PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net Phone: 580-490-6823 I remember as a young boy back in the 50s and 60s going to Devil’s Den north of Tishomingo to swim and spend the day.  Going that far in the family car with our parents was a real outing for us northeast Ardmore kids since…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net Phone: 580-490-6823 For the second time, Ardmore proved that it was a town too tough to die after surviving another major disaster in 1915.  A 250 barrel tanker railroad car, designated I.N.T.X, 8051, parked in the 93 degree Oklahoma heat and carrying casinghead gasoline, exploded on the tracks, destroying…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net Phone: 580-490-6823 Many of you have heard through the news media this week that the old barracks at Ft Washita burned last weekend. A number of you wrote in to let me know, and one Reader even sent in photo taken a couple years ago by a friend…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net Phone: 580-490-6823 James Richard Pennington was born November 2, 1858 in Franklin County, Tennessee.  He was the son of William Walker and Martha (Collins) Pennington. James attended Tullahoma College in Tennessee and taught school for 8 years.  Afterwards he want into the mercantile business.  In 1889 when…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net Phone: 580-490-6823 Mr. C. E. Troutman, the architect, had done much to make our city pleasing to the eye, for, after designs drawn by him, nearly, if not all of the finest residences and business blocks where built. Mr. Troutman was a native of Logansport, Louisiana.  He…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net Phone: 580-490-6823 1889 City of Ardmore incorporated. Prior to this, there were no city police, no sanitation department, no city courts, and no public schools. Prior to incorporation, the Ardmore Board of Trade operated as an unofficial town government. These local merchants met every Tuesday evening to…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net 1880 Ranch house built on the 700 Ranch, the first known man-made structure within the townsite. Built by Alva Buckingham Roff, the ranch house was located on the west fork of Anadarche Creek at what became the corner of G Street and 2nd Avenue, SE. It was…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net The Rev, John Anthony Quitman (1851-1908) and Sally Ann Letitia (Glider) (1851-1928) McCullough came from Texas to Ardmore, Indian Territory, in 1890 and bought a large five-room log house located on what later would be, when streets were created, McCullough Street SW at the end of South…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net I received a phone call this week from a lady in Tulsa seeking help from anyone in finding relatives of a Marilyn Mahan (1932- Aug 2003). The caller’s husband had a ‘bunch of photos” of Marilyn and her twin sister taken many years ago.  She hates to…

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402 Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net The Yellow Hills is a series of small mountain peaks and ridges that runs from Dickson, Oklahoma south toward Durwood, to McMillan and south toward the Red River. Durwood was a hard luck town. When the Frisco Railroad came through that area to Ardmore in 1902, it…