As many of you know the past 4 years my hobby has been finding Oklahomans with unclaimed property at the Oklahoma State Treasurers office in OKC. There are nearly a million people on the website who do not know they have money to claim. To date I have connected over $2 Million Dollars with the rightful owner or kin. Of all the hobbies I’ve had through the years, this has been the most rewarding.
To make things easier for everyone including me, I have exported the 3,000 people in Ardmore with unclaimed property and imported the data into my online Google spreadsheet. The past few days I have been mentally drained trying to compute all this data in my mind one a one to one basis. Help me find these people so they can claim their lost money. Hopefully this addition will help everyone. To access my online spreadsheet of Ardmore just go to the link below. Enjoy.
CLICK/TAP <—– this link to go to my online spreadsheet.
If anyone wants a list of names for their town, send me an email or Facebook private message and I’ll see what I can do to get a listing to you in the form of a PDF file or a JPG file.
Tip: The last 4 years several people toldl me they filed a claim but the State wanted something to show they or their kin lived at the address on file of the unclaimed property. For some this meant going back years or decades and they didn’t no have such proof. I suggest going to the local library and see if they have those thick City Diectories and find the person there. If so, have the library make a copy of that page, and Notarize it, and mail it to the State for proof. Could very well work.
From the Mailbag
Dear Butch: The next time you are in Oklahoma City or Norman you should give Tucker’s Onion Burgers a try. -Larry Paul
Butch, in your T & T Newsletter #1,149, you had a list of people who died in Indian Terr. in 1904. The story of my grandmother’s uncle, John See, was a freak accident. This story was passed down the generations.
My dad was born a few years after this happened but he remembered all those stories in the family. I wrote them down. He told me how his uncle was killed by lightning. Since winter was over, the family had taken down the stove pipe in the living room and taken out the heating stove. They hadn’t covered the empty hole in the roof yet. A storm came up and as Uncle John walked across the room, lightning came down through the hole and struck him. Thanks, Butch, for all your hard work in everything you do for people! -Carol Wise, one of your readers in Ardmore OK
I’m still digesting your 1414 Newsletter. I resend your newsletters to myself with a margin notation for points of interest. That prevents the question of which newsletter did ‘ol Butch put that in ? Glad to see your continued salute to Ray’s Backyard Corner > I sure miss ‘ol Ray being there. Those fortunate enough to stop in there would leave taken back by his humor and friendly manner. Not to mention his assortment of unusual backyard items for procurement pleasure. That corner was Ardmore’s little oasis, where one could stop and ”smell the roses”. Now that corner is just another monolith to Ardmore’s concrete jungle, with no evidence to the existence of a natural underground spring that flows beneath. I always envisioned that corner owned by the city with a tribute pond much like the one in Sulphur.
It is most interesting how folks have different remembrances for your historical notations. Most of our remembrances come from what we were told when we were children. Just like the old dirt mound in Norman. When we were traveling as kids, we knew where we were when we saw the mound. I was told it was everything from an ancient burial mound to a WWII aircraft training device where planes would drop practice ”flour bombs”. It would be interesting to read a documented article as to the original purpose of the mound. Perhaps you or your readers could come up with a newspaper clipping. Will Rogers said that if IT is in the newspaper, then IT must be true…..
It is always interesting reading about all the neighborhood grocery stores that once dotted Ardmore. Back in the day, us kids would bicycle to one for that needed loaf of bread or bag of chips. Don’t forget that occasional purchase of beer for the ”old man”. Yes, you could bicycle up to buy beer & cigarettes for your dad back then. Remember the wire bicycle baskets just for this purpose ? I always just used my Daily Ardmoreite Newspaper bags. -Steve Miller
I found info about Double Cola Bottling Co. in Ardmore. There were advertisements in the Ardmoreite archives from 1939 to 1956. It shows the address as 410 3rd NE with a phone number of 122. Screenshots accompany this email. -David Willingham
Butch, the building you are referring to at 410 NE 3rd was my 1957
summer job while in college. It was a moving and storage company. If I
recall correctly it was called Oklahoma Van and Storage. The managers
name was Herschel and his son Noah also worked there, but I can not
recall their last name. The Daily Ardmoreite also stored huge rolls of
newsprint in the storage part of the facility. -Jim Wilmoth, Oklahoma City
Hi. I saw your question about Coatsworth. I have attached a school map for all the schools in Johnston County. Notice Coatsworth SE of Connerville. The school location is where I believe it was based on Superintendent records at the time. So the “town” was located there too, I suspect If you need coordinates for the school, I have those;
For “who da thought it”, I am not sure it was the same location as Coatsworth but maybe it was. I will see what I can find. It is mentioned as a school and I knew someone whose aunt or mother taught there. It was before statehood, I think. -Richard Craven
P. S. Butch, if you need more info on Coatsworth, let me know. Also, your Newsletter is a real value in getting folks to communicate about history!! I really like that Idea.
HAM Talk by KC5JVT via Echolink
Yesterday, April 17th, there was probably a record number of HAMs checking in to the Boredom Breaker Net at Claremore, Oklahoma. 81 HAMS during the 2 hours. These are HAMs from all over the U.S. and some overseas. The Net opens at 12 Noon central time everyday and runs for about 2 hours. All licensed HAMs are welcome to check-in.
Below are the local HAMs who checked in last Sunday evening to the 970 repeater in the Arbuckle Mountains south of Davis.
Don’t forget the local HAMs hold a Net every Sunday evening at 8:00pm. Any licensed HAM is encouraged to join in the Check-In.
Below is from my newsletter dated
April 14, 2001 – Issue 208
This past weekend I was out looking at the American Flyers Memorial at the Gene Autry Airpark and decided to go about one mile north to the old Buck Hale Saw Mill. Its located on Buck Hale Road in NE Carter county. Buck Hale has ran that saw mill for over 25 years, I’ve been told. He’s around 90 years old now and has decided to retire, but wants to sell the saw mill to anyone interested. In the following photos you will see the mill is powered by an old truck transmission parked in the side of the building. A sign on the wall reads reads, “All lumber 50 cents a board foot”.
Speaking of saw mills, I visited a saw mill on the east side of Durant, Oklahoma a few years ago. I assume it is still in business. Maybe someone over that way can take some photos of it and send them in. “Ma and Pa” type saw mills are probably slowly disappearing one by one, at least in Oklahoma.
“Butch, At Christmas time, in or near 1955, a private plane (rented) was flying back to the Duncan area from Florida. It contained members of a family by the name of Arnold and others. The plane broke up in the air and all were killed except for one passenger, a young girl. She landed, still strapped in her seat in a field outside a small town in a southern state. A farmer saw her. She was too injured to even be transported to another town for many months and the small town “adopted” her during that time. Eventually, she returned home, now orphaned, to live with an aunt in Duncan. In your searches, if you run across this, please let me know; I’ve been trying to find newspaper articles about this story for years; these folks were my grandfather’s aunts/uncles/cousins.”
“Thanks so much. I’m a displaced Okie, homesick for Carter and Garvin County. Just skimmed one of your newsletters and read about Price’s Falls which I’d forgotten about– sat here bawling at the computer. Look forward to your newsletter.”
The water wheel is still at Price’s Falls. I took the photo below in 2004. -Butch
“Hello, Mrs. Giddens, Nice to hear from you regarding the old neighborhood of Fairview School. It’s been a very long time since I was there, but as you might know, there remain some very fond memories. My grandparents, Billy and Lula Price, lived two miles south of the highway on the northwest corner, about 40 acres. They are both buried in the Greenwood? cemetery in Davis. My dad’s parents, Joe and Lue Elliston, lived one mile south and 1/4 mile east of the highway, which would be about 3/4 mile east of the old Fairview school. They are both buried in a Sulphur cemetery. When we lived there, hardly anyone had a car, except some of the younger boys, and most of the farmers went to town in wagons. I remember there would be a dozen to twenty teams & wagons “parked” behind the Piggly Wiggly store in Sulphur on Saturdays, and as many in Davis. My mother and dad, Oscar and Ruth Elliston, and I lived on an 80 acre farm for a year, just north of Sulphur. We had 13 head of cows, and would take cream to town every Saturday, for about $10. or $12. and go home with a whole wagon load of groceries. We always had a Coke and hamburger at Archies, went to the matinee at the Platte theater, and went home broke. We had a car, but it was up on blocks, because Dad couldn’t buy gas for it. (gas was about .13 cents a gallon). Now I can joke about it, I tell friends that we were so poor that I had to have a tumbleweed for a pet. But we all survived, and most of us did very well later on, including my parents. Please give me your thoughts about Fairview , and anything else that comes to mind. I would be very interested in any of the people who once lived in that area, and their present circumstances.” Best Regards, -Bob Elliston
“Butch- In late July, 1954, GC&SF railroad officials presented a bell from one of their locomotives for use by a Seventh-day Adventist mission in Nairobi, Kenya Colony, East Africa. Reverend H. C. Klement, President of the Oklahoma Conference of Seventh-day Adventist received the gift at the Santa Fe freight depot in Ardmore. Thought you might want to go get a picture for your bell page.” -Gary Simmons
I noticed in the Ardmoreite Thursday where the our local Genealogy Library at the LDS church as increased the hours of operation. They now are open from 9am to 9pm on Tuesday and 9am to 5pm on Thursdays. They have over 1,000 microfiche of census, all the Pickens County marriages before statehood, Indian WES Records, Field cards on the Five Civilized Tribes and much much more. Those with questions may call (580) 226-2134.
“There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.” –Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore, Oklahoma
580-490-6823
