PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402
Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823
A Glimpse Into The Past
Nine miles north of Ardmore, Oklahoma is the small town of Springer. It had been a town long before statehood in 1907. In 1910 this little bustling city almost became a town in name only. On a Friday evening in September, a fire broke out in the Post Office.
Before the fire could be stopped, many Main street businesses would be destroyed, including the Post Office, D.M. Sellers General Store, Eskew Drug Store, Kuntz Bros Blacksmith Shop, the building used by the Masons, Woodmen of the World, and the Oddfellows. Also several buildings owned by Robert Scivally would be destroyed. (Mr. Scivally was the first County Commissioner of Carter county.)
When townspeople and firefighters saw their town was about to be totally destroyed by the raging fire, they resorted to dynamite to stop the flames.
May 1927
Serum treatment is being given for members of the C. T. Reid family at Graham who were bitten by a rabid dog Sunday afternoon. The head of the animal was shipped to the State Health Department laboratory in Oklahoma City late Sunday night and report came back positive Monday morning. The sternum arrived on the evening train and the treatment began within 24 hours after the dog’s attack.
May 1951
I new school is planned for the Milo/Woodford area which is expected to cost $115,000 to build. It will have a water well, air and heating systems, 8 classrooms and a combination auditorium/gym. The school will be located one mile west of Woodford on Highway 53.
May 1951
Oil was discovered in Roger Mills County. It is the 70th county of 77 counties in the state to show oil production.
May 1968
Northwestern Carter County was the scene of an all-out manhunt after reports were received that an officer have been shot by a blast from a sawed-off shotgun. Later reports indicated officers were fired at but not hit in the shootout at an oil lease near the intersection of Highway 76 and 53. Constable Jack Chatham and Deputy Bud Hunt chased the Louisiana car containing four men with guns, but the suspects nor vehicle were ever seen again.
A grave marker I made this week.
https://oklahomahistory.net/bricks/DemonDogPaver.jpg
Q. The Wild Mary Sudik oil well blowout flowed for eleven days before it was capped on the third try. Where in Oklahoma was this world famous gusher located?
A. 1930: The Mary Sudik Number One was drilled by the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil company on the Vince and Mary Sudik farm, located about one-half mile southeast of the present intersection of Bryant Avenue and Interstate 240 in southeastern Oklahoma County.
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=WI008
Q. There is a hidden waterfall that’s truly a beautiful place to visit year-round. The area is known as Bluestem Falls created by the spillway from Bluestem Lake. Where is this waterfalls?
A. Answer in next week’s newsletter
Below is from This and That newsletter archives of August 8, 2008
Oops. My August 8, 2008 newsletter is messed up. So I can’t use it. 🙁
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————————————————————————-Some mail from this week’s MAILBAG…..
Robert Hensley sent in some photos this week of the damage from a storm to the old Selvidge Business College located in the Northeast corner of North Washington and 2nd Street NE. I spent many of times in there in the 1980s when it was a Vietnamese restaurant. Anh Dinh made the best egg rolls. The building is now just a memory.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos20b/SelvidgeBusinessCollege080120a.jpghttps://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos20b/SelvidgeBusinessCollegeDamage073020a.jpg
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Ardmore AFB contractor 163 Ardmore Oklahoma metal tag. -Robert Hensley
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos20b/ArdmoreAirbaseContractorTag.jpg
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Butch I enjoyed reading last week’s newsletter about Dr Higgins! He is the Dr that delivered me into this earth in Feb of 1938. Of course a home delivery! I came into this world in my Grandparents home at 1300 Bailey SE. which of course that home is long gone!! -Betty Dighton
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Very interesting newsletter Butch. Thanks for your hard work. The book by Dale and Rader looks so interesting. I wonder if the Cache River is really Cache Creek which runs through the Cache and Lawton areas. My husband Gary, who grew up in Lawton, says W. Cache Creek goes thru Cache and then turns SE to join E Cache Creek SE of Lawton to form Cache Creek which empties into the Red River S of Waurika. Both E and W Cache Creek start in the Wichita Mountains. It is a really large creek where it dumps into the Red River. There is a mountain in the Wichita Mountains named after Captain Marcy. It is 2-3 miles west of Mt. Scott. -Gary and Nancy Wilson
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Butch: I’m a long time reader and occasional contributor to This and That. Much of my early life was on a family farm southwest of Moore when it was a small rural town between Oklahoma City and Norman, and on my maternal grandparents’ farm on Panther Creek in western Garvin County in the area of Elmore City, Antioch, and Foster. I also spent a little over a year with my fraternal grandparents on a farm near Evening Shade, Arkansas. (Yes, there really is an Evening Shade town in Sharp County.) After I returned from service in WW II I married Patricia Paschall. Her parents, Bert and Mable Paschall, owned and operated Two Lakes Skyway Courts later changed to Paschall Village at the southeast corner of Lake Murray State Park. The next four years I spent much of my time in, around, and about Love County and Lake Murray.I say this because I wrote a book, Pug, Tug and Me, that debuted last November. It is a fictionalized account of some of my ancestors and my life experiences with family and friends growing up in the mid-1920’s, The Great Depression, military service during WW II, and our lives afterwards. I have drawn on my life experiences and actual events in all the areas mentioned above only I’ve fictionalized them to maintain a degree of anonymity. Though I purposefully do not reveal the actual locale, many of your This and That readers will recognize some passages as being somewhat descriptive of South Central Oklahoma. If any of your audience is interested visit my website at: http://pugtugandme.com for more information, or contact me directly at don@pugtugandme.com. Thanks. -Don Davidson, Brenham, Texas
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos20b/PugTugAndMeBook.jpg
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———————————————–Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness –Desmond Tutu
See everyone next week!
Butch and Jill Bridges
“Friends Make Life Worth Living”PO Box 2
Lone Grove, Oklahoma 73443
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Vicious Dog Attacks in Oklahoma
https://oklahomahistory.net/viciousdogs.html
Oklahoma Bells: https://oklahomahistory.net/bellpage.html
Bill Hamm’s Cemetery Database
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/carter/cartercm.htm
American Flyers Memorial Fund – Administration Webpage
https://oklahomahistory.net/crash66.html
Ardmore Army Air Field/Ardmore Air Force Website
https://oklahomahistory.net/airbase/
Carter County Government Website
http://cartercountyok.us
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