Dr S. S. (Sampson St John) Hanes (1892-1971), dentist in the Ardmoreite building (Gilbert Bldg), Room 202, had a dental chair just like the one below. I sat in it several times as a teen, hanging on to the arms for dear life. Dr Hanes didn’t use much pain killer. You did not have to have an appointment, first come first serve.
Thanks to many of you helping me, I’ve been able to connect a lot of people with their unclaimed insurance money at the State Treasurers Office in OKC, some in the 1,000s of dollars. The link below will take you to a webpage I made on unclaimed property.
https://oklahomahistory.net/unclaimed-property-in-oklahoma/
HAM Talk by KC5JVT via Echolink
From this week’s Mailbag
”On The Halves” Bridges – Saw your mention of Lt. McKerson’s BBQ.
He was a good friend of my pappy during their military days. Pappy
would always stop in for a ”pork-wich” drenched in gravy. Your
mention of Shepherd Lake brought back memories of another OKC swimming
”hole”. It was nicknamed ”polio hole”. I believe it was Spring
Lake before it was filled in. I would be curious as to what is there
now. Wasn’t that where the old amusement park was with the popular
wood roller coaster. I remember ridin’ on that old wood track coaster
with the noise that the loose timbers made as you rode to the top of
the ”drop”. -Steve Miller
Below is from my newsletter archives dated
July 24, 1999 – Issue 118
You just never know what devious minds are planning on someone’s birthday. I thought I had made it through mine ok…. until this week. Tuesday the Sheriffs Office called for me to be there at EXACTLY 1:15pm to look at a computer. I should have known something was in the air when they insisted I be there at a precise time. Anyway, they had a delicious chocolate cake and Dr Pepper waiting for me! A great bunch of friends there. And that’s not all:
The next day (Wednesday) the gang at the commissioners office had beans, cornbread and chocolate cake waiting for me at noon to help celebrate my birthday. And I was trying to forget it. hahahaha Friends, they make life worth living!
Speaking of Madill, Oklahoma a reader told me where I could get a pic of the Tyler, Oklahoma (just west of Madill) school bell from years ago. Sure nuff, there it was….. The bell’s new residence is near McMillan, Oklahoma in far southeastern Carter county.
I have this small “butter tub” I use to feed my neighbor’s dog sometimes. This week the bowl came up missing. Another neighbor told me that a black bird swooped down, picked up the tub, and carried it and the dog food in it, plumb across the street into the next block. Can you believe that? -Butch
In Davis, Oklahoma’s early days, there was a proprietor by the name of Paris Price. He was a broom maker in Davis. His son carried on the trade and their brooms were sold all over the country. There is a nice display of the equipment they used in their broom making at the Davis Historical Museum on Main Street. Here is a pic I took of the Price father/son display there.
I found another bell… right here in Ardmore, Oklahoma. It’s in the front yard of 920 9th Southeast. It’s a beauty.
It is Wednesday, September 21, 1927. Cass Key Murphree of Ardmore was killed at the refinery. The next day the Daily Ardmoreite posted the following:
MURPHREE DIES FROM INJURIES. Employee of Pure Oil Refinery Fatally Injured in Fall From Ladder. Cass Key Murphree, 41, died at Hardy sanitarium Wednesday afternoon as the result of a fall from a ladder at the Pure Oil company refinery northeast of city. Murphree with two other men was engaged in cleaning a still when he fell from the 12-foot ladder and his skull was fractured.
Funeral services will be conducted from the East Ardmore Presbyterian Church this afternoon at 4 o’clock by the Rev. Thomas Carey. Interment will be in Rose Hill Cemetery.
Deceased had been an employee of the refinery for some time. He leaves a wife and three children, Christi, Ivadee, and Samuel, besides four sisters and one brother.
And now the rest of the story: Cass Key Murphree’s wife was named Bam. She was from Oakland, Oklahoma. When Cass died, she no longer wanted the three children… Christi, Ivadee and Samuel. They were from Cass’s first marriage to Nida Fuller, who had died. Bam took the three children to my great grandmother, Ida Murphree Miller, on H Street Northeast in Ardmore, and never returned for the children. Bam move back to Oakland, Oklahoma. Ida Miller would raise the three children by herself. Ida Murphree Miller was my great grandmother. This is a 1942 photo of Ivadee when she worked in Ft. Worth, TX.
“The name of the place you mentioned in your column last week was called” WITTS END” located at 106 1/2 East Main St. – They specialized in Gifts & Stationery Mfrs. The business was operated by two very capable business Ladies – their names were Lynn Gruwell & Mabel R. Stong. They were still in business when I came back to Ardmore in 1950. Yes, they were indeed ahead of their time because they indeed produced wonderful printed novelties. To me that was not a long time ago – it seems like only yesterday.”
“When I was growing up on 12th. Ave. N.W. – Ardmore, Okla. the Bill Guess family lived somewhere close by. Close enough that just two houses west of us (probably 413 12th. Ave. N.W.) there was a group of large trees in the back yard. Doodle was among the kids that were climbing around in the trees like monkeys. Doodle was eating a large piece of chocolate cake when he climbed the tree but when he reached the outer branches, a limb broke & he came crashing down to the ground – it seems that he landed on his back, but he simply got up, brushed himself off & without a word picked up his cake and proceeded to eat it as nothing had happened.”
“Alvin’s was called Rick’s Roost in the ’50s.”
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.” –John F. Kennedy
Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore, Oklahoma
580-490-6823
