Last Saturday my table saw tried to whoop me. Got the end of my right thumb. Kind of below my thumbnail so I probably won’t lose it. I think I’ve been in hospital ERs between 12,000 and 15,000 times all over Oklahoma and Texas but never as a patient, only with patients from my 18…

Springer, Oklahoma is a small incorporated town in northern Carter County, Oklahoma, located about 15 miles north of Ardmore (the county seat) along U.S. Highway 77, near Interstate 35 and the southern edge of the Arbuckle Mountains. Founding and Early HistoryThe area was originally part of Pickens County in the Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory. A…

Charlie Dry was a test pilot for NASA in Houston Texas. I remember one time him telling me he could fly anything with wings. After we had been friends for a few years, he told me he was moving back to Tishomingo. After years of fighting traffic 2 hours to get to work and 2…

Dickson, Oklahoma Before Oklahoma achieved statehood, the land that makes up Dickson was part of Pickens County within the Chickasaw Nation. When these lands were opened to non-Native settlement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pioneers established a small farming community focused on homesteading and subsistence farming. The original settlement formed around the…

Below is downtown Ardmore 1953-1954 In the photo below….In the immediate foreground on the left, parked in front of the Pontiac sign, is a 1950 or 1951 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe. Driving toward the camera in the center lane is a 1951 or 1952 Plymouth Cranbrook. The absence of sharper, finned mid-to-late ’50s car designs suggests…

In September 1906, one of the worst train accidents ever in the history of this country, took place just south of a small town named Dover, Oklahoma (55 miles NW of Oklahoma City). Heavy rains had washed away the bridge that night as the Rock Island train from Texas north bound for Kansas came through,…

The Daily Alaska Empire newspaper (Juneau, Alaska) February 13th 1946 – Ardmore Oklahoma – at least 14 persons were injured none seriously in a tornado which struck this southern Oklahoma city of 20,000 early today strewing homes in its path and disrupting telephone and power lines.  The city was plunged into complete darkness when telephone…

The Great Ardmore Fire of April 19, 1895It was in Harper’s livery stable on North Caddo, that the Great Fire of 1895 started, wiping out or damaging all buildings in Ardmore’s business district. Forty-six structures were destroyed and nine others sustained damage. The fire burned through the area bound by A Street northwest, North Caddo,…

The Pak-A-Sak Grocery above was located in the SW corner of Lake Murray Drive and C Street SE. I stopped in there many times for a Dr. Pepper in the ’70s and ’80s. Bobby Ray “Sonny” Bourns worked as the clerk evenings at the Pak-A-Sak on Lake Murray Drive and C Street SE back in…

I created a page on my website about Coleman Jones. I remember him so well. Check it out at the link below. https://oklahomahistory.net/ardmores-coleman-jones/ Ardmore Main Street 1940s Ardmore before statehood and cars. You can see the water well in the middle of Main Street. Broadlawn Shopping Center at Maxwell and Harris NW From This Weeks…