PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 The Daily Ardmoreite, March 15, 1905Purcell–The killing of ROY NEWMAN by ALBERT KERR which occurred here Tuesday night as the result of a quarrel at school between JOHN KERR, a young brother of Albert Kerr, aged 14, and Roy Newman, which caused the younger Kerr…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 The Daily Ardmoreite, September 12, 1948 Two Women Dead Result Ambulance-Truck Wreck A 91 year old woman was killed, her 48 year old daughter-in-law fatally injured, and three other persons hospitalized in a head-on crash of an ambulance and a farm truck six miles north…

Ardmore, Oklahoma Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 I always smile when I receive a surprise package the old fashion way, by the U.S. Mail. Last week held that kind of surprise, received a book about Orr, Oklahoma history by Charles Walker. He named his book VIGNETTES OF ORR HISTORY. The first time I ever heard of a…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 I love browsing through old Ardmore City Directories. Hardly a page is turned when I see something or someone listed that I know of or jogs my memory about something else.  Below is from the 1910 and 1913 directories. 1910 Ardmore. Eddleman Building 107 West…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 #15-21 North Washington, Ardmore, Oklahoma. Hotel Wisnor/Carter-Booker Bldg. – The 50 room, 3 story, Hotel Wisnor was named in honor of Benjamin Wisnor Carter, prominent Chickasaw Indian for whose family Carter County was named. Built in 1884 ($17,000) it was the first and finest establishment…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 The Evening News (Ada, Oklahoma), January 11, 1906MYSTERIOUS DEATHS THAT APPEAR TO BE MIRACULOUS The uncanny story given below might be passed as a piece of “yellow journalism” rot, but for the fact that a citizen of Ada happens to know several of the unfortunate…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 Travis Ritter who dealt in insurance was truly gifted. His jokes were accomplished with perfect timing and an inspired sense of ridiculous. Lighting the heater of a friend’s office on a hot August day and watching the friend swear and curse the weather was a…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 Some Ardmoreites were not really eccentric, just practical jokers who honed their skills to the point of genius. One such was Kirk Morgan, whose talent for safe-cracking was known far and wide, even as far away as McAlester. If a merchant or a citizens locked…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 A man who hit town as a somewhat questionable persona and ended up in the ranks of conservatism was L. D. “Dude” Rickey. The year was 1908 and Ardmore, crude and backward, was not the ideal town for a roving man. Rickey belong to that…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 Theaters in Ardmore where a big attraction for the servicemen and townspeople alike and in 1942 Ardmore had seven; the Jewel, the Paramount, the Ritz, the Roxy, the Stars, the Temple and the Tivoli. In 1943 the Roxy suffered fire damage and came back to…