The Ardmore Statesman December 4, 1909 A Nervy Chap Joseph E. Buchanan, a young boy of Durwood, just east of Ardmore, at the point where the Rock Island and Frisco lines diverge, is certianly a pluckly chap. He has just opened up a printing office in his hometown, and has installed and is operating his plant without any assistance and without having worked in a printing office before. He did not consider the feat anything remarkable. "Well, you see, I visited printing offices a good number of times and have watched the men at work. Of course, I "pied" stuff once or twice at first, but I'm having no trouble now and I am turning out lots of work. He was a town yesterday arranging linotype composition at the Statesmen's office as he is figuring on printing the Mansville paper at his plant in Durwood. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/108625600/joseph-e-buchanan
The Ardmore Daily Press
February 23, 1927
Petition to Pave Caddo Street Prepared Caddo Residence Launch Campaign to Get Street Paved Site Reasons For Their New Demand North Washington A delegation of Caddo Street property owners will appear before the regular meeting of the Ardmore City Commission Thursday morning to present a petition asking that the routing of the state highway from the north through the city be changed to pass along Caddo Street rather than North Washington as at present. The petition is signed, leaders say, by a majority of the residents on the street. County Aid Questioned It is also reported that the county commission in whose district the area lies will refuse to contribute county aid to the paving of North Washington's unfinished street but will render aid to the Caddo project.
I noticed last week the old Fatbelly’s Diner (Raquel’s Mexican Restaurant) (Longhorn Diner) was torn down. It was built in 1977.
https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.190.156/knn.c7e.myftpupload.com/ttphotos14a/FatbellyDiner062014.jpg
Q. Where in Oklahoma can you spend the day with elephants in a one of a kind animal park?
A. The Endangered Ark Foundation in Hugo, Oklahoma
The Endangered Ark Foundation is a private non-profit dedicated to ensuring the future of Asian elephants in North America, providing a retirement ranch for circus elephants, and educating the public about this endangered species. It is the second largest home to Asian elephants in America.
https://www.endangeredarkfoundation.org/
Q. Name the son of Daniel Boone who traveled through Oklahoma?
A. Answer in next week’s newsletter
Some mail from this week’s MAILBAG….
Q. Were you working the ambulance when the bull rider was killed at Hardy Murphy Coliseum some years ago?
A. No, but I found the article on the incident. Happened in 1993.
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/1993/10/03/bull-rider-dies-doing-what-he-loved-rodeo/62446699007/
Does anyone remember an incident alike above only maybe in the 70s or 80s?
From my Vol 3, Issue 116 July 10, 1999 newsletter:
For three years I have been searching for a photo of a man named James Cruce who was sheriff of Carter County for 30 days back in 1925. Thanks to my friend Ernest Martin, and a book he found titled “Carter County Schools 1923”, I now have a photo of this mystery man. Sheriff Ewing London was ousted from office in 1925 for coruption and James Cruce was installed as a sheriff temporarily until after the litigation. A judge in Purcell ordered Sheriff London re-instated, so James Cruce was only sheriff for 30 days. Here is a pic of Mr. James Cruce, the mystery sheriff everyone forgot about until I ran across his name in an old Ardmore Statesman newspaper…. what a find!
https://oklahomahistory.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/jamescruce.jpg
“Butch, there will probably be many people still out there that will remember the great Indian Statue that was once located on a rock pedestal at the Turner Falls Look-Out & I know they too will tell you that there were many of those bronze colored metal statues located around the countryside. For many years one was located on Main street in Ardmore at the Service Station that was on the SE corner of Main & D Streets S.W. where the late Exchange National Bank is now located. Others will likely know much more than I do about the significance of these bronze giants. I remember that this same symbol was cast in bronze type metal & its base was fashioned into an ash tray. It seems to me that they were used as a trade mark for the Palacine Oil Co which I was told belonged to Wirt Franklin of Ardmore. Fairly recently I remember seeing some cans of oil with the Palasine trade mark on the label displayed at the Greater Ardmore Museum.”
“Frick-Reid is listed on a poster in the Healdton, OK Store pic, so I am assuming that it’s the outside of the same store. Rexroat, OK picture has my grandfather, Freeman Bray, he’s 88 now. Born in 1911, so I am guessing that the date would be about 1923-1924… it say’s junior high on the back. Freeman is number 5 either direction. Would love to know who some of the other people are. James Ernest Reeves (aka Blackie) born in 1889 in the Frick-Reid picture according to family members.”
https://oklahomahistory.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/FrickReidSupply1920.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/HealdtonJrHigh1923.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/FrickReidSupplyHealdtonOutside.jpg
Friday I was at the 42 mile marker north bound….. and saw a pickup have a blowout, shred the tire, run into the median, and even set the grass on fire in several places. I picked up my c-phone and called 911. Now picture this, I am at the north edge of Ardmore. The 911 operator answers and says: “Sulphur Police Department.” Hey, that’s 32 miles NE of where I was. Yikes! Technology run amuck. I was in the Ardmore City Limits and should have gotten the Ardmore Police Department.
This past week I received an email from a friend in Israel. She had told me how she wished her and her family could sleep at night without fear of bombs going off, how death seemed so close sometimes. She wished they could go were there was peace. The email she sent me spoke of the circle of life….. how we take what life deals us and hope it is good. When I saw those words “circle of life”, my mind flashed back to the mid 70s when I was transporting a well known Ardmoreite several times in the ambulance. He had cancer and as a last hope, family members were secretly going to Mexico to lay hold of apricot seed extract (B-17). His condition continued to deteriorate. On the last trip to the hospital he was comatose. As we came rolling through those automatic sliding doors in the ER that Friday night at 7pm, he raised up from the stretcher, and with a voice so loud as if God himself was speaking, he spoke these words, “God, the eternal circle”. Everyone was so startled, we all just stood there speechless for a minute. Doctors and nurses and people looked out from the ER rooms and hallways. He lay back down and never said another word. Maybe in his own way he had a message to deliver.
Man, it’s hot as all get-out!
See everyone next Thursday!
Butch and Jill Bridges
236 Timber Road
Ardmore, Oklahoma
580-490-6823
butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net
https://oklahomahistory.net