The Daily Ardmoreite
July 16, 1957
Carter County Polio Clinic Will Open Here Wednesday
Ardmore Civic auditorium will be the scene of a county wide polio clinic Wednesday and Thursday afternoons from 4:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Salt vaccine polio shots will be given free to all persons under 20 years old and to expectant mothers. Adults will be charged $1 a shot.
First, second, and third shots may be taken at the clinic. The Salk vaccine is so safe that it can be given year round and even one shot offers some protection for this season.
Ardmore doctors and nurses have volunteered their services. The auditorium is to be roped off to regular traffic in order to allow parking space for the participants in the program.
One shot of the vaccine is some protection, two shots more, and three shots long-term adequate protection. The second shot can be given two to six weeks after the first. The last is given 7 months after the second.
If however more time has elapsed, the shots do not have to be repeated. Three shots are necessary to offer maximum protection.
Even persons who have had polio to should take the Salk vaccine, since there are three types of polio virus. The Salk vaccine protects against all types.
A few weeks ago I Posted a inquiry about an interesting and strange looking piece of property behind the south side of Main Street on East Mill Street. Greg DeBerry asked his friend John Sullivan (Sullivan Insurance) the other day and found out it was a livery stable back in the day. This was probably around 1910 or before. Some people did not want to tie their horses on Main Street but instead bring them around to the back side of Main, and for a fee, their horse(s) were kept there.
Lake Murray Airport contruction 1982
1925 – NEW POTATO CHIP FACTORY IS READY
After an enforced idleness on account of fire that destroyed the plant, the Ardmore Potato Chip factory will resume business at its former scale Monday morning according to an announcement of Harry Sharkey, manager of the factory, Saturday. Mr. Sharkey states that the new plant has been carefully equipped and better prepared to take care of the constantly growing business than ever before. The new factory was erected on the site of the one recently burned at 22 Fifth Avenue Southwest.
1925 – NEW COLISEUM AT FALL FAIR; GREAT SINGING BEE
The fair board is building a coliseum at the fair grounds this fall and public meetings will be held each day. The coliseum at first may be only a tent provided with chairs and a speakers’ stand but some of these days the management hopes to have a real auditorium at the fair in order that big public meetings can be held there. At the coliseum this year there will be community singing everyday at 1:30 at which Will Gardner will be the leader. Mr. Gardner is president of the Carter county singing convention and Secretary George Dyer has put the responsibility of the community singing at the fair on his shoulders. Mr. Garner has accepted the work and hopes to do it so well that it will be made a permanent feature of the fair.
Stansill’s Book Store, 223 West Main, Ardmore Phone 34. 1957
Q. Name the son of Daniel Boone who traveled through Oklahoma?
A. Captain Nathaniel Boone, son of Daniel Boone, under orders of Gen. Zachary Taylor, Army Department Comdr., in summer of 1843 lead exploratory expedition of western prairies. Party departed from Ft. Gibson, Oklahoma May 14, and reached as far north as central Kansas. Party crossed Cimarron River July 1st, and made camp just south of River on Trader Creek on Sunday July 2nd, 1843.
Q. Where in Oklahoma is a whimsical tower with a spiral staircase, inspired by the Space Age and the Möbius strip.
A. Answer in next week’s newsletter
Some mail from this week’s MAILBAG….
Last week’s newsletter brought back some good memories, and I particularly enjoyed the memories of Jim Guess. The movie on the south side of Main Street was, if memory serves, the Paramount. One tidbit about the Globe from that time period. Seems to me before it was called the Globe, it was the Roxy. There was a small diner next door to the theatre with a drop down window that opened into the lobby of the theatre. They served possibly the best chili buns in Ardmore which you could buy and eat inside the theatre during the movie. What a great memory. -Keith Read
I haven’t thanked you for sending the This n That to all of us week, after week and no matter how far we now live from the Ardmore area, you keep us connected and part of the area we love so much. If not for you, most of your subscribers would have the Ardmore area as only a memory.
Thanks from all of us.
Elisabeth Spain
El Dorado, KS
(long ago of Graham, OK)
Those ducks on Lake Murray are actually Canadian Geese. -Skip
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Butch I love reading your Newsletter every week. It always brings back some memories! I just noticed that the Cafe next to the Tivoli in the past is always mentioned as Eden’s! Did you know that before Mr Eden’s bought it , it belonged to my Aunt and Uncle Louis and Pauline Priddy! I was a around 7 I’d say when I’d go in and Aunt Pauline would give me a candy bar! They sold it to Mr Eden and moved to OKC and put in a much bigger one. Uncle Louis had a brother that had Priddy’s Grill up the street too! -Betty Dighton
Butch, just a little correction to the Builders Bob location. The company previously there was BJ Services( not BJ Hughes). The company had not been known by the BJ Hughes name for many years.
Just a little history– the facility was originally built in 1982 by Western Co. of No. America. Then in 1986 due to the oil bust at that time the facility was closed, but was used to store excess equipment for several years. Then in 1995 WCNA was purchased by BJ Services. BJ had a facility in Ardmore at that time, but the WCNA yard was newer and much larger, so BJ moved to the WCNA location. Then in 1998 due to lack of sufficient oil field activity BJ closed the facility.
In 2010 Baker Hughes purchased BJ Services, but the Ardmore facility had never been re-opened since closed in 1998. -Jim
Below is from my Vol 3, Issue 121 August 14, 1999 newsletter:
Courthouse crews have been busy the past month cleaning the old coats of paint off the copper dome of the courthouse here in Ardmore. After the old paint comes off, removing the old green stuff will be next. But you know, some people pay money to put that green stuff on their copper. It’s call patina I wonder if we should just leave the green patina alone?
The photo below was taken about 1982 near Pecan Grove at Lake Murray, just south of Ardmore. It is a motorcycle-auto wreck. One man lost his leg, the other man lost an arm. I was the ambulance attendant and Bill Lewis was the driver. EMT volunteer Dennis Dill, far left, was helping that day on the ambulance. Dennis worked at the guard shack at Uniroyal Tire, and helped us on the weekends. The Trooper in the pic is Terry Dickson. He and I only lived a three blocks from each other during childhood days. Also in the picture is Marc Neustadt and Susie Norman who helped us from time to time on ambulance runs. Jim Riley was head of the State Park Rangers at Lake Murray.
Update August 2022: I’m sadden to look at this picture as everyone but Susie Norman and I (butch Bridges) have passed away.
This week I received the publication “Oklahoma Living”. In this August issue was a nice write-up about several Oklahoma courthouses along with photos. They had a beautiful photo of the Marietta, Oklahoma courthouse (Love County) along with the following caption: “The dome atop the Love County Courthouse holds the Marietta equivalent of Big Ben, a very large clock. While a few other courthouses in Oklahoma boast clock-domes, Love County’s advantage is that theirs actually works.” For the record, the clock in the dome of the Love County courthouse hasn’t worked in many years. I went down there a couple years ago and looked at it three Saturday’s in a row. I was able to get it working but it was way out of calibration. It would only run for a couple days and quit. It is going to take time (and some money) to get it back to keeping time as it should be. Part of the problem was some parts were replaced, like with a bicycle sprocket. I hope that someone will come forward and get this tower clock working again. Now this is the gospel: Carter County has the only still working original courthouse clock in Oklahoma.
Update August 2022: The Carter County courthouse clock is not working properly and in need of much repair work.
About a month ago I told everyone I got a photo of the old Tyler, Oklahoma school bell from years ago. The bell is now at a residence near McMillan, Oklahoma. Tyler and McMillan are only about 5 miles apart, both just a few miles west of Madill, OK. When I think of McMillan, Oklahoma my mind flashes back to the early 70s when we had a hightop Cadillac ambulance. There was an old maid (never married) who lived in McMillan. She had been retired from, I think, the Air Force for many years when I picked her up in the ambulance at 5am that morning to take her for admission to the VA hospital in Oklahoma City. Beside her bed was a photo of her when she was young wearing the Air Force dress uniform. She looked so beautiful and when I put her on the stretcher that morning she pointed that photo out to me…. she was so proud to have served her country and wear that uniform. It was so many years ago, I can not remember her name but one thing I know, in McMillan, Oklahoma once lived a proud patriotic lady. And now for a pic of that beautiful Tyler, OK school bell.
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As most of you know I have a link on my home page about Brown’s Spring in the southern end of Love county. I knew there was an evil something connected to that place and this week I received the following email which enlightened me about Brown’s Spring:
“The tale I got about Brown’s Spring involved a nameless family in southern Oklahoma at the turn of the century. These kind people would kill unwary travelers and rob them. The men in this clan of evil people would imprison, torture, rape, and eventually kill any unwary women that they had a chance to capture. The patriarch of the family would “Break In” the females born to the clan and then pass them around to the other uncles, brothers, cousins, etc. The story goes that one day a Choctaw girl was abducted by the patriarch and raped. The girl fled after she escaped and the elders of her family came back, in the night, and captured the patriarch. The girls family staked the evil man to the ground and sliced open his belly so that Hattak Offi/The Man Dog of that area could have a good meal with out having to work for it. Another name for Hattak Offi is Nalusa or Nalushka Falaya which translates to Long Evil Being or Long Wicked Person. (Bigfoot?) Anyway, the girls family came back the next morning and sure enough the evil man’s soft organs, (heart, liver, kidneys) were missing and his entrails were spread all over the place. The girl’s family then took the body of the evil patriarch and threw it into Brown’s spring to curse the spring to any that would rely on it for water. (Namely the bad guys in the area.) It is said that the evil patriarch’s family still has descendants in the area, and that his ghost haunts that area at night. I learned this in a gang rape investigation in January of 1985 when I worked at Healdton Police Dept. I arrested a descendant of the original family on a rape complaint and in the ensuing investigation dug up some really wild sounding stuff.”
On November 29, 1967 little 6 year old Scott Allen Compton was stuck by a pickup truck driven by 19 year old Jerry Wayne Kendrick while crossing the street at Lake Murray Drive and “C” Street SE here in Ardmore. The Compton child was unconscious and not breathing as a result of his injuries. Patrolman Ed Burton, an Ardmore police officer, was on patrol that afternoon and worked the accident. But what no one knew at the time, except for the guardian angel of little Scott Allen Compton, was that Bill Allen, the only respiratory therapist for a 50 miles radius was behind that pickup truck and witnessed the accident. Bill jumped from his car and went to the aid of the boy who was not breathing. Bill administered resuscitation and went along in the ambulance with the boy to the hospital. My friend Bill Allen had just moved to Ardmore one year ago. No ambulances or hospitals in our area had respiratory therapist prior to 1967, although Pauls Valley hospital and Purcell hospital were starting to use R.T.s from Oklahoma City to some degree. Bear in mind that when a person was brought into the emergency rooms in our area not breathing, such as Scott Allen Compton, there was no sophisticated equipment like there is today to start that person breathing again nor respiratory therapist on staff. The only piece of equipment in the hospitals at that time to hopefully revive a non-breathing person was a piece of equipment called the E&J Resuscitator. Very seldom did it bring a person back from the brink of death.
On January 15, 1968 Bill Allen received a recognition award from Woodmen of the World representative James Floyd here in Ardmore for his heroic efforts. Little Scott Allen Compton lived.
Twenty eight years later, Bill Allen would have a brush with death while working at the Guest Inn here in Ardmore on Father’s Day 1995. Bill was doing maintenance on an elevator and something went wrong while he was under it. The elevator took his arm off. Surgeons would successfully re-attach Bill’s arm. What is ironic, is a man came to Bill’s aid and helped stop the bleeding, who was a member of Houston’s Guardian Angels. He was Mario Castillo. Mario was working on a construction job at Uniroyal and temporarily staying at the Guest Inn. Mario Castillo probably saved Bill’s life while waiting on paramedics to arrive. Today Bill Allen, also known as Willie Lump-Lump, is doing fine, and he’s more ornery then ever! This is a 1967 photo of William “Bill” Allen.
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“We have been in and out of town and then three weeks ago, Hazel was out watering some trees at 4:30 a.m. and when she leaned over to turn off the water, she lost her balance and fell. She lay out there for several hours until a construction man drove in and found her. She broke her right leg pretty badly, it is the second break for that leg. The surgeon removed some bone from her left hip and grafted it….. Naturally her biggest problem right now is that she is really disgusted but she is determined to work on her therapy so she can get out of there. One thing that has cheered her up is your “This and That”. I have been printing them and taking them to her. She really enjoys them….”
Let me take just a minute and tell everyone there are a lot of smiling faces around the courthouse right now. Last Tuesday voters approved a 1/4 cent sales tax for Carter County Government. We’ve been told it should bring in $700,000 to $1 Million Dollars a year, to be split three ways…. 1/3 to roads, 1/3 to law enforcement and 1/3 to the courthouse. The reason I’m mentioning this, is a lot of people worked hard to see the proposal a success. But I want to give special recognition to the following 57 Carter county government employees who donated some of their evening hours manning phones and preparing flyers:
Cynthia Anderson, Theresa Jackson, Ruth Holley, Beth Allen, Cleta Wood, Marilyn Palafox, Juanita Conway, Karen Volino, Teresa Morgan, Nancy Miller, Jeannie Harper, Debbie Douthit, Joan Smith, Jodie Jones, Pam Taylor, Daria Porter, Don Waters, Barbara Eads, Allen Flowers, Brenda Waller, Lori Jones, Sam West, Norma Robinson, Trish Darity, Carolyn Davis, Joleta Duck, Gary Matthews, Jim Rozzell, Kim Cain, Sheryl Wood, Jay Christian, LaDonna Miller, Marsha Collins, Linda Hunt, Jane Cummings, Lori Cain, Joe Dean McReynolds, Cheryl Rogers, Jerry Eubanks, Doyle Hamilton, Don Mitchell, Keith Smith, David Fuller, Mary Allen, Joyce Harris, Helen McReynolds, Kevin Robinson, Jon Walker, Chuck Stewart, Justin Kyle, Larry Milson, Dale Ott, Tammy McClendon, Donnie Collins, Butch Bridges, Phyllis Russell, and Michelle Bray.
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” –Benjamin Franklin
See everyone next Thursday!
Butch and Jill Bridges
236 Timber Road
Ardmore, Oklahoma
580-490-6823
butchbridges@oklahomahistory.net
https://oklahomahistory.net