restraurant was booming enough without the high praise from Mr. Hines – that winter Stephens shut the restaurant for a couple of weeks, expanded the dining area and engaged in a bit of rare advertising (Only after selling the restaurant to investors were advertisements seen again in the early 1970s)

Stephens’ brother-in-law, Bob Ogle, became manager of the restaurant (“Ogle’s Special” referred to a root beer float he perfected) and in 1945, Ralph and Amanda Stephens moved to California. They opened a Dolores Drive-In on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, and followed up by opening three more restaurants.

Stephens eventually sold all but the Beverly Hills drive-in, which he turned over to his son Bob in 1961. His second son, Vince, meanwhile, was building up a legend of his own back in Oklahoma City.

Maybe you’ve heard of it – the Split T.

In 1966 Amanda Stephens died. Ralph Stephens quickly remarried, and in 1968 he bought The Pub at 6418 N Western. A year later he sold Dolores Restaurant to a group of investors, who closed it for good in 1974. After eight years of standing vacant, The Catering Co. announced plans to reopen the restaurant, but if it did reopen (there is no further record of the restaurant), the venture was short-lived. The building was razed a few years later.

The Dolores name, meanwhile, endures in Los Angeles with the Stephens established a chain of their eateries.

The following history is provided by Dolores Restaurant at www.doloresrestaurant.com:

Dolores was founded by Amanda and Ralph Stevens, who after owning various restaurants in different states moved to Los Angeles in 1944 and opened the Dolores drive-in restaurant in Hollywood.

There were many drive-in restaurants in Los Angeles during the mid 1940′s and Dolores fit right in. Then, in 1956 the Stevens’ son Robert and his wife Lucille moved to Los Angeles to help manage the newly leased Dolores Restaurant on Wilshire Blvd. and La Cienega in Beverly Hills. The restaurant was a hit with the local teenagers in the 40′s and 50′s with its carhops, Suzie Q’s and JJ Burgers became a staple in the community for the next thirty years.

These “good times” would soon end when in 1981 Dolores drive-in was forced to close down to make room for a high rise office building. The last of the remaining Dolores Restaurants is the one you see today located at 11407 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Los Angeles where the food and service are like they have never been before

In 2008 Dolores Restaurant was put under new management. With a fresh new vision, a passion for taste and quality food and a true concern to support local growers, new owner, Kourosh Izadpanahi, brings a new take to this classic diner. The new Dolores Restaurant meets today’s customers’ needs for taste and health conscious food.

The Collection:

Many of these photos, menus and mementos were provided by Chris Chesnut, great-grandson of Ralph and Amanda Stephens, and Dale Cobb, daughter of Dolores Cobb. For Chestnut, whose grandfather was Bob Stephens, the Dolores legacy is every bit a matter of family pride. His photos reflect Ralph and Amanda Stephens’ friendship with Duncan Hines, their life spent in Florida, and their pioneering of drive-in restaurants. Chestnut drove with his young family from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City to help Retro Metro OKC celebrate its “birthday” on July 15, 2010, and webmaster Justin Tyler Moore did a scanning demonstration at the end of the evening. Dale Cobb and her husband James also joined in the fun and brought the famous Dolores Comeback Sauce for the party.

With such acts of graciousness and friendship, Retro Metro OKC considers the Dolores family kindred spirits and cherished allies in sharing yet another bit of city history with future generations.

-Steve Lackmeyer
Scanning completed by the Retro Metro OKC Resource Committee

An advertisement in the Dec. 5, 1932 Daily Oklahoman introduced the Britling Cafeteria as “Oklahoma City’s newest good place to eat,” adding it would “soon be famous in Oklahoma City for serving fine home-cooked dishes at new and sure-to-be-popular low prices.” Accompanying renderings showed patrons dressed in fine gowns and tuxedos dining in opulent settings.

The restaurant at 221 W First was opened a few days later by A.W.B. Johnson, who had opened his first cafeteria during World War I utilizing conservation methods popularized as a war measure, combined with serving quality food. He opened his first Britling Cafeteria in Birmingham, Alabama, followed by additional restaurants opened in Louisville and Memphis – both of which were then transferred to the control of Johnson’s sons.

Those who dined at the cafeteria that first week were treated 5-cent bowls of vegetable and cream of tomato soup, beef loaf with onion sauce for 12 cents, deviled crabs for 15 cents, veal pot roast and dressing or baked ham for 24 cents. Sides included Mexican slaw, potato salad, sweet slaw, Colorado lettuce, Waldorf Salad and sliced tomatoes.

The restaurant isn’t mentioned after 1948. A year later the address of 221 W First appears to have been swallowed up by the appliance section of the growing John A. Brown Department Store.

Such restaurants, however, are a critical part of a community’s history. They are where happy memories are created – and hopefully a memento might survive decades later.

Such is the case with the Britling Cafeteria, which closed decades ago. A simple matchbook collected by restaurateur and self-professed history geek Kyle Anderson gives a glimpse at the cafeteria’s reach for grandeur.

The Collection:

Anderson, owner of Kyle’s 1025 at NW 70 and Western (formerly Charlie Newton’s and before that the Kentucky Club), is a fifth generation Oklahoman whose collection of restaurant memorabilia includes menus from Beverly’s and Glen’s Hickory Inn, matchbooks from numerous old restaurants and hotels, table settings, advertisements and other mementos.

Anderson learned about the importance of such acquisitions as a youth volunteering his time for the Oklahoma Historical Society at the Overholser Mansion. He admits his mother and grandmother rarely cooked – and the family dinner hour was often spent at Queen Anne Cafeteria in Founders Tower, which was where his grandfather worked.

He remembers enjoying meals at Sleepy Hollow Restaurant, where his grandfather often joked that the pineapple sherbet, which never seemed to disappear, was left over from a truck that wrecked in 1945.

Anderson’s mementos are the foundation for Retro Metro OKC’s vintage restaurant collection, which also includes items displayed by members and the Oklahoma Historical Society. And this is one collection where visitors’ comments may shape the future of our history.

Anderson’s restaurant is itself a bit of history, having once been home to the last incarnation of the Kentucky Club, where the city’s well to do used a secret buzzer to gain access to an upstairs room where drinks flowed a bit more freely than legally allowed and certain games were conducted despite the disapproval of the law.

The history of the Kentucky Club goes back to 1939, when it was opened at 1226 NE 63 by Kentucky transplants Tony and Winnie Bell Marneres. The site was far out in the country – and customers could pay a $1 cover charge and enjoy a 25-cent Coke in the air conditioned oasis. Newspaper clippings document the gambling; only legend and gossip support reports of alcohol (Oklahoma remained a Prohibition state long after the national ban was repealed in 1933). The original building burned in 1949 and reopened as the Ramada Club (it is now home to the County Line BBQ).

John Bell, Winnie Marneres’ brother and head chef at the Kentucky Club, was lured away to start a new Kentucky Club at NW 70 and Western, where, legend has it, some of the old activities enjoyed at the original establishment were resumed in an upstairs room that could only be accessed by a hidden buzzer. The restaurant was later renamed Bells – then Charlie Newton’s – and now Kyle’s 1025.

As this collection is being added (July, 2010), Anderson is planning to share the history of his restaurant, and his extensive mementos with patrons, with menus changing every couple of weeks to feature recipes from beloved old eateries.

Please feel free to use the comments section to share your own memories, even recipes, from your favorite old Oklahoma City restaurants.

— Steve Lackmeyer
Scanning by the Retro Metro OKC Resources Committee

Jon Spence has worked in Oklahoma City television most of his life. Although most of his career has been focused on television advertising, his love affair with the industry began during a Cub Scout field trip in which he learned to make a pretend camera fashioned from an old curtain rod and a shoebox. Throughout most of his youth and all through high school at Harding, Spence could be seen with a Brownie camera in his hand. So he was the natural choice when his brother, who was friends with reporter Bob Chaddock in the news department at WKY-TV, heard of an apprenticeship opening for a cameraman at the historic station in 1963.

Spence rose quickly behind the scenes at WKY-TV running the camera, coiling camera cables and even sweeping the floors when necessary and eventually he made studio supervisor which included helping to create commercials for the station and some of its clients. On-air personality Pat Shockey noticed Spence’s talent and referred him to her husband, Bill, who recruited him for the prominent Glenn Advertising Agency in 1969. While resigning as studio supervisor, Spence’s boss at WKY-TV told him he’d never make it in advertising. But over the next thirteen years Spence wrote, produced and directed a number of commercials for high profile clients at Glenn, picking up several Addy Awards along the way.

The Collection

Many of the spots seen on the Retro Metro website, including those for Eckhardt Motors, APCO, First National Bank and Gold Spot Dairies, were award winners for the agency. In 1982, Spence joined in a partnership as Angell Bledsoe & Spence Advertising Agency and then eventually struck out on his own. Spence & Associates is still active today producing various video productions, including many of the Metropolitan Library’s author interviews and history videos which can be viewed on the library’s website or their YouTube channel.

The Spence Collection here on Retro Metro OKC represents just some of the items Spence has collected over the years. Most of the spots bear his mark; some are his work, a few are the work of the agencies he has worked with, but we are indebted to him for saving these items for future generations. Indeed, most clients represented here are now absorbed into national corporations, making these video reminders of them all the more cherished.

— Buddy Johnson
Scanning by the Retro Metro OKC Resources Committee

When Joe C. Kernke, Sr. and Ralph H. Smith established Smith and Kernke Funeral Directors in 1939, they pledged to provide the finest care with the widest range of options available. At that time funeral homes operated the ambulance services, both men would take the calls. 



For more than 70 years, that dedication to the community has been reflected through service to business, civic, and church activities. Smith & Kernke is Oklahoma City’s oldest family operated funeral home, and that record of successful service says a great deal about the philosophy and character of an organization. Joe Kernke Jr., son of the co-founder, joined the operation in the 1960s and took over management in the 1970s. Joe Kernke now runs the business with his son Todd. Smith & Kernke is a business where “family owned” has special significance.

The original Mission/Spanish Colonial Revial building at 1401 NW 23 was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999, and is near two of the city’s best known landmarks – the Milk Bottle Building and the the old Citizens Bank geodesic dome created by Buckminster Fuller. The funeral home was designed by Harold Gimeno, who has three other buildings on the National Register. The only added structure is a garage built in 1950.

The Collection:

The Kernke collection provides a rare glimpse of a time where funeral homes served the dual purpose of not just remembering those lost, but also saving lives. One photo shows all the funeral home’s hearses, family cars, ambulance, while others show the family rooms, casket room, and some of the inner workings of the mortuary.

The photos are from the personal collection of the Kernke family and were used to celebrate their 50th Anniversary. Thanks goes to Retro Metro OKC founding member Norman Thompson for making this collection available for public display.

- Norman Thompson
Scanning by the Retro Metro OKC Resources Committee

These photographs of the WT Hales Collection pull us into an older, distant world where most of our current landmarks disappear into a surprisingly elegant architecture which is mostly lost. Who were these people who, 100 years ago, were able to erect elegant, timeless structures on freshly turned prairie soil? The columns and marble in the Security Building and State Bank Buildings show the care and permanence these pioneers aspired to. They show how they turned the wealth of the land into man-made structures of value.

1910 Aerial Photo:

Also on this website in the Robert Allison Collection (RACp.2010.18.04) is an exceptional aerial photo that orients these buildings in their own time. It is an aerial photo shot from “Little Frank’s” balloon in 1910 which clearly shows many of the early, now lost buildings of Oklahoma City and two remaining ones. Centered in the photo is the Colcord Tower as we look NNE. It looks the same today. You can tell it by its brilliant white color and familiar “L” shape. The Baum building (destroyed by Urban Renewal) is behind the Colcord. The now straightened Robinson jogs across Sheridan (then known as Grand) to the right. North and west from the Colcord (down and to the left) is the non-descript Security Building with a black elevator house on the top. This sits at the SE corner of Main and Harvey, on the current site of the Parking Garage and partially on the Devon construction site. This was the site of the Security Building built by W.T. Hales in 1904. The architects were Layton Smith and Hawk of Oklahoma City.

In “Little Frank’s” balloon photo, the Hales Building is one block left (north) of the Colcord and looks remarkably similar to the Colcord. It sits white and tall with a small return to the west as well. Now Corporate Tower (and the Fedex store) occupy the site. The Hales building was permitted on November, 1909 and built 12 stories tall as the State Bank in 1910 at a cost of $350,000. The permit called for a steel frame and concrete building. Prior to it’s demolition, the Hales building had 66% occupancy and was structurally sound. Some of the family was attempting to save and renovate the building, but were unsuccessful. It was dynamited and destroyed in 16 seconds on April 8, 1979. Newspaper photos show much steel in the wreckage.

Hales Building History:

The Hales building was originally built by Oklahoma City Banker E.H. Cooke for his State Bank. E.H. Cooke was an early investor in Oklahoma and operated in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. E.H. Cooke chartered State Bank in 1893 and built the building in 1910 It was named the Hales building when the First National Bank moved into the new First National Tower. W.T. Hales purchased 1/2 of the the building in 1915 and bought the last 1/2 in 1928. He purchased several assets from EH Cooke, including some in California. The Hales Building was north opposite the Katz Drug Store, famous for Clara Luper’s sit-in on August 19, 1958. East of the Hales Building sits the Oil & Gas Building, a dark building of red brick which still stands. Today that is where Quizno’s is across the street from Fedex.

Mauran & Russell of St. Louis were architects for the Hales building, while the Selden Breck Construction Co of St. Louis was the contractor.

The building was faced with Bedford Stone from Indiana and had imposing street facades. Bedford stone is a light colored, fine grained oolitic limestone that is very uniform and well suited to large architectural projects. It was used in the state capitols of Indiana, Georgia and Illinois as well as hundreds of other signature buildings, both public and private. The finish throughout the building was quarter sawn white oak. The floors were of Tennessee Marble with a wainscot of Italian Marble.

WT Hales History:

W.T. was an early prominent businessman in Oklahoma City starting when he arrived here from Neosho, MO in 1890. He was 17 and began trading in mules. He eventually sold them all over the world. In 1901, during the Second Boer War, he sold mules to the British in South Africa. During the First World War he sold then to the British and French. He also sold mules to the the 101 Ranch, eastern coal mines and the many railroad crews opening up the American West. His mules and Oklahoma mules in general, according to 1912 accounts in the paper, were prized around the world for being “better bone and weight than those raised in any other state, this being attributed to the long feeding season and the abundance of alfalfa”. In this same article it states that the 1912 Oklahoma mule market was 2 million dollars and estimates that the mule market from Oklahoma in 1913 would be 3 million dollars split between the Hales and his brother, Davis and Younger. W.T. Hales’ older brother, George Hales, was his business partner and was a city councilman for many years. WT Hales was a shrewd investor and used his profits in mules to diversify into real estate and oil. He was also a major venture investor in Oklahoma City with interests in the development of Heritage Hills, a co-investor with GA Nichols in Nichols Hills, major Investment in the First National Tower and was an “angel” to the Biltmore Hotel when it fell on hard times after WWI. The brothers were often referred to together in the papers as co-owners of the mule business. George, the older one made the land run of 1889, but WT’s parents made him wait until he was older to come to Oklahoma. in 1890, WT “picked up the reins” of the mule business and became a ‘world class” livestock entrepreneur. They were both instrumental in attracting the railroads to Oklahoma City in 1901 and organizing the stockyards less than a decade later. WT Hales started with his livery in Oklahoma on the site of the Chase Tower. Then it was the perfect place for his mules – next to the Santa Fe tracks and in the middle of downtown at Main and Broadway. Mr Hales was one of the early proponents of the Stockyards and in attracting the meat processing companies to move to Oklahoma City. When the mules were gone from Broadway and Main, he redeveloped the block and built a building that housed retail, a dance hall, and a restaurant. The mules went out to the Stockyards on Agnew in about 1909.

Sending Mules to World War I:

The family tells an interesting story about Hales’ mule trade with Belgium and France. At the beginning of WWI, W.T.Hales contracted to sell hundreds of mules to those countries and was supposed to ship them through Galveston. He sent the mules and his overseer, a Mr Clark, to Galveston to meet the European ships. Hales recruited Clark from his oilfield operations and knew he was capable, tough and a problem-solver. Everyone expected Clark to return from Galveston within a few weeks with the check. When Clark got to Galveston, there was no payment for the mules, so Clark got on the boat with the mules and sailed to Europe. W.T. Hales’ friends thought Clark had absconded with the valuable mules. But Clark was true – he returned to Oklahoma, check in hand. After nearly a year on land and sea, delivering the mules, parlaying with the French and Belgians to get paid, he came home with W.T. Hales’ check!

Descendants of the Hales line still live here in Oklahoma with surnames of Peterson and Mullaly.

— Marc Weinmeister
Scanning by the Retro Metro OKC Resources Committee

The Johnson-Hightower family’s story is an archetypal one in Oklahoma City. There were many stories like it – ones in which people from humble beginnings made the most of the fresh start a young Oklahoma City offered – but few of those contained the highs and lows, triumphs and tragedies of this beloved family.

Frank Pearson Johnson grew up fatherless in Reconstruction Mississippi. Along with brother Hugh he built a prosperous printing business in his hometown of Kosciusko, but in 1894 he sold out to Hugh and came first to Texas and then Oklahoma City to start a newspaper with hopes of getting in on the ground floor and building a substantial business in the still wide open town. On arrival, though, Johnson found Oklahoma City already saturated with established newspapers and his Daily Clarion folded soon after. Following a teaching stint at Irving High School, he began an insurance and mortgage business serving farmers in the region and within a couple of years he had done well enough to convince his brother that Oklahoma was the place a guy could make a fortune for himself if he was willing to work hard at it and seize opportunities when he found them.

In 1898, Hugh M. Johnson joined his brother in Oklahoma City for a few months then relocated to Chandler where he had an interest in the Lincoln County State Bank. By 1916, he either owned or controlled all the banks in Chandler. Meanwhile, Frank Johnson had expanded his mortgage and insurance business into a savings bank which he then merged with the American National Bank; he was named president in 1906. Both brothers were marked by their capacity for hard work and their continuous drive to move ever forward and upward.

They were destined to work together again. By 1919, Frank had become a well-respected banker known for his emphasis on economic development and expansion in Oklahoma City. Meanwhile, Hugh relocated to the city after purchasing Edward Cooke’s interest in the State National Bank where he showed a keen sense for venture capital opportunities. Hugh soon changed the name to the First National Bank in Oklahoma City (he had to use “in” instead of “of” because a charter had been issued decades earlier for a bank with the latter name). Thus, at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties the Johnson brothers operated banks in classy buildings on opposite corners of Robinson and Main (Frank’s American National on the southeast and Hugh’s First National on the northwest). They were pioneers in oil exploration finance and had few rivals in the state when it came to these ventures. The inevitable happened in 1927 when the Johnson brothers merged their operations in to a bank they called the American-First National Bank. Two years later they purchased the State Exchange Bank and renamed the new mega-bank First National Bank and Trust Company. They also announced their plans for a skyscraping edifice befitting the stature of the new bank. Their 32-story replica of New York’s Empire State Building was built at the corner of Park and Robinson.

The Johnson family was completely invested in Oklahoma City society and distinguished themselves by patronizing and developing the emerging arts culture of the city, especially the Oklahoma City Symphony. Much of this work was done by the brothers’ wives. Frank P. Johnson married Aida Allen just before leaving Mississippi and they had two children – daughter Ethelyn in 1895 and son Hugh Allen born in 1896 but died in infancy. Frank and Aida built a stately home at 439 NW 15. Hugh M. Johnson married Mary Margaret Mills in 1905 and made their home at 420 NW 14; they had no children.

After World War I, a new member joined the Johnson family. Wilbur E. Hightower was a Homeric figure who excelled in virtually every facet of his life. Although his birthplace was Greer County, he would say he was born in Texas, as that county was added to Oklahoma after he was born. His father, C. C. Hightower, was a high profile rancher in the region who was a founder of Altus and had diversified into many enterprises, including retail stores and the town’s bank. Young Wilbur grew up working in all of his father’s ventures, often behind a broom, but he showed early talent for finance. He also possessed great natural athletic ability and captained every team at Altus High School. At Northwestern University from 1912-1915 he was the lone bright spot on a dismal football squad, named All-American Quarterback for 1914 and scored the team’s only touchdown for the entire 1915 season. He is still much-revered in Northwestern athletic circles. Upon graduation, Hightower spent a year working as a football coach and a touring Chautauqua manager before enrolling in law school at Oklahoma University. Soon after, he sailed for France to serve in the Ambulance Corps during World War I, eventually transferring to the Navy when the United States entered the war.

Although Wilbur Hightower was only in law school for a semester, it was enough time for him to court and become engaged to Ethelyn Johnson. They were married after his discharge from the Navy in 1919. That same year Hightower and Charles Vose, scion of the Vose cotton dynasty, came under the tutelage of Frank Johnson at the American National Bank where both proved to be valuable assets to the rapidly expanding financial empire. The Hightowers made their home first at 409 NW 21, later upgrading to 810 NW 15. In 1923, Wilbur and Ethelyn were joined by a son, Frank Johnson Hightower, and in 1925 by daughter Phyllis Jane. Tragedy struck in 1931 when Ethelyn died of a sudden illness, leaving Frank and Phyllis Hightower motherless and Frank and Aida Johnson with no surviving children. Unfortunately, the loss of Ethelyn was only the beginning of a difficult decade for the family. Still, Frank and Phyllis Hightower grew up in loving embrace of their Johnson grandparents and Uncle Hugh and Aunt Mary though both attended boarding schools on the East Coast, Frank at Exeter and Phyllis at Miss Spence.

The Hightower Building:

During the prosperous 1920s, Frank Johnson and Wilbur Hightower began several profitable real estate ventures, most notably the Hightower Building at Main and Hudson. Johnson had purchased the lots when they were part of what was considered a suburban farm. He had studied Downtown business patterns and had reasoned correctly that the corner would become the most heavily trafficked retail intersection and could sustain long-term higher rents. The building was originally only three stories, but was later expanded to ten in 1928 and named the Hightower Building for Johnson’s grandson, Frank.

Frank Pearson Johnson died in 1935, leaving the banking empire to his brother and his immense personal fortune to his grandchildren in a trust. Wilbur Hightower then moved into a more active role at First National and exhibited the same prowess for development as his father-in-law mentor. He was instrumental in the clearance of the railroad right-of-way and subsequent construction of the Civic Center, and securing Tinker Air Force Base and the Douglas Aircraft Plant. He also moved his family to 1500 Drury Lane in Nichols Hills; the developer, G. A. Nichols, had a long running finance relationship with both Johnson and Hightower.

In the early 1940s, Frank Hightower graduated from Yale and Phyllis from Miss Spence. Frank was unable to follow his father into war service because of a medical disqualification, so he joined the Foreign Service of the State Department. At 19 in 1942, Phyllis married Lieutenant John Roby Penn III, scion of a Texas oil family. In early 1944, however, Frank Hightower’s world fell apart.

Mid-January saw the sudden death of his uncle Hugh M. Johnson from influenza. Though Johnson had been president and chairman of the board of First National, the board named Wilbur Hightower as president and R. A. Vose as chairman. Then on February 4, Frank Hightower’s doting grandmother Aida Johnson visited him in Washington, DC a few days before he was to depart on an overseas assignment for the Foreign Service. While there she became ill with influenza and died suddenly. Hours later, Wilbur Hightower borrowed an airplane from his friend, oilman Leslie Fain, and hired pioneering aviator Roy Hunt to fly him and his daughter Phyllis to Washington. Two other pilots were on board so the flight could continue with only refueling stops, but outside Elkins, West Virginia, amid sleet and fog, the plane slammed into the side of Rich Mountain, killing all aboard. Leslie Fain died of a heart attack upon hearing the news. In a span of an afternoon, Frank Hightower lost his grandmother, father, and sister. He found himself in possession of the accumulated fortunes of Frank P. Johnson, Hugh M. Johnson, and Wilbur E. Hightower, but alone in the world.

Though Frank Hightower was offered a position of rank at First National, he chose to work from the building which bore his name; he majored in history at Yale, not finance. His departure from the bank (though not divestiture) made way for the Vose era at First National. Hightower spent the remainder of his long life making Oklahoma City a better place. He had been educated to appreciate fine culture and was possessed of extraordinary taste but, rather than relocating to either coast, he sought to elevate Oklahoma City through the arts and other venues of high culture. In addition to supporting the arts, Frank Hightower, along with his wife, Dannie Bea, were active in many beautification projects in the city. Amid the destruction of the Urban Renewal era Downtown, Hightower renovated his building and opened the city’s only four-star restaurant, The Cellar, in the basement and an upscale department store on the first floor. In contrast to his father’s high profile life, Dannie Bea Hightower remembered, “Frank Hightower wasn’t one for the spotlight; he liked to watch things from his eighth-floor office.”

The Collection:

The documents and photographs presented here provide a rare glimpse into the personal lives and homes of the people in this story as well as remarkable views of the buildings associated with their careers. The Hightower Collection at Retro Metro OKC was generously shared with the people of Oklahoma City by Frank J. Hightower’s son, Johnson Hightower, to whom we express our sincere gratitude.

— Buddy Johnson
Scanning by the RetroMetro OKC Resources Committee

Robert F. Allison, Ph.D. is a retired professor of Business and Health Services Administration who taught at five universities and was an executive at three hospitals. Most of his research required interviews and histories of university-owned teaching hospitals.  Consequently, he was instrumental in launching the oral history project of the American College of Health Care Executives by Lewis Weeks, which can be viewed in the Ray Brown section of the American Hospital Association Library in Chicago.

Early on in his retirement beginning in 1995 he began to appreciate the potential of postcards for capturing snapshots in time of people’s experiences around the globe beginning late in the 19th century. Cards are not all that different from a random sample of the nation over a century of our history and the only visual record recorded in color prior to World War I.

Provenance of the Allison collection is as follows. In the 1990s Allison began attending the Tulsa Postcard Club where one night he encountered a mysterious stranger from Louisiana who was offering to sell a collection of Oklahoma City postcards. After seeing them in the trunk of his car, it was obvious that they were a valuable collection-which his asking price confirmed.

The seller purchased the collection at an auction along with other possessions from various sellers and had no information about the original collector. From the cards there is evidence of a collector with the initials “JH” who may have served in World War II then worked many years in Oklahoma City. Included were 17 cards of Durant, circa 1900-1930, which may indicate the collector had a relationship with the south Oklahoma community.

The Collection:

The photographs have an unusual number of pictures of a 1920s-era house north of NW 23 in Oklahoma City. The collector had taken pictures of rare photos – some of which also are represented in this collection. He also had a keen interest in the interurban and its then terminus at Belle Isle. From his photos and inscriptions on them he realized the importance of the I.M. Pei plan and planned destruction of hundreds of downtown buildings. the photographer took pictures downtown to capture images before buildings were they were destroyed and during demolition. It is hard to know his particular interest in doing so, but he was careful in many pictures and cards to write on the back of the photos the place from which the picture was taken and the direction in which the camera was pointed.

Of what value or use are these images? Here we have only the front of the cards. Of equal or greater interest are the messages on the backs. A century ago people rarely communicated by telephone when they were out of town. Often these cards are some traveler saying they would be home within a day or two. They used cards then like we use email today-for brief and timely messages. As such, they provide an illustrated and annotated sketch of life gone by-usually narrated by friends and relatives. For many, it is their only journal.

For outsiders, cards provide historical insight. Allison writes a column for the Shawnee News-Star entitled ‘Cards-N-Time’ in which he uses cards to illustrate historical themes. There is hardly a topic for which there is no set of cards providing a timely-and copyright free-illustration in color.

“My favorite story is of my Dad, the Carnegie Library in Guthrie on statehood day in 1907 and a country road south of town,” Allison said in providing this collection for display at Retro Metro OKC. “I had the story in memory and the two cards close at hand in my collection. My column has run regularly for several years now, each using several cards, and I have yet to want for appropriate cards to illustrate the story. My reason for giving these images to this collection is to encourage and help others to enjoy the history of OKC as told in cards.”

— Robert Allison
Scanning by the Retro Metro OKC Resources Committee

By 1930, Oklahoma City had experienced two periods of remarkable downtown vertical development, the early 1910s and the 1920s. 1910 produced the 12-story Colcord, State National (Hales), and Herskowitz Buildings, the 10-story Campbell Buildings, and the 10-story Lee-Huckins and Skirvin Hotels. The 11-story Kingkade Hotel was added to the group in 1912. In addition to several smaller buildings, the 1920s produced the second wave of downtown growth — 1921′s Tradesmen’s Bank (City Center), 11-stories, followed by 1923′s 10-story Braniff, 12-story Medical Arts (100 Park Avenue), and 10-story Harbour-Longmire Buildings. Although two slightly taller buildings rounded out the decade’s growth — the 18-story Petroleum Building in 1927 and the 16-story Southwestern Bell Building in 1928 — by the end of the decade no single building had made a signature statement which at that time would cause it to stand head and shoulders above the rest. That was about to change.

Notwithstanding the Wall Street Crash of 1929, on Sunday, April 20, 1930, a huge vertical drawing and article splashed across the Daily Oklahoman’s front page, top to bottom, under the headline, “First National Pays $1,050,000 for Site At First and Robinson for New 32-Story Structure to Cost More Than $3,000,000.” Despite national economic woes, that front page news was a signal that Oklahoma City was nonetheless moving full speed ahead with its unprecedented wave of downtown construction. First National Bank, founded April 22, 1889, was on the threshold of supplying that signature statement and even as this is written in 2010 Oklahoma City’s skyline is probably most readily recognized by this art deco icon built almost 80 years ago.

If it was not enough to have one such building under construction, high drama presented itself by having a pair of such construction rivals side by side. First National’s story cannot be properly told without mentioning that on August 31, 1930, another Daily Oklahoman article announced by another magnificent drawing and article that, “Ramsey Completes Deal for 31-Story Office Building on Robinson Avenue Corner; Cost Will Total $3,000,000.” The construction of these two towers is often referred to by locals as, “The Great Race” — Ramsey Tower opened October 3, 1931, First National on December 14.

Even though Ramsey Tower won that race and even though both were 33 stories, First National with its lighthouse-like beacon was slightly taller and its silhouette became the city’s enduring hallmark for 80 years. 1931 was a heady time for the city — only 11 US cities (New York, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Baltimore, Houston, and Kansas City) could boast of buildings greater than 33 stories. Oklahoma City and Philadelphia were in a tie for 12th place, each having two 33-story buildings.

This article complements the visual and documentary history contained in RetroMetro OKC’s first contributed collection, the photographic and documentary archives of the First National Center, and focuses upon the construction history of the First National Center from 1930 through 1973.

THE ORIGINAL BUILDING:

Statistics. Building height is 445.86 feet (135.9 meters) ground to roof, 493.11 feet (150.3 meters) ground to spire. The tower’s main entrance faces west at 120 N. Robinson Avenue. On the tower’s east side, a pair of 13-story wings extend east, forming a U – the Great Banking Hall is nestled between them, with its ceiling at what would be the base of the 5th floor (no floors exist above the hall).

General Design. Said by many to resemble New York City’s Empire State Building, also completed in 1931, First National was designed by Weary and Alford Co. of Chicago and was constructed by the Manhattan Construction Co. The building’s exterior is limestone except at its ground level which is embellished with grey-black marble along its north (then 1st Street) and west (Robinson Avenue) sides. Elaborate aluminum art featuring swans, peacocks, cherubs and other art deco designs at some places reaching 5 stories high mark the building’s main entry. Art deco inside and out, the interior lower level walls were enhanced by marble from Germany, Italy, Missouri and Tennessee, some cream-colored, others gold-brown, pink, and rose. Dark mahogany wood was used throughout the building.

Great Banking Hall. Upon entering from Robinson, a broad staircase led up and east to the Great Banking Hall, a nearly 3-story public area which not only served banking customers but was also the venue for many public events and displays. The ornately designed ceiling reached what would be the underside of the 5th floor. The open central rectangular area of the hall was outlined by 14 massive Corinthian columns each of which consisted of a plain marble cylindrical base from which limestone fluted shafts extended upward to Roman Corinthian capitals, the vertical span approaching 3 stories high. Above the columns, entablatures connected the columns horizontally and contained friezes enriched with bas-relief. Originally, the central part of the ceiling was a skylight, assisted by electric lights as needed, but in 1959 the skylight was covered with a tar and gravel roof in lieu of replacing the 4,000 lights which earlier augmented the skylight when sufficient sunlight was not available. Additionally, light was supplied by numerous art deco chandeliers which hung from the perimeter of the hall. Each corner of the hall was adorned by a large mural painted by Chicago’s Edgar Spier Cameron depicting important events in Oklahoma and Oklahoma City history. In addition to the ornately designed customer tables and teller windows, 28 replicas of ancient coins, each about 2 feet in diameter, were mounted on three sides of the hall high above the teller cages.

The Beacon. Aside from height, the most notable external feature was the building’s top, the beacon, from which the 1941 Beacon Club derived its name. Quite like a lighthouse, its rotating beam of light sent a signal to ships in the air — a point to approach from a distance and one to avoid when near. Reports were that the beacon’s light was seen from a radius of 50 miles and that its light was strong enough to cast shadows at the city’s municipal airport five miles away.

EXPANSION:

Other than adding escalators to the Great Banking Hall in 1950 and various other improvements, the First National Bank Building was largely unchanged for 26 years. Beginning in 1955, major changes would shift focus from the bank alone to a broader definition and name, the First National Center.

1955-57 Expansion. After a long period of downtown non-growth following the Great Depression and World War II and spurred on by the business community’s 1955 “600,000 in ’60″ campaign, downtown business-related construction began showing signs of growth between 1955 and 1957. A planned 17-story Petroleum Tower at Harvey and Park Avenue was announced (by its 1957 opening, the name had become Fidelity Bank Building) and Liberty Bank, which purchased the Apco (Braniff) Tower in 1950, opened its new 16-story Petroleum Club Building (Globe Life, today) between Couch Drive and Robert S. Kerr in 1957. The First National Bank & Trust Co. would add a pair, also. Construction of its 13-story parking garage on the north side of Main Street between Broadway and Robinson Avenues began in 1955 at which time First National also planned a modest 4-story addition on Park Avenue east of the existing location — but by November 1955, 10 more stories were added to that project. Called the First National Office Building at 120 Park Avenue, the 14-story addition opened in December 1957 with frontage on Park Avenue. Inside, an arcade connected the new and old buildings and its purpose was aptly shown by the advertised title, the “First National Arcade of Fine Shops.”

1970-72 Expansion. At some point after 1957, First National acquired the Auto Hotel built and owned by Reinhart & Donovan since 1927. On March 21, 1969, First National announced plans in the Daily Oklahoman for its next expansion which would include space occupied by the following properties: the Auto Hotel, a north-south alley separating that garage from the Medical Arts (100 Park Avenue) Building, and, on Broadway, the Egbert Hotel and Adair’s Cafeteria, the last three of which First National did not own. The half-block north-south alley was owned by Oklahoma City and the Broadway properties were owned by the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority.

Not so fast, said the owners of City National Bank located at the northwest corner of Main and Broadway. It, too, planned an expansion and new high rise on the north side of its existing property — furthermore, the alley First National proposed to acquire was used by City National’s drive-in bank customers for egress to Park Avenue. City National claimed that its competitor’s splashy Daily Oklahoman announcement was not only premature, it was downright bullying since closing of the alley was in the city’s jurisdiction and letting contracts for the Broadway properties was open to a bidding process with OCURA.

For several months the competitors fought over the issues in the press and before various governmental entities, but in the end First National prevailed and got the go-ahead for its expansion proposal which would include a new 14-story Park Avenue building abutting the Medical Arts Building and a new 14-story building on Broadway. In April 1970, construction contracts were let and the new buildings were completed in 1972. With the additional 356,000 square feet, First National’s space increased by 50%. A new basement tunnel with shops and restaurants connected eastward under Broadway with the underground tunnels being constructed there and which would come to be named the “Conncourse.” With the construction underway in 1971, the name, “First National Center” was born.

One last item and this survey of the construction history contained in the First National Center’s collection is done — the Main Street parking facility. First National’s 1956 13-story main street parking garage became part of the assets of Oklahoma City’s Urban Renewal Authority. On April 30, 1972, explosive devices demolished the garage and another, the present day 9-story Main Street Parking Garage completed in February 1973, took its place. Although the new parking facility was owned by the Oklahoma Industries Authority it was initially operated by First National Management Corp.

The Collection:

The Documents section of this gallery contains a few historic documents related to the bank’s failure on July 14, 1986, and its subsequent ownership. The several Photo Galleries not only show construction development, they show First National employees and tenants engaged in work and play and the massive equipment used to operate the facility. They show KFNB-FM, the city’s first stereo radio station, owned by First National Broadcasting Co. Striking aerial photographs taken from First National are presented here for the first time. Have a long look and enjoy!

Special thanks are extended to Emily Dobson Timm of Milbank Real Estate, asset and senior property manager of the First National Center, and to her employer, Milbank Real Estate, present management and leasing company of the First National Center, for their generosity in making this collection available to the public through RetroMetro OKC.

— Doug Loudenback
Scanning by the Retro Metro OKC Resources Committee

Oklahoma City was once crowed the cafeteria capital of the United States, a place home to such legendary eateries as Lady Classen, Queen Ann, Anna Maude, Adair’s, Dobson’s, O’Mealey’s and Boulevard. Boulevard Cafeteria is now the only one remaining.

The cafeteria craze started with Anna Maude Smith starting up her own cafeteria after operating one at the old downtown YWCA. Her partner was Bob Smith, who later partnered with Ralph Geist, a Norman restaurateur. Geist then partnered with Naomi O’Mealey and opened Classen Cafeteria at NW 23 and Classen. O’Mealey left the partnership and started her own cafeteria at NW 23 and Walker – O’Mealey’s. Geist hired a new cook for his Norman eatery, John Schroer Sr.

Garland Arrington opened the Boulevard Cafeteria in 1948 at 1111 Classen Drive and then sold it in 1956 to Schroer and Pat Denham for $100,000. The Schroer family took over full control of the cafeteria after Denham was killed in an August, 1960 boat explosion.

In 1966 Oklahoma City was home to 23 cafeterias. And it was that year the Schroers launched an extensive renovation and promoted it as the first “restaurant-style” cafeteria with comfortable seating and a more formal design. John Schroer Jr. joined as a partner in the corporation and together the father and son duo enjoyed great success running Boulevard Cafeteria.

In 1973 younger son Robert joined as manager and 10-percent owner and John Schroer Jr. left to start up his own eatery, Queen Ann Cafeteria, at Founders Tower. In 1975 the cafeteria moved across the street from its old location to its current home at 525 NW 11 (the original location is now home to EMSA).

Robert Schroer became controlling partner and general manager at Boulevard in 1977 and then sole owner in 1979 when John Schroer Sr. retired. Younger brother Bill joined the staff in 1978 and worked as manager until opening his own restaurant, Hudson’s in Edmond, in 1984.

The Collection:

Bill Schroer purchased Boulevard upon Robert Schroer’s death in 1989. Bill continued the operation until his death in 1998, at which time his wife Malin Schroer took over the business. Bill and Malin Schroer’s son Harrison now runs the business and he generously allowed Retro Metro OKC to create a digital collection of photos displayed at the cafeteria by his grandparents and their customers over the past half century.

— Steve Lackmeyer
Scanning by the RetroMetro OKC Resources Committee

For almost 80 years, the South Robinson Street Railroad Bridge that passed under the Rock Island and Frisco Railroad tracks leading into Oklahoma City’s Union Station proudly displayed their respective railroad heralds to passing motorists below.

Oklahoma City’s Union Station was completed on July 15, 1931 and faithfully served those that passed through its gates for the next 36 years.
The Rock Island’s Cherokee, a Memphis to Amarillo passenger and Rail Post Office consist, was the last train to serve OKC’s Union Station.

The Robinson Street Bridge, located approximately a half mile east of Union Station, handled thousands of passenger trains during the passenger era, including the Frisco’s Firefly and Meteor and Rock Island’s Choctaw Rocket and Cherokee……. the latter being the last passenger train to depart Union Station in November, 1967.

The Robinson Street Bridge continued to remain in service to accommodate the freight trains of the Frisco (now Burlington Northern Santa Fe) and the Rock Island (now the Union Pacific). With the present realignment and construction of the city’s I-40 Crosstown Expressway, the Robinson Street Bridge was scheduled for demolition in 2010, and along with it the historic railroad heralds of the Rock Island and Frisco Railroads.

The Collection:

In order to save these beautiful historic railroad heralds, Retro Metro OKC, a newly established historical organization for Central Oklahoma, sprang into action to prevent there destruction.

Working closely with the Oklahoma History Society, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, the Oklahoma Railway Museum and the I-40 relocation contractors, Retro Metro OKC was able to coordinate and save the railroad heralds.

Logo removal started August 26, 2010 and was done by Gary’s Concrete Sawing of Norman, with actual removal taking two days to accomplish. Each concrete herald measured 22″ in thickness, 5’8″ in length, 4’8″ in height and weighing over 4 tons.

The heralds were delivered to the Oklahoma Railway Museum in Oklahoma City where they will be properly and permanently displayed along with a description of what they once represented to the rail history of Oklahoma City. The project marks the start of a partnership between Retro Metro OKC and the Oklahoma Railway Museum that will in the future include the preservation of numerous photos, documents and blueprints.