May 25, 1936
The Daily Ardmoreite
Charles E. Ryan dies in Tulsa
Former Ardmoreite, Widely Known As Inventor, Passes Away At Home
(Tulsa) – Charles Edward Ryan (1879-1936), 57, inventor of the Braden winch, a truck device used widely in the mid continent field, died at his home here yesterday of a heart attack which followed a period of ill health.
Ryan lived in Ardmore for many years and operated a large garage there. He was of inventive inclination and perfected and patented the winch to be applied to oil field trucks. He came to Tulsa and sold the device to the Braden company. Relative said he had invented several other devices which he was planning to patent at the time of his death. He is survived by his widow and one daughter.
January 8, 1914
The Daily Ardmoreite
Wilson Gets Post Office
Ardmore Boy Appointed Yesterday to Fill That Position At the Wew Town
Wilson Oklahoma January 9th – Laurence L. Dunlap (1890-1952) has been appointed postmaster at the town of Wilson and will soon be handling the mail for the Wilson people in a new post office. During this winter while the roads have been so bad the citizens have had to do without their mail much of the time and when the new post office is opened and the Ringling railroad begins to handle the mail the convenience will be a great one for the people of this new city.
Laurence Dunlap was reared in Ardmore. He has the pluck that has already won success on a small scale in which crusaders what his success will be. He is a very young man but he took advantage of the opportunity offered by the building of the Ringling road to supply the workman with their necessities and he followed the building of the road with a store. He followed them to Wilson and built a store there and will now place in that store the new post office which will not only place him in close contact with every citizen of the town and community but which will make him a very neat salary of itself.
I haven’t mentioned on here in a long time my 4 year old hobby of finding people with unclaimed property at the State Treasurers Office in Oklahoma City. I’ve made great progress especially the last few weeks.
My largest find was in Sept 2022 when I contacted the Executor of two ladies estate in Nowata, Oklahoma. The Executor finally was able to claim the $322,135.31 (Lincoln National Life) of unclaimed property (insurance).
Just in the past couple days: A man in Marietta OK $1,549 (insurance). A couple in Ardmore with 22 accounts at the State Treasurers office, all unclaimed. Even a long time friend and retired OSBI agent. He had 4 accounts in his name and a total of 24 accounts of his family members, all with the same last name. These are just a few,
But the man in Marietta, Oklahoma I talked to last Tuesday night touched me the most. He had Farmers Insurance of $753.21 and he didn’t know about it. He lost his 51 year old wife in 2017, lost his home and property north of Marietta through bank foreclosure, and is now living alone in an apartment with his dog a couple blocks from the Love County courthouse. I could tell in his voice his excitment and gratitude learning about that $750 which I know he badly needed. He probably thought I brought him a blessing, but really he brought me a blessing. I’m just thankful the connection made with he and I though Facebook. And I wasn’t even looking for him, but someone else and stumbled across his name. God works in strange and mysterious ways. People like the Marietta man Tuesday makes me want to work even harder to connect people with their unclaimed property in OKC. God willing, I will. By the way, its my hobby, I don’t get any money for my efforts, but I sure get a lot of satisfaction of helping others.
If you haven’t been checking for your kin, dead or alive, you need to. It could be a lot of money the State is holding for you or for someone to claim. All states have an unclaimed property with their repective state agency.
https://apps.ok.gov/unclaimed/
From the Mailbag
America in the 1880s, the decade that changed America (30 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qryz858A3u4
HAM Talk by KC5JVT via Echolink
Steve Miller sent in the HAM QSL cards below from his uncle’s, Ivan S. Miller W5HFU, HAM shack days.
Hope to hear more HAMs on the 970 Net this coming Sunday at 8:00pm.
Below is from my newsletter dated
March 17, 2001 – Issue 204
“Hi Butch, I noticed one of the emails this week referred to Bitter Enders Cave. I went in that cave New Years day of 1958. I remember it in a different location though. We left highway 77 just south of the Mountain with the Microwave towers just south of Turner Falls. Straight West about 5 miles where Honey Creek gets a lot of its water is from Bitter Enders Cave. Water comes out of the ground pretty forceful. There are two entrances to the cave. One is just above the stream and the other is farther up the mountain down a shaft like a dug well. Or at least that was the way I remembered it in 1958. I was with a guy named Jerry Robinson. I don’t think we told anyone we were going up there. I can tell you that it was an experience. I agree there are a lot of things there that most people can’t imagine.
“Well I finally talked myself into pleading guilty to burning drip gasoline when I was in school. I couldn’t have owned and driven two cars in my senior year without it. My dad pumped in the oil field south of Lone Grove. He had quite a setup at the end of the line from the heater or separator. He had his barrels buried in the ground. He would turn the heater up and build pressure in them and force the drip out his loading line into a barrel on his pickup. We always had 6 or 7 barrels under the trees out from the house. I didn’t mind the free oil that I used in one of the oil burners from the service stations used oil catch. Summer time was a little more difficult since it didn’t burn very well due to vapor locking of the fuel pumps. Some guys thought they were stealing some drip one night and got a barrel of tre-ol-lite. My dad was washing the barrel out with drip and was called to the battery tanks by the gauger. He didn’t think anything about it until the next morning when he missed the barrel. I hope that it didn’t stick the valves in their engines.”
“Someone forwarded me the above issue & it was most interesting. There were two items that I definitely relate to: l. John Simmons – I am one of his three daughters. The land for the Aylesworth Cemetery was donated by the Simmons family and my father, John Simmons, maintained the cemetery as long as he lived. Now, my sister, Nowanna Litterell,& her husband drive down from Tulsa to weed, etc. once or twice each year. John Simmons is not buried there but his parents & several other members of the family are there. 2. Kinlock, OK. I went to school at Kinlock in 1932. There was a one room schoolhouse, all 8 grades were taught by a man who lived next door to the school.” -Johnnie C. Simmons Weaver
Hi Butch, I knew the brand of tire patches in last week’s newsletter before you were going to say and I ever got to the picture. I still have a tin of them also. The camel is about gone and tin is rusted a bit. I got it from the things my dad had saved after he passed away three years ago.” -Grampe in Juneau
“Butch have you checked out the round barn east of 177 between the Scullin Y & Hickory?? Some one else will have to give you better directions than I can. The story that I was told as a kid was that it was built by German POW’s. I remember it set close to the side road, but can’t remember what road.”
I would like to be included on your list to receive This & That.! I grew up in Ardmore born in 1961 and left in 1981 to join the US Air Force. I am a Crew Chief on C130’s currently stationed at the old Carswell AFB in Ft. Worth. If any others out there might have info about the Flying horseman I would love to see them… I enjoyed the small site about the elite C-130 flying unit. Thanks for everything you do.” Joe Bob Ritter. AHS class of 1980
“My family came to Madill in 1940 with the oil field. Cumberland field. I was eleven yrs. at the time. One of my memories is the day they changed the name of a little place to Gene Autry. Gene and his wife were in a train car . there was music on a stage an late in the evening men riding horses rode on top of a hill . It was nice to see. our neighbor and friend had b beautiful palameno horse and that horse was chosen for Gene Autry to ride in that parade. Then it was told that it was Trigger. That horse belonged to jimmy green.of Madill. Needless to say he was quite disappointed by that.”
“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world. Someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” –Tom Bodett
Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore, Oklahoma
580-490-6823
