PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402
Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net
Phone: 580-490-6823
“Once Upon A Time…. Charles Hobart Heald and Eliza Guy Heald, a Chickasaw, lived in Mill Creek where C.H. owned the hotel, post office and dry goods store. Eliza had 2 sisters, Serena, called Tina, and Anne. In 1882 Ben Carter, a Chickasaw and widower rode into Mill Creek with his 12 year old son, John Elliott Carter behind him. Ben soon fell in love with Serena Guy and married her in 1885. They had one son, Charles Carter. Ben was a judge in Ardmore for years. Charles Carter became a Congressman and remained with this elected position for many years. He did a great deal to help the Chickasaws while in Congress and Carter County was named for his family. Serena’s sister, Eliza Heald, died of pneumonia and her husband, Charles Hobart Heald, broken up over her death, sold all his interest in Mill Creek and moved on to establish the town of Healdton, Oklahoma.” -Betty Carroll, March 17, 1989
The Tower Theater on NW 23rd in Oklahoma City
The Oklahoma Flag by James Clark
https://oklahomahistory.net/OklahomaFlag.html
Carter County Government as a new website. Bookmark the new URL on your computer.
Below are a couple pavers I sandblasted the past week. I enjoy making the pavers, it’s like a hobby for me.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/HarrisPaverPhoto.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/bricks/SamDogPaver.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/bricks/JohnMoorePaver.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/bricks/TessaBearPaver.jpg
Q. Oklahoma is bordered by what states?
A. Six states. Texas to the south and west, Arkansas and Missouri to the east, Kansas to the north and Colorado and New Mexico at the tip of the northwestern Oklahoma panhandle.
Q. The largest independent cattle marketing company in the nation is based in what Oklahoma town.
A. (answer in next week’s T&T)
From This and That newsletter archives of October 7, 2000:
I was talking to a Gary Simmons this week about Oklahoma airbases. We talked about ones that used to be here in the 40s & 50s and are no more. A friend showed me a couple years ago where some kind of “airport” used to be located south of Lake Murray in the 50s. It was on the west side of the highway, a few miles south of the Lake Murray Dam going toward Highway 32 and Marietta. It would have been just south of Hickory Creek Bridge. Does anyone remember this airport? I would like to get more info and maybe a photo if possible. Maybe the Love county Library has some info on this no longer existent airport. Oh and by the way, Gary Simmons is making a website just for info on Oklahoma airbases. I’ll let everyone know when its up and running!
http://www.brightok.net/~gsimmons/
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A 1913 pic of the Turner and Lewis Hospital at Lawton, Oklahoma.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/TurnerLewisHospital1913.jpg
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“This view reveals all that remains of the Railroad Freight Building that your grandfather Stanley Carmon built. Viewpoint is across Main St. south from the Ardmore Train Depot and looking south toward the Bluebonnet Mill. All that remains of the original building is these steps and portions of the concrete floor & basement.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/RRfreightBldg.jpg
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“I took this picture from Hinkle St. looking north to the backside of a building that I think is worth inquiring about. The front of the present building faces north to Main St. and would be in the 100 block of east Main (behind the old Texhoma Office Supply company at 106 E Main). I don’t have a clue as to what the fancy concrete work was ever a part of, but I sure would like to know. But I do think that on further into the back area of the existing building that you will see a concrete structure, such as a small windowless concrete room. This much I know…..at one time in that block there was a movie theatre by the name of “Liberty Theatre” and in order to see the screen where the movie was being shown you would enter the theatre and find a seat that would enable you to look back to the screen. In the days of the silent movies the film was a nitrate material and very subject to spontaneous fire. Many people were injured and died from theatre fires that started in the projection room. Even though they had a barrier that was suppose to drop down and keep the fire from entering where the audience was, it was not really successful enough. I believe the little concrete room was truly an appendage to the theatre building and contained the projection room – therefore any fire that may occur would be outside of the theatre itself. I was only a child back then but maybe someone will know about this for sure. The attachment should show you the fancy concrete work that I think predated the theatre I speak of.”
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“The first time I was every assigned an account number at a bank was in the late 1950s. Before that banks always expected to look at the signature to see whose check it was and charge it to their account accordingly. In those days banks were expected to look at the signature and, if necessary, compare it with the signature card. Today if the machine can read the imprinted numbers the check may never be looked at by a human being. Even when we got account numbers in the 1950s, the numbers were just printed in a normal font above the signature line on your checks. Human beings still looked at them, machines did not read the number.”
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“This is an excellent picture but reveals very little view of the north side of Main street toward Caddo street. I am pretty positive that the picture was made in the 1950’s, for this reason. I graduated from Pharmacy College at OU in Jan 1950 and went to work at my Dad’s Drug Store at that time. The building your Grandfather built was still being used and as a matter of fact Eric Middleton had his office in that building.- I don’t know what his job was, but among other things he was an amateur photographer. He took my photograph in that building in the early 1950’s (so dated). Dutch Rogers owned and operated the Pepsi Cola plant in the building where the Pepsi sign is visible on its east side. (years earlier this building housed the Fox theatre and it was there that one of B.L. Owens son’s was killed by getting tangled up in the theatre exhaust fan). Mitch Jones had his Furniture store on the NE corner of Caddo & Main. (It was in this building where B.L. Owens pretty well started his Furniture business, years before). Across the street (south) was Tom Echols storage building and he had freezer lockers in the basement, along with a butcher shop. If you look west of the Echols building you will see that the Whittington Hotel is no longer there because Mrs Jewel Whittington had contracted to have the old condemned building torn down. Much of the debris was used to fill in the basement of the old building. Not visible in this photograph, but there were other businesses located on the north side of the street between the Pepsi Cola Plant and Jones furniture store. The photograph had to be taken sometime between 1950 and 1957 because in Aug. 1957 I left my Dad’s store and opened the Broadlawn Pharmacy at the Broadlawn Shopping Center in Aug. 1957, although I never severed contact with the Martin Drug up until my Dad died in 1968. Actually I think the person had the right clue as to the date by identifying the model of the cars. I recall the railroad building being torn down but I don’t know just when that happened.” –Ernest Martin
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/ArdmoreLookingWest.jpg
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Gas prices today in the Ardmore area……
http://www.oklahomagasprices.com/index.aspx?mss=152754
Check gas prices by town or zip code anywhere in U.S.
http://www.kmov.com/traffic/gas-buddy
Non-ethanol gas (pure gas) stations in the Ardmore area.
https://oklahomahistory.net/puregas.html
Some mail from this week’s MAILBAG…..
“Hi Butch, I read your newsletter each week and occasionally recognize a name as I was born and grew up in Sulphur, OK, however I have lived in So California since 1958. Since you like good hamburgers, thought you might find this info interesting. The hamburger of choice for So Californians is found at In-N-Out and I’ve enjoyed them from day 1 at the original stand in Baldwin Park to today. I enjoy your newsletter and hope you enjoy this In-N-Out history.” -Jerry Chaffin, Fullerton, CA
http://shop.in-n-out.com/history.aspx
Brother, can you spare a dime? 1933
Butch: I have a wonderful book “RagTown” (A History Of The Greater Healdton-Hewit Oil Field”) By Kenny A. Franks that has some wonderful photos in it that are from the McGalliard Collection. The photos show the devastation of Ardmore after the September 27, 1915 explosion of tank car I.N.T.X. 8051. I wanted to share them with you.” -Larry Paul
Photo 211: Ground Zero. Axles and wheels are all that remains of tank car I.N.T.X. 8051 after the explosion. Fortunately the nearby cars did not explode.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/photo211.jpg
Photo 212: A view from the top of surrounding tank cars. To the right is a dome cap and its pop-off valves similar to the ones Ira Woods was working on prior to the explosion.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/photo212.jpg
Photo 213: This photo was made while smoke and debris were still in the air, taken from downtown Ardmore looking towards the railroad depot.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/photo213.jpg
Photo 215: The blast was so powerful that telephone poles were snapped and stone buildings were blown to pieces. Note the steel beam on the automobile at right, while the building in the background had all its windows blown out.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/photo215.jpg
Photo 216: Workers sifting through the wreckage near the railroad depot.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/photo216.jpg
Photo 218: The greater the distance from the railroad depot, the less the damage. Note the flagman (center) warning sightseers of the dangers of the downed power lines and falling debris.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/photo218.jpg
Photo 219: Two horses, still hitched to a wagon, were killed by falling debris near downtown Ardmore.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/photo219.jpg
Photo 220 Rescuing residents trapped on the second floor of the hotel.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/photo220.jpg
“Butch, A friend of mine, from Ohio, sent me this site location concerning the Ford Tri-Motor airplane. I thought you might be interested in this.” -THOMAS P. GAINES
http://www.trimotorheritagefoundation.org/#&panel1-2m
“Butch: In a recent This & That an Oklahoma history book was mentioned and recommended. I’m proud to say my late sister, Billie Clark English, wrote that book, Oklahoma Heritage. It’s a swell read. She also wrote the history of Wisconsin, The Wisconsin Story and spent several months in Green Bay, Madison & Milwaukee researching for the text. She was a fine writer and quite intelligent.” -james clark, Ardmore
“Butch: I saw the link from Peggy, the daughter of one of my all-time favorites, the late Love County Justice of the Peace Elmer Koscheski. Here are a couple of stories about Elmer.
On one occasion I was in the Love County Sheriff’s Department/jail about 7 p.m. when a Highway Patrol trooper brought in an irate gentleman who was dressed in a nice suit. He had been ticketed going over 80 mph in a 55 zone (Nixon’s speed limit). The gentleman had given the arresting officer a hard time and demanded that “my case be brought in federal court!” Well, he appeared before Justice of the Peace Koscheski and after being advised by the judge that the speeding ticket couldn’t be processed in federal court, decided to plead guilty. He asked “……before sentencing, Judge, may I introduce myself? I’m Colonel John Glenn and I’m on the way to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.” Judge Koscheski looked at him and said “….well, I’m Elmer Koscheski and that’ll be $35.00 plus court costs.”
After the man left, still irate, I nudged Elmer and said “did you know who that was?” “Nope,” Elmer said. “That’s John Glenn! He just circled the world in the first orbital flight!” Elmer looked at me and said “well, he shouldn’t have been speeding in Love County.”
Another time Elmer was a witness in a court case I was involved in. The judge asked me if I wanted to cross-examine Elmer. I said “……yes, I only have one question. Do you spell your last name K-o-s-c-h-e-s-k-i?” The old judge grinned and said “you got it.” -james clark, Ardmore
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos14b/ElmerKoscheski.jpg
“I ran across your website and newsletter doing a google search for ?Educated Cheeseburger? ? I grew up on a farm just south of Madill and in Madill as an older teenager. I remember my mother always asking for an ?educated cheeseburger? whenever we had burgers at the local burger joint (I don?t remember the name(s) but we had a couple of them in town). I was thinking about that name ?educated? and wondering where it came from and from I see it may have actually originated in southern Oklahoma. I?m not finding any other references to the name. I?m going to assume that is the case for the purposes of my writing. I?ve been working on some memoirs of growing up there (I?m now living in Denver). I have posted a few of the stories on my blog such as Black Racer – http://mansionsofthemind.blogspot.com/2014/06/black-racer-memoir.html from my Growing up Stories ? True Stories of a Brown Dirt Boy. if you are interested in taking a look it?s at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GBLRKU0 I plan to do additional memoirs and possibly a second book. That is why I was look for the background/history of ?Educated Cheeseburger.? I took a look around your site and some of the newsletters and enjoyed them a lot. I will bookmark the link and be back! Thank you so much for making it available. (BTW I did actually live about a year in Ardmore as a teenager which is briefly mentioned in a couple of my essays.)
Enjoy!” -Kenny A. Chaffin
“Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence. –St. Augustine of Hippo
See everyone next week!
Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore Oklahoma
PO Box 2
Lone Grove, Oklahoma 73443
Vicious Dog Attacks in Oklahoma
https://oklahomahistory.net/viciousdogs.html
Bells of Oklahoma
https://oklahomahistory.net/bellpage.html
Carter County Courthouse Paver Project
http://www.brightok.net/cartercounty/pavers
Save on long distance calls, just a couple cents a minute!
http://www.CheapLongDistance.org
Ardmore High School Criterions Online
http://www.ArdmoreCriterion.com/
Oklahoma Bells: https://oklahomahistory.net/bellpage.html
American Flyers Memorial Fund – Administration Webpage
https://oklahomahistory.net/crash66.html
Official American Flyers Memorial Website
http://www.brightok.net/~wwwafm
Ardmore Army Air Field/Ardmore Air Force Base Website
http://www.brightok.net/~gsimmons
Mirror Site of the Ardmore Army Air Field/Ardmore Air Force Website
https://oklahomahistory.net/airbase/
Carter county schools, past and present
http://community.webshots.com/user/oklahomahistory
Carter County Government Website
http://www.brightok.net/cartercounty/
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