PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 When I was a wee teen I backed my back side up to my great grandmother, Ida Miller’s, open front room heater many a cold day on H Street NE. She had a Brooks Gas Burner. When I’d turn the natural gas valve on it…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 A.C.  Young’s Furniture Store Nearly three years of earnest application, studying to please the people of Ardmore and vicinity is, in a general way, what Mr. Young has been doing since he begin business here. He has succeeded. It keeps one of the most thoroughly…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 Captain R.C. Wiggs Captain R.C. Wiggs is a well-known in the Oakland neighborhood as anybody, having made it his home since 1876, at which time he moved there from Grayson County, Texas., though he is Tennessean by birth. He married his present wife, Miss Josie…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 Wilkes Dry Cleaning Tom Lee Wilkes opened his first cleaning plant in Ardmore in 1908, on the eastside of North Washington. He had come to Ardmore at age 9 in 1892 and begin work in the cotton fields, doing yard work, or other odd jobs.…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 President Zachary Taylor A future president of the United States lived in the Chickasaw Nation in 1842, while he established Fort Washita. This fort lay on the east bank of the Washita River, overlooking what will become Pickens County. No doubt the future president spent…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 City Shoe Shop, Ardmore, Oklahoma The City Shoe Shop opened in Ardmore in the depression year 1929. The owners were Neville “Ned” Sutton an Alf T. Dye. The initial location was 203 West Main. The early days store of Henry Dixon had closed in 1928,…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 Price Wagon Manufacturing Company – Durwood, Oklahoma Ruben Price work as a farmer and a blacksmith in Grayson & Cooke County Texas before moving to Indian Territory. He settled in the Yellow Hills area east of Ardmore. He became the first postmaster of Yellow Hills…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 Early Day Humanitarian Mrs. Rebecca Stiefel Kahn (1874-1958) was a pacesetter in her lifetime. No Civic program was too great that she was not able to find a way to answer a need. In an era when women’s lib was unknown, she was recognized for…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 Ardmore after the fire of 1895 April 19. 1895 the largest fire in history of Ardmore started in Harper’s Livery Stable on North Caddo. Due to high winds, the fire spread rapidly to the back of the stores on Main Street. The custom in those…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823 Extreme cold coming to Oklahoma Friday night the 18th and Saturday. Be prepared. Remember the 4 Ps. People, Pets, Plants, and Pipes. Prepare for those way below freezing nights for sure. A Glimpse into the Past Joe S. Robison, the man who with a partner…