The Daily Ardmoreite
February 18, 1943
Old Tunnel Between Jail and Courthouse Used With Aid of Pal
A jailbreak, novel in its design, freed at least temporarily to prisoners at the Carter county jail sometime early Thursday morning, Willis Tennyson sheriff, said Thursday.
The two prisoners who escaped, both “Trustees”, were William Webb charged with forgery, and Benny Green held for burglary.
The old tunnel which connects the county jail with the courthouse and which has been unused for many years, figured in the escape, Tennyson said.
The Daily Ardmoreite
November 26, 1908
Murder 18 Years Ago Cause Of Arrest Here
William Slaten arrested at Keller west of here by Carter County deputy Fred Williams is spending his time this Thanksgiving in jail. Slaten was arrested on information received from Guntersville, Georgia stating that he was wanted there charged with the killing of a man 18 years ago.
Slaten is 42 years old and is the only child of his mother who makes her home with him. His old mother is 66 years of age. He also has a wife and three children.
Follow-up on above article:
06/21/23 – “And yes, this William Slaten mentioned above is a distant cousin of mine. If you go to the link below, you will see in DNA Connections, another cousin, Andrew, and Wm Riley Slaton’ great great grandson Kelsey Jackson Williams, reflecting that in the years while he hid in Arkansas and Oklahoma, he altered his name to Riley Williams and his descendants use Williams instead of Slaton, but the yDNA proves the thesis that you can run but you can’t hide. Both of these men and Anonymous Bain are all members of our surname DNA and family project. William served only about a year, this sort of murder would almost certainly fall under justifiable homicide to a North Alabama jury.” -Clinton Slayton in Kentucky
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Slaton-388
Some mail from this week’s MAILBAG….
BUTCH, ‘OL BUDDY > I don’t know if the person from Tulsa has the
correct dates for the Stanley SW tunnel or not. It was gone when I
started at Lincoln, which was sometime around 1955. But, both my
brothers remember the tunnel when they went to Lincoln. Both brothers
were 10 & 13 years older than me. Age has a tendency to fog our
memory > what we need is for someone to tap into the Ardmore archives
for dates and such for both the opening and the closure. -Steve Miller
Someone on Facebook is trying to get the name of the man shown below. Ardmore, about late 1940’s. Notice the numbers on the truck and his uniform. His cap? Any thoughts? -Richard Craven
Below is from my Vol 4, Issue 166 June 24, 2000 newsletter:
“Butch, for years what was left of the electra was at the salvage yard on the east side of town, I think it was OK iron and metal or something like that, I was working for Jerry Kingery at the downtown airport around 1970 and I remember seeing the hunk of wreckage sitting at the back of the yard every time I was out there.”
“I was a police officer here late ’60’s, early ’70’s. and I remember the tail section and some of the fuselage from the crashed AFA plane out at OK Iron on P St. Sure makes you think. Wish I had thought to mention this to you earlier, as there might be piece(s) of it still over there somewhere. That would be a miracle if there was. Keep up the good work buddy.”
Over 300 people attended the American Flyers Memorial Dedication Saturday June 17, 2000 at Gene Autry, Oklahoma. The rain held off until the very last minute before the program ended. Many who attended came by and told me how much they appreciated everything that had been done. There were several family members of Flight 280/D in attendance. They stated how proud they were of the memorial and after 34 years, it brought some kind of closure. I remember the father of one of the victims saying how those who died in Vietnam were inscribed on a Wall in DC. But these 76 young men never made it to Vietnam. He felt relief after all these years, knowing his son and the others are now on a memorial. His son was Leo Ray Burnett. Below is a photo of his father who attended the ceremony, Leo Burnett Sr, of Freeport, TX. The man in Army fatigues is Luis F. Vazquez, brother of Jose Vazquez from Puerto Rico who died in the 1966 aircrash. -Butch Bridges
“I belong to a group of railfans with a bulletin board called RailSpot. Recently there has been much discussion about a one lane bridge over Red River near Carpenters Bluff (on the Texas side). Many years ago this bridge carried rail traffic as well as automobiles as you can read about from one railfan’s description in the letter below. When I saw the photos on your web page about a one lane bridge crossing the Red south of Durant I thought that this might be the bridge in question and I forwarded the information about your web page to the RailSpot group for them to check out. Well it appears that it is the bridge in question as I have received several replies to that effect from Rail fans that remember it from when it still carried rail traffic. They were pleased to see some actual photos of the bridge on you web page. So once again your web page and all your hard work has paid off for others. On behalf of the RailSpot group I say “thank you”.
“I just read your letter in T&T about the ice plants in Ardmore. The one that I remember was on D Street Northwest just north of Broadway. This is now the entrance to the First National Bank Drive-in. The building set real close to the street, there was enough room to parallel park a car in front of the dock. I can remember the men working there bringing out blocks of ice and putting them in a crusher. A large paper bag was used to catch the crushed ice as it came out of the crusher. This is the only other ice plant that I can remember.”
“My friend, Lovina gave me this newspaper (Daily Oklahoman, Sunday, 12 June 1949) that was in an old wooden crate she had bought at a garage sale. On page 15-A of the 1949 paper dated 12th June was an article titled…
Ardmore Woman’s Son To Lecture at Harvard
Ardmore, June 11 (1949) — (Special) — H. A. Gibbons, son of Mr. & Mrs. L. C. Gibbons, Ardmore, has been selected to lecture on world trade and economics during a 14-week course this summer at Harvard University. Gibbons has charge of the Netherlands East Indies area for Standard Vacuum of New York, with headquarters in Palembang, Sumatra. He will visit his mother here before taking up this work at Harvard. He will remain in this country until December.”
Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him. -Dwight E. Eisenhower
See everyone next week!
Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore, OK
580-490-6823