Ardmore, Oklahoma
Email: [email protected], Phone: 580-490-6823
“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us,
What we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.”
A Glimpse Into The Past
Crossthwaite Shoe Repair
One of the early shoe repairman in Ardmore was Thomas Newton Crossthwaite. His store was located on Caddo and as noted in the picture, it was long and narrow in configuration. The photo was taken in 1916 and it will be noted that even at that time there was electricity powered equipment for some of the early repairs on shoes. Mr. Crossthwaite had a daughter in Ardmore who is still living there, whose name is Elaine Crossthwaite Colbert. -Indian Territory and Carter County Pioneers book 1957
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos22a/CrosswaiteShoeRepair1916.jpg
Speaking of shoe and boot repair, the Harold and Ann Caudle Shoe repair closed down after 54 years of business in Ardmore at the end of 2021. A true piece of Ardmore history gone not to mention one of the last ma and pa shoe repair places in the state.
A post from Jim Hefley
In 1977 I was in the right place at the right time. My wife and I were driving around Texhoma and we were in a trailer camp on Bucombe creek. We saw some people moving out of a Triple wide trailer. We stopped and talked a while and much to our surprise they were willing to sell it at and all the furnishings including 3 bedroom suites China hutch dishes silverware etc. The only drawback it had to be settled in 3 days. Also included was a Corp of Engineers boat stall.
This is a prelude to what happened next. CADDO SHOOTOUT KILLS five.
In 1978 Claude Dennis and Michael Lancaster dug under the fence and escaped from McAlester State prison and were at large 34 days. During that time they seldom were more than a few miles of my vacation retreat. I was working for C. R. Anthony Co. and we had the radio at the front of the store tuned to KVSO that carried a running commentary of each move the criminals made for more than a month. I was more than a little concerned these killers would find an empty place for a hide out. They broke into a guard’s house and stole food and a Datsun truck. For 17 days there was no sign of these two. Then during a robbery in Silo, Okla. the yellow truck was spotted hell on earth started. They crossed the Red River and robbed a station in Garland, Tx. Killing the attendant. Next they killed James Doughty near the La. state line. Next they shot and killed Bobby Spencer at a Superette in Denison, Tx. They took his wife with them tied her to a tree and raped her. She escaped overnight and caught a ride with a truck driver. The escapees crossed the Red back into Okla. and were sighted near Mill Creek where they waited for road blocks to subside. On May 23 they showed up in Alabama where authorities found Stacie Beavers was discovered with a cut throat. They stole her yellow station wagon and headed back to Okla. on May 24 added a helicopter and Lt. Hoyt Hughes (a personal friend ) with Pat Grimes and trooper Frank Summers and Billy Young to the chase. The next morning Summers and young spotted the killers near Kinnefic, Oklahoma and pursued them where a shootout ensued resulting Summers and Young being killed. The killers grabbed all loose weapons and headed to CADDO where Hughes and Grimes started when Grimes was killed. Lt. Mike Williams driving on the other side shot Dennis just as he was about to kill Hughes.
This is the old Central Park Gulf Station aka Little Gulf across the street east from Central Park.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos22a/OldCentralParkGulf.jpg
Still finding people in Oklahoma with unclaimed money. We’re now over the $1.7 Million dollars. Sometimes progress is slow locating people or their kin with unclaimed insurance money at the State Treasurers office in OKC but we keep moving forward.
How long has it been since you checked your name or a family member’s name? Its easy to do a search at the Oklahoma State Treasurer link below. I think every state in the union has a unclaimed property website through the respective state treasures website.
https://apps.ok.gov/unclaimed/
If you have Facebook, I created a new Page called Southern Oklahoma Unclaimed Insurance Money. The only Post that will go on that page is names and towns of people we are looking for with unclaimed money;
Q. In far eastern Oklahoma at the beginning of spring you can hear 1,000s of singing frogs. What are these Oklahoma singing frogs called?
A. The Springer Peeper
Q. What Oklahoma governor was called “Honest Tom”?
A. Answer in next week’s newsletter
Some mail from this week’s MAILBAG…..
Señora Jill y Caballero Butch, les deseamos de todo Corazón un Feliz Año Nuevo
lleno de Salud y Amor de sus queridos amigos -Milagros y Ernesto
I used the Google Spanish to English translator:Mrs. Jill and Gentleman Butch, we sincerely wish you a Happy New Year full of Health and Love from your dear friends. -Milagros and Ernesto in New Jersey
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A few weeks ago, someone mentioned Pegasus, Magnolia Oil Company’s Flying Red Horse in Dallas so, I thought you would like to know the history of it. -Larry Paul
https://thedallaswhisperer.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/the-red-flying-horse-in-downtownpegasus/———————————————————-
Happy 2022 my friend!!! Wishing you & Jill a very healthy and happy new year.
Great newsletter this week (but they all are)!! Really enjoyed the photo of 3rd NE. I have great memories of Dr Boyd and his cure for my poison ivy. Also, back in the late 50’s riding my bike over the wooden bridge on 5th NE on my way to swim. I was so afraid my bike wheels would fall through the wooden slats so I peddled “really” fast!!
My family traveled Route 66 every summer in the 1950s to visit family in California. Those memories are wonderful.
* travelling across the desert at night while it was cool …… no a/c
* stopping at the California border and eating all our fruit we had brought as you couldn’t take fruit into California
* stopping to take photos (on Mom’s Brownie camera) of the Indians with all their wares spread out on blankets
* marveling at all be beautiful colors and rock formations in Arizona and cactus taller than our trees
* making the gesture at all the truckers so they would blow their air horns
* oh…..rolling up the windows as we traveled through Amarillo cattle pens….yuck!!!
* and finally wading in the cold Pacific Ocean….
It was good to be alive…..way back then in the “dark ages”!
-Jadean
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Photo of the new Ardmore High School 1910
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos22a/ArdmoreHighSchool1910.jpg
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Nice read for a New Year’s Eve, the message you received from the person and her Grandfather (98 years young) recalling the snow storm of 1929 brought back some memories of my Grandpa Prater telling me about him and Uncle Leslie Bailey taking liquor across the border to Texas; he said they’d make a delivery and tell the mules to take us home and that’s what they did. Is the story true or not; only he or Uncle Leslie would know as there’s no one left in our Family who would have that information to confirm or not; still made a great story for a youngster hearing it from his Grandfather.
Happy New Year to you and your lovely Jill; be safe, stay warm, and God Bless.
-Poss
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Old McAlister cemetery – Overbrook Oklahoma
I do know a little about it. We know the McAlister Cemetery is named after the old cemetery. I do know that Mr. McAlister is buried in the old cemetery. We are looking for the cemetery and if this person knows where it is, that would be great. I think I know the area it is located in but haven’t checked it out yet. Mr. McAlister was a very likable person. He was postmaster for the Overbrook post office. He owned a store at Overbrook. The McAlister Baptist Church is named after him also. I asked a member of that church why they named it after him and she said he was a very good man and cared for the people. -Cleta
https://oklahomahistory.net/mcalistercemetery.htm
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“I’m researching Joseph McAlister who came to Overbrook, Oklahoma from TX in the 1880’s and died in Ardmore in 1936, buried Old McAlister or Crinerville Cemetery. I understand for a time he was the postmaster out of his store in Overbrook, and was the namesake for McAlister Indian Baptist Church and donated the land for New McAlister Cemetery? Have you had anything about him in your past newsletters? Thanks!” Kathy in Nebraska
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Q. Would anyone happen to have any information on an Irene Ozell Clay Gentry? She is suppose to be buried in the McAlister Cemetery, but I don’t see her listed on any of the sites I have searched. She was born 7.14.1922 and died march 4, 1957 any help is appreciated.” -Kim
A. Gentry Irene Ozell (Clay) (Cain) 14-Jul-1922 04-Mar-1957
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Below is from This and That newsletter archives of January 7, 2010
I remember going to the Park Theater on Main Street in the early 1960s to see the movie The Blob (released in 1958). That movie scared me to death, couldn’t sleep that night, all those people running from the Colonial theater in the movie. Little did I know until now, that Steve McQueen made his first debut in the movie The Blob. But the movie didn’t actually make it big at the theaters until McQueen made it big in his hit series, Wanted: Dead or Alive. And to top it off, Burt Bacharach wrote the movie’s theme song Beware of The Blob.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZ86pJkz-M
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A Reader wrote in questioning where Dr Boyd’s office was located. It was the house just south of the “Big Swimming Pool” in the SW corner of F Street and 2nd NE. Here is a close up of that area.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos10a/ArdmoreAerial1975a.jpg
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“I read this sentence in last week’s T&T and gave a chuckle. When I was a kid at Wilson HS, my folks lived out in the Bayou on an oil lease. Naturally, I roamed the woods which was usually a bad idea because I caught poison ivy just looking at it. Invariably, my Mom took me over to the good Dr. Boyd, who gave us a bottle of small white pills with some kind of clear fluid included. Dr. Boyd’s pills were the only thing that always cured my poison ivy.
There was a bonus visiting Dr. Boyd’s office/home because my great-grandma lived right across the street east from him and we always stopped to visit her when we went to get my pills.”
Jim Bramlett
Henrietta, TX
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“Butch, I’ve been meaning to send this to you. Photos of the early stages of Ardmore’s New Water Tower on North Commerce, West side of Commerce just NW of the Quinton Little Building. There’s lots of large water pipes and construction in the area on both sides of Commerce. Looks like they are making connections from the old water tower which sits on the East side of Commerce. I’ve been told that the new one will replace the old one but that they decided to leave the old one in place. The last two photos are of the old water tower, an Ardmore landmark.” -Dwane Stevens
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos10a/NewWaterTower10a.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos10a/NewWaterTower10b.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos10a/OldWaterTower10a.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos10a/OldWaterTower10b.jpg
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Museum Memories
Contributed by Melinda Taylor
~~The Wilson News September 14, 1916
New Invention
Mr. Robert J. Burns of this city has just completed a new invention, in the way of a foot warmer for cars and buggies or can be used in several different ways. It has been tested thoroughly and has proven satisfactory. Mr. Burns stated that his patent had been applied for and that the invention would be on the market soon.
~~ Roy Mobley who was appointed postmaster several months ago, but has been waiting to be checked in, was put in charge Tuesday, and will conduct Uncle Sam’s business here for the next four years.
~~September 21, 1916
BIG WOLF HUNT
There will be a big wolf hunt two miles east of Orr on the 29th and 30th of this month.
Everybody is invited to come and bring their dogs, there will be an entry fee of $2.00 for each dog.
~~ Misses Louise Mobley and Effie and Mabel Crosby went over to Ardmore to visit the Style Show last Wednesday.
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“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘it will be happier.’” — Alfred Lord Tennyson
See everyone next week!
Butch and Jill Bridges“Friends Make Life Worth Living”Ardmore, Oklahoma
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