Its been 9 years since I retired from the Carter County Courthouse and the Commissioners Office. But they are still like family and I enjoy making these pavers for them when an OPERS (Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System) eligible employee retires. These 5 pavers will be placed in the walkway at the west entrance of the courthouse with all the others.
When I look at the paver for Leland Walker with 61 years of service at the District 1 County Barn, I doubt there has ever been a county employee in Oklahoma who has put in that many years of service.
We’ve had good month of November contacting or trying to contact Oklahomans with unclaimed property at the State Treasurers Office in OKC. Total for November is over 75 people.
https://oklahomahistory.net/unclaimed-property-in-oklahoma/
From this week’s Mailbag
Photo by Lee’s Studio, Madill, Ok. In pencil on reverse : Mr. & Mrs Joe Abb Rollins 11/14/1921 Madill, Ok. -Robert Hensley
HAM Talk by KC5JVT via Echolink
I’ve had my eBay $20 refurbished Cisco IP phone SPA525G up and running a week now and its working perfectly. I’ve talked to about 6 or so other HAMs across the country and even Dave Phillips (GW8SZL) in South Wales, UK. I’ve just touched on what all this phone can do. Looking forward to learning all the features for HAM radio operators who are members of HamshackHotline.com.
Also any HAMs in this area are welcome to come to the Prairie Kitchen in Ardmore at noon Saturday December 7th for a meet and great and enjoy a lunch and fellowship. Everyone goes Dutch so don’t forget your money. lol
Address: 102 Holiday Dr, Ardmore, OK – I-35 and Highway 70
Below is last Sundays check-ins to the .970 Net Repeater.
.97 net check ins 12/1/24 8:00p.m.
KI5DVX – Olan -Ardmore (Net Control Officer)
W5WBB – Eddie – Ada
KJ5EHC – Mike – Durant
KE5BAL – Vance – Ardmore Prairie Kitchen lunch @ 12 p.m. 12/7/24
WD5HCK – Russ – Ardmore
KG5AGN – George – Ardmore
KC5JVT – Butch – Lone Grove
KC5MT – Dwaine – Newport
KJ5IPB – Bobby – Healdton
WB5FTR – Rocky – Overbrook
Net closed @ 8:18 p.m. Thanks all for checking in.
Below is from my newsletter archives dated
February 15, 2007 – Issue 527
Back in the 1950s my grandfather Stanley Carmon owned a 1958 Ford station wagon something like the one in this picture as best I remember.
1958 Ford Country Sedan station wagon (except ours was yellow)
Below is a scan of the Oklahoma car Title to the station wagon.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/1958StationWagonTitle.jpg
We made several trips to Dallas (actually Mesquite, TX) to pick up paint and wallpaper at the Dal-Worth Paint Mfg Company to sell in his lumber company 3rd and H street NE. I remember one school day morning hiding under a tarp on the floor behind the drivers seat and I didn’t move until we got way south of Ardmore. When your hiding a minute seems like 30, so I thought we were further down Highway 77 (no I-35) then we really were. When I did move and say something, my grandfather was pretty mad, but he let me continue on to Dallas with him.
I did a search on the net and found the following advertisement lighter by Dal-Worth Paints.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/DalWorthLighter7a.jpg
I sure enjoyed riding in that station wagon, and the one thing I remember is it had an Overdrive. Not many vehicles back then had that feature. It was a real gas saver on the open highway. And then on a steep uphill, you didn’t have much power. But the station wagon back in my teenage years was a completely different station wagon from the modern day back 100 to 200 years ago. The station wagon was just that, a wagon used to transport people from the hotel to the train station and back.
“Hi Butch, Re: the new Catholic Church in Marietta, the general contractor is our own Bill Fields of Craftco Builders here in Ardmore. You might know his father-in-law, former county treasurer Mike McComber.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/MariettaMission7a.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/MariettaMission7b.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/MariettaMissionBell.jpg
“Butch, here is a picture of the river bridge on the east side of the Airpark by Annie Conway’s place after it had burned, circa 1950. The man in the cowboy hat is I believe my grandfather Frank Rountree, they were standing on a walking trail made to get across the river. If you zoom in there is an old Ford pickup on the hill. The bridge was converted to a Bailey bridge later by the Air Force.” -Doug Williams
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/AirparkBridge7a.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/AirparkBridge7b.jpg
“Dear Butch and Jill Bridges: My name is Jerome Benson 78 years old, Chula Vista, California. Your Oklahoma History awoke me from what I thought was a touch of Alzheimer’s. Suddenly I can recall almost before I was born. I was raised a mile north of Ravia on a small dried up farm on a dirt road. When I was not yet in my teens, the Kuykendall family lived just north of us before moving to downtown Ravia. The Clark Capertons lived a 1/4 mile south. Nina Ruth Kuykendall, and her brother a couple of years older than I, were walking down the dirt road and a snake bit her. They both screamed that she had just got snake bit. Dad, Homer Benson, jumped into his wagon and team which was already hooked up and raced to them as fast as the team could run. He ran them all the way to Ravia for treatment and saved her life. As for me, as a teenager there, I was ranked as a topnotch cotton picker at a penny per pound, black eyed pea picker on the thirds, dishwasher at Park’s restaurant in Tishomingo for $5 per week and all the gizzards I could eat. What deals. Clark Caperton was a good family friend. We kids called him Mr. Yeah Yeah because as he listened to someone he would say yeah yeah. I remember he was a compliment to Ravia as few others were during those wild years. My Benson grandfolks were old timers there even before the turn of the century. My mom’s mother was full blood Chickasaw from Pontotoc. Gene Autry went to school there from the first year to the tenth grade. His dad was in prison for cattle rustling when his mother died of malnutrition. Gene was singing on the radio at the time and called Earnest (Red) Field’s son to please get his (Gene’s) two sisters something to wear to the funeral. Red’s son J. E. paid $16 for the clothes. Previously to that when Gene was going to school, Red bought Gene a second hand guitar for a dollar. That was the beginning of Gene’s success story. My daughter is a doctor of Public Relations. She recently returned from London where she taught at a branch of Oxford University. While there, she went to a Protestant and Catholic meeting in Belfast, Ireland. The Irish as usual almost got into a fight while arguing. On the outside in the hall was a chalk board. On the way out my daughter wrote, “I am Chickasaw Indian from Oklahoma. Instead of arguing and fighting, we Chickasaws sit on a big flat rock with a peace pipe and blow smoke to the four winds and leave as the best of friends. Thanks Butch and Jill for reviving my young years.”
Q. “Rural Schools. I would like to have a map of the rural schools of Grady County.”
A. Below are maps showing the rural schools of Garvin County and Stephens County, Oklahoma in about 1925. -Patricia Adkins-Rochette, [email protected] www.bourlandcivilwar.com
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/OKGarvinCoSchoolsmapFeb082007.pdf
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/OKStephenCoSchoolsFeb072007.pdf
“My name is John Allison Gow. I lived in Ardmore and went to junior high and high school there in the late 60s and early 70s, though I haven’t lived in Ardmore for many years. I learned of your publication from a man in Australia, Ron McFarlane, while talking with him about railroads in Ardmore in the 1960s. He is a big fan of the Santa Fe Railroad through the Pauls Valley and Ardmore area and has been creating a model railroad in its image. In high school I was likewise a big fan of the railroads in Ardmore (or anywhere, for that matter) and had taken a lot of photos of trains in the area at that time. I told him as much as I could remember of what the railroad operations were like at the time, and also sent him some of my photos. He told me of your publication and said you might be interested in seeing the photos as well, so here are a few. If you’re interested I have more. Some info on the photos:
1) This is Santa Fe’s southbound Texas Chief, arriving at the Ardmore station in 1971. The Texas Chief was a passenger train that ran daily between Chicago and Houston. It had a baggage car, chair cars, sleeping cars, a full lounge car (what the Santa Fe called a “Big Dome Lounge”, as it had a glass bubble top and you sat up inside the dome, almost like you were sitting on top of the train), and a full-service dining car serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The southbound train was scheduled to arrive in Ardmore about 11:30am. This station still stands of course, and now serves Amtrak’s Heartland Flyer. To the left of the train in the parking lot you can see the beginning of a grass median. This was actually a rose garden, maintained for many years by the Ardmore Garden Club, as an enhancement for travelers arriving and departing Ardmore.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/ATSF15Ardmore1971_1.jpg
2) Here is another view of the southbound Texas Chief coming into Ardmore in 1971. This photo was taken looking north from the MLK Viaduct, though at that time it was called the 5th Street Viaduct. There is a northbound freight train on the right waiting for the passenger train to pass before it moves out onto the mainline to continue to Oklahoma City and beyond.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/SantaFeTrain1971_2.jpg
3) Here is the northbound Texas Chief in the Ardmore station, stopping on its way to Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kansas City, and Chicago. The passenger cars are Santa Fe’s “Hi-Level Chair Cars”, a 2 story type of car with an upstairs and a downstairs. Amazingly these durable, comfortable cars are still in use on Amtraks’ Heartland Flyer which continues to serve Ardmore today. The northbound train was scheduled to arrive in Ardmore about 3:15pm.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/ATSF16Ardmore_3.jpg
4) This is Santa Fe’s branchline freight train that ran from Ardmore to Healdton and Ringling. The train is shown leaving Ardmore in March 1971 westbound to Healdton and has just crossed Sunset road on the southwest side of Ardmore. At this time the little train ran 2 times a week, on Tuesday and Saturday. The new Uniroyal Tire Plant (at this time it was brand new) is about a mile and a half ahead and is still served by this rail line, though the line beyond the tire plant to Healdton and Ringling was abandoned long ago.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/ATSFHealdtonMarch1971_4.jpg
5) This is a photo of a Frisco Railroad freight train, a rare sight in Ardmore. The Frisco had a branch line that ran to Ardmore from Durant and Madill. It had passenger service until 1953, with a small passenger train running daily between Ardmore and Hugo, Oklahoma. That was a distant memory however, even at the time of this photo, 1971, when the line saw little use. This train is facing south and is shown in south Ardmore. The Blue Bonnet Grain elevators are about a mile behind, and the train has just crossed Washington Ave, just south of where Washington intersects with Stanley.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/SLSFFreightArdmore1971_5.jpg
6) This is the Frisco Railroads’ Freight Depot, shown in 1988 when I was in Ardmore for a visit several years after the Frisco abandoned its line to Ardmore. I believe the building was used by a plumbing company for awhile, but it has since been torn down. It’s too bad, as it had a classic late 19th century railroad architecture style. In the extreme right side of the photo you can see the red roof of the main Ardmore depot, which serves Amtraks’ Heartland Flyer.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/FriscoFreightDepotArdmore1988_6.jpg
7) The Frisco depot was on the first street that runs parallel to the railroad tracks one block west of the existing Ardmore depot. It’s been awhile so I’m struggling a little with the street name. I think it is Caddo Street, and the freight depot was on the east side of the street, just south of where it intersects with Broadway. It was torn down some time in the early 90s. I’ve included another pic of it from a different angle, taken at the same time as the other in 1988.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/FriscoFreightDepotArdmore1988_7.jpg
“Butch, I?ve never looked at your site before today. My great-grandmother Stella Alkire passed away this past weekend. I grew up with her on Prairie Valley Road until I left for college in 1990. I am a graduate of Plainview High School. I?m not sure why I?m telling you this other than I just wanted to let you know about an important piece of Ardmore history. Stella ?Mamaw? Alkire was born in Overbrook, Indian Territory on November 27th, 1904. She lived at Rt3 Box12 Prairie Valley Road from July 1946 until last weekend. She was an amazing woman and will be sorely missed. Part of her story is chronicled in a Carter County history book that was published several years ago. Thanks.” -Mike Bosley
“Rock creek this morning at Sulphur. Beautiful. I just love a running clear creek.” -Doug Williams
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/RockCreekSulphur07.jpg
Question: “Butch, Any details of the Rail Road that went thru Tishomingo and on east to somewhere, the old right of ways shows up from highway split to Madill and hiway east to Tish., I dont find it listed shown on maps I have, The right of way shows in north part of Tish….another right of way vanishing is the old line to Ringling , and the line from Chickasha to Pauls Valley…during 20-30’s” it was the “broomcorn special” with a Doodlebug gas passenger motorcar……….. old RW ‘s areas are nostalgic items for me with the cuts, relic telegraph poles (thats left) and sometimes a relic trestle…..good painting subjects.”
Answer: “The line that went through Tishomingo was the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific (aka “Rock Island”), and was built off their mainline that ran from Memphis through Oklahoma City to New Mexico. The line you’re asking about left that mainline at Wilburton and went SW through Tish, Russett, and Mannsville to Ardmore. The plan at the time was to continue on west to Waurika to connect with another Rock Island line, but that company never built farther west than Ardmore. A different railroad built the line to Healdton and Ringling. The Rock Island line never did well and was mostly abandoned in about 1940. The last few miles into Ardmore were sold to the Saint Louis and San Francisco Railroad (aka “Frisco”) which also had a line running into Ardmore from the east, from Durant and Madill. The two railroads up to that time had shared the track for those last few miles into Ardmore, and the Frisco acquired complete ownership of it. That line lasted until I think 1976. That old right of way shows up in the terrain in some places too. If you know where the railroad depot in Ardmore is, there’s a little bit of history there that few people know about. On the opposite side of the depot from where the current train tracks are is another door into the stations’ old waiting room. Over that door is the corporate herald of the Rock Island Railroad cast in concrete, a railroad that has been gone since before WWII, so long most people in Ardmore have no memory of it.
“Of all the months of the year there is not a month one half so welcome to the young, or so full of happy associations, as the last month of the year.”— Charles Dickens
Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore, Oklahoma
580-490-6823
