A Home Grown Home Page

Home of the This and That Newsletters

Vol 21  Issue 1,079  September 28, 2017

PO Box 2, Ardmore, Oklahoma 73402

Email: butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net, Phone: 580-490-6823

The Daily Chieftain, October 8, 1902, Vinita, Indian Territory.
Charged with murder committed near Ardmore over 10 years ago

Bud English, an alleged horse thief, has been arrested at Ardmore charged with the murder of William Caine, an officer 10 years ago. At the time of the murder it is alleged Caine, with a posse, was in pursuit of a gang of horse thieves of which English was a member overtaking them resulted during which Caine was killed. One of the members of the posse met English on the streets of Ardmore yesterday and claim to recognize him as the man who shot Caine. English was arrested by a deputy marshal and will be given a preliminary hearing within a few days.

The Daily Ardmoreite September 26, 1912
Alford acquitted of Ben Collins murder
Case has been on trial at Tishomingo the past 2 weeks

Tishomingo Oklahoma September 25th – The case of the State versus E. P. Alford charged with the murder of Ben Collins, Deputy United States Marshal and Indian policeman in 1906, which has been on trial for 2 weeks, came to a close today when the jury returned into court a verdict of not guilty. The indictment was found in the United States court before statehood. The Chickasaw legislature made an appropriation for the prosecution of the case. The case was hotly contested.

August 1933
Some squatters have been told to leave their camp on Highway 70 near Lone Grove. Some family groups have been squatting at the site for as long as two weeks. Citizen complaints about the camp have been increased by the rainy weather. Filthiness prevails. One family at the site has nine children. There have been several ill with malaria. Owners of the property on which the squatters has settled has authorized authorities to fence off the track and post notices forbidding camping.

August 1962
Some people are questioning the validity of mineral right collections by the state. A group of local individuals say they lost only surface rights when the state in condemnation suits and land purchases took their property to help build Lake Murray. The state recently gained 1.7 million dollars for oil royalties and rentals from Lake Murray properties.

August 1962
It’s official. Construction of the $13,340,000 Lake of the Arbuckle’s was authorized by President John F. Kennedy. The bill was signed by the president in his office with senators and house members of the Oklahoma Congressional Delegation in attendance. The project will provide water for Ardmore, Davis, Sulphur, Dougherty, Wynnewood, and the Kerr-McGee refinery at Wynnewood. If approved by voters in those cities, a dam will be built about six miles Southwest of Sulphur in the heart of the Arbuckle Mountains. It will be a rolled earth and 1,870 feet long with a height of 139 feet above sea level.

This photo is the old Jay’s Drive in at West Main and Commerce in Ardmore. Its kind of blurry, but the building is still there as a used car lot.

“Hi Butch.  This regards the inquiry in this week’s This and That about the “Blue Jay Drive-in.”  It was operated in the 1950’s by Jay Garner and was called Jay’s Drive-in.  I ate there a lot and the food was excellent.  After the bowling alleys opened in Ardmore, Jay Garner bowled a perfect 300 game. As I remember, he won a $5,000 prize.  Jay’s daughter was Vicky Garner.  She would have been in about the class of 1958 at A.H.S.”  -Ken Bacon

https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos17b/JaysDriveInArdmoreOK.jpg

Pryor, Oklahoma bank back in the day before statehood.

https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos17b/BankPryorIT.jpg

Robert Hensley sent in several rare old photos this week. This first one was taken in 1941 of some Ardmore Native American veterans.

https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos17b/NativeAmericanVets1941.jpg

This next one is W. B. Frame (in white) standing in front of his City Drug. The names of the other 6 gentlemen in the photo are unknown.

https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos17b/CityDrugWBFrameInWhite.jpg

Below is of Tom Frame, son of W. B. Frame, owner of the City Drug store on Main street of Ardmore.

https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos17b/TomFrameCityDrugArdmore.jpg

https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos17b/ColeJenkinsPhoto.jpg

The next cabinet photo is of a Helen Gillespie.

https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos17b/HelenGillespiePhoto.jpg

One of several bricks I sandblasted the other day.

https://oklahomahistory.net/bricks/ElisePaver.jpg

The other day I posted a picture on my Facebook seeking info on my great grandmother Ada Jacobs Carmon. Born in Pennsylvania, she lived her adult life in Gainesville, Texas where she is buried. Ada died in 1897. Much to my surprise days later a brown envelope arrived with 27 pages of info in her (all obtained through Ancestry.com website) from a friend. I was overjoyed and humbled at the same time. I saw info I never knew about my gggrandmother Ada Carmon as I viewed the 27 pages. It may take me hours to enter all the data in my Family Tree Maker and then upload to the Internet as well as to Ancestry.com but it will be well worth the time! Here is a picture of my Ada Jacobs Carmon. The first one is when she was very young, the second one is later as a older adult.

https://oklahomahistory.net/carmon/CarmonPhoto.jpg

https://oklahomahistory.net/carmon/AdaJacobsCarmon.jpg

To the friend who sent me the packet, thank you. Friends Make Life Worth Living.

You can find current gas prices for a particular Oklahoma town by entering the name or zip code in the GasBuddy search box.
http://www.oklahomagasprices.com/

Q. Where in Oklahoma is the 20 foot tall statue of Paul Bunyan located?
A.  Aline, Oklahoma
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/4217

Q. Where in Oklahoma is the 46 foot tall giant Indian chief, Standing Brave, located?
A. Answer in next week’s newsletter

Below is from This and That newsletter archives of September 29, 2005

 “Klan in Oklahoma Faces Acid Test. Eleven of Carter county’s most prominent citizens to be tried for murder. Defendants are Dr. E. C. Harlow, J. A. Gilliam, Ray L. Beede, C. G. Whitchurch, W.L.T. Hilton, Jeff Smith, J.D. (Curley) Smith, Tom Hailes, J. A. Pitts, Dan Ridpath, Jr., and Frank Cardwell.” -Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, January 18, 1922
———————————————–

Two or three weeks ago I talked about having trouble with my Cableone internet here at home. It had been going on for some time and I was really at wits end as to what was causing me to lose my internet sometimes 2 or 3 times in the evenings and weekends. Last Monday I talked to Neill Courtney at the local Cableone office here in Ardmore. He said it sounds like I have either some kind of line noise or connection problems causing me to lose signal strength. Neill said he’d send someone right out. In a few hours the technician arrived and it was Randy Denton. I knew when I saw Randy getting out of the vehicle my internet problems were about to come to an end. Sure enough, Randy tested my cable coming into the house and I was losing strength. He got his ladder and checked my cable connection where it comes from the pole to the eve of my house, and there lay the rascal that was causing all my problems. The copper wire ends in the 3 connectors were badly oxidized and turned a dark brown. Randy cut them back about 3 or 4 inches to where there was nice clean bright copper, crimped on new connectors and Viola! My internet connection was better than its been in years! I haven’t lost internet a single time since Randy reworked my cable last Monday. Needless to say I’m a happy camper! We really don’t appreciate local help sometimes until we need a real live human being to fix our problem. Thanks Neill and Randy, you guys were great. And I don’t want to leave out the rest of the people at Cableone here in Ardmore. I see a lot of them on a regular basis, and they are a great bunch!

———————————————–
“Butch, I am writing in hopes that someone can tell me about Eagles Lake east of Ardmore and South on Dickson Road. I believe that it was by the old Eades home place, later occupied by George Pilot and now the Adams. I was wondering if someone had some info and or pictures of this lake and what happened to it. Thanks!”
———————————————–
“As a kid I lived across the street from Art and Mahota Oakley. Mrs. Oakley always called me her god son and brought over home made cookies for me. Art had become disabled with polio I think they said, and was confined to a wheel chair during the last years of his life. When the first color tv sets came out they were the only ones in the neighborhood that had one and they would invite me over on saturday mornings to watch my cartoons in color which was just awesome back in those days for a little kid. I can remember Art Oakley telling me stories of how he flew bi-plains with Wiley Post and Will Rodgers doing what they called barn storming back in those days. Latter in life I was in the insurance business and had a health care policy on Mahota Oakley and got to see her often. She sent most of the stuff she had on Art to the Kirkpatrick museum in Oklahoma City. They had an exhibit about Art and his barn storming days. I haven’t been back up there since the early 1980’s, so I don’t know if it still is being displayed. Mahota passed away sometime around the early 1980’s and I think she was around 90 years old. It was a sad day, but I have some fond memories of Art and Mahota Oakley.” -Ken Mills, Ardmore
———————————————–
Early photos of Hennepin, Oklahoma.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos5a/HennepinOK2.jpg

https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos5a/HennepinOK3.jpg

https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos5a/HennepinOK4.jpg

https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos5a/HennepinOK5.jpg
———————————————–
———————————————–

Some mail from this week’s MAILBAG…..

RE: Ardmore night clubs around 1955: “Hi, Butch, Since I’m getting up in my old age (61 in 2 weeks!! Ha!!) I’ve decided to attempt to write my “memoirs” for my 3 grandchildren since there’s no one left to tell them about what my life was like growing up in Southern Oklahoma.

Anyway, I’m trying to remember the name of the nightclub that my parents frequented in their months of dating from 1954 to 1956. All I can remember was that it was a club somewhere on Hwy 77 or it could be Hwy 70 and I was thinking that it was towards Lone Grove, but I could be wrong on that. It’s not the Cloverleaf club, although that was one they went to on occasion. This was a different one and for the life of me I can NOT remember the name of it. I swear I want to say it used to be where Buddy Simon’s rib joint was, but I could be completely off base.Either way, I was hoping that maybe some of your readers might be able to remember some of the nightclubs in Ardmore around that time in that area of town. And, no, it was none of the ones on Main Street. Daddy could barely get momma to go to the Cloverleaf and to this other club, let alone any of the “joints” on Main & Caddo!!!
Thanks.” -Kathi G. in Fayetteville, Arkansas
———————————————–
“Hello Butch, My Great Grandfather, Dr. William Selfridge , was a herbalist doctor in Lebanon, I.T. during the 1890’s. His office was above the Lebanon drug store where he treated the local citizens for most of the common ailments of the day. I have one of his ledgers where he lists patients and the treatments he used as well as payment received, mostly chickens, assorted vegetables, and eggs, but very little cash. Not a lot of it around at that period in time.” -Charlie Williams-Ardmore
———————————————–
“Butch, I remember a couple of grocery stores that used to be on Caddo St back during late 40’s early 50’s. There was Benham’s (James Benham) and Browns (Charles Brown). They were next door to each other in the building that is now the antique store I believe. Don’t remember seeing either on your list. Mr Benham had a guy that worked for him named Buddy Stinson who was one of the pall bearers for my Dad in 1964. Where have the years gone? After their stores were shut down, Floyd Vandenburg moved his store from 7th & I Northeast to where the antique store is on Caddo and their son Junior had a barber shop next door. There was a service station on the corner owned by the Dad of Buck Miller. Really enjoy your newsletter.” -Bill Holder
———————————————–
“Butch, I just love your Newsletter. My Aunt, Georgia Pass, retired from Ringling after 37 year of teaching in 1964. She taught 26 years in Carter County, 2 years in Texas and 9 in Ringling. After retirement she lived in Ardmore, Oklahoma.” -Sue Smith
———————————————–
“Butch, it seems you have a story about hamburgers almost every week in This and That news letter. Well here is mine: The summer of 1956 after I graduated from Highschool, I worked for an aerial application company and was sent to Itta Bena, Mississippi. Itta Bena is on Highway 82 west of Greenville, Miss. and at that time was about the size of Fox, Oklahoma currently is. Well the one and only Café in town had hamburgers on the menu so I ordered one, it came with meat, mayo and cabbage on a bun. (Awful) I asked the owner what this was and he said hamburger, I then asked if I could make myself a burger and he agreed, I put meat, onion, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes and mustard. Long story, when I left a few weeks later he had an Oklahoma burger on the menu. I guess I did something good that summer.” -Ken, Whitesboro, Texas

October is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.” -Mark Twain (1835-1910)

See everyone next week!Butch and Jill Bridges“Friends Make Life Worth Living”PO Box 2
Lone Grove, Oklahoma 73443https://oklahomahistory.netVicious 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
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 Government Website
http://cartercountyok.us