Bridges across the Red River from the Red River Historian website
https://www.redriverhistorian.com/bridges
I knew southern Oklahoma was in a drought, but this is terrible. We need rain so badly. Just a trickle coming over Turner Falls. This photo was taken Wednesday October 9, 2024.
Aline, Oklahoma is located in Alfalfa county and a population of 168. This is a photo of Aline back in the day.
I can remember the old Townley Milk business at 24th and Classen in OKC back in the 70s before it became Braums Milk.
I hear people all the time losing their irreplaceable photos on their phone or computer when the device crashes. One of the safest ways to store valuable files and photos is on a CD or DVD. All phones, thumbdrives, harddrives, etc. will crash someday. I have a couple dozen CDs I’ve copied my irreplacible photos and newsletters on over the years. Today I had need to look up a file and I even went back to a 2006 CD iI backed up to and it worked perfectly. The fact is, no one knows how long a CD will last, they have not been around long enough to know. One more thing, if you pull open a draw 50 years from now to look at the wedding photos you had developed in those 1 hour stores, you will be in for a surprise.
CASE and POINT: Years ago when Rubin Garcia was a Carter County Deputy he stored the Offense Reports he made on a USB Thumb Drive. He had several hundred stored on it. A year or two later it crashed and Rubin could not access it. He brought it to my office for help. Back then I had a repair program I ran on it. I was able to retrieve most of the files, but not all. If I remember right, about 25 was unretrievable.
We have been busy this month searching for Oklahomans with unclaimed property at the State Treasurers Office in OKC. Be sure and scroll down a little when you reach the webpage below.
https://oklahomahistory.net/unclaimed-property-in-oklahoma/
From this week’s Mailbag
Q. Who were the first Carter County Commissioners?
A. Robert Scivally, WIlliam Bowman and Clinton Bunn, 1907
Anyone know of a video recording of the 1951 playoff game between the Ardmore Indians and the McAlester Rockets. The Ardmore Indians team lost that game, I think 6-5.
The bald eagle is not our national bird. It first appeared on the national seal in 1782 but Congress has never designated a national bird. -Monroe
RE: last week’s Small’s Bakery, PA Bridges took my Brother Ed and me there and bought us a donut right after we had buried Dad. That will always be in my memories as that’s when Ma and Pa Bridges began making sure we’d know Dad’s family. Thanks Cuz.
Butch, I believe the bridge north of Mannsville washed away on June 18, 2015 not the 17th.
Below is from my newsletter archives dated
December 22, 2006 – Issue 518
“I was a junior member of the Ardmore Ham Radio Club in the late 40s. Meetings were held in Charles Dibrell’s radio shop that was on C NW just north of 8th Ave. His parents lived in the house at the NW corner of 8th and B. It was quite a variety of guys. In addition to Charlie there were Harve Pretty of OG&E and his brother William Pretty, DDS, Maynard Reavis the druggist, Jack Gant who was in oil, and a younger fellow who had been a radio operator in the service who loved to copy code. That was amusing was the guy copying the code usually typed it while some of the older guys would just listen and chuckle when they heard something funny. At one of these meetings I saw my first live TV, on a set that Charlie had built from scratch, including winding some high frequency transformers. The only major problem he had was he installed the deflection yoke on the neck of the picture tube wrong, so the picture was upside-down. This turned out to be easily fixed by repositioning the yoke. I’ve probably bored you enough. I ran across Charlie’s memorial page on your website and it brought back some old, old memories. Keep up the good work.” -Charles McCollum
A couple of weeks ago OSU secretary Denise Menke let me see a crocheted centerpiece she was working on. I could tell it was going to be a work of art, but when Denise sent me a photo of the finished piece, it is absolutely beautiful. I think when someone like Denise that can take spools of yarn and cloth and thread and turn it into this, they are true artists.
“Hi Butch, I just read through your newsletter for the first time. I wanted to acknowledge my appreciation to Ryan Jennings who said in a piece there that he met me while I was doing a book signing at Hastings in Ardmore last spring. He suggested that people visit my website to take a look at my book, Just Folks: Earthy Tales of the Prairie Heartland (since then I also have another book, A Heartland Voice: Just Folks Two}. I had a wonderful time touring Oklahoma, and meeting people like Ryan. Although I am a Kansan, I know people in this part of the country share much in common heritage. I always felt that Gene Autry and Will Rogers belonged to us too. Although my writing isn’t like what Rogers did, he was an influence. I loved meeting many members of the native American nations at my signings, and discussing their culture and heritage. There was also a fellow just this side of the Panhandle who told me I owed my life to my respect for private property that I didn’t go traipsing into some pastures around there to see the flora close-up. He explained that he owned a “buzz worm” farm, rattle snakes, about one per square foot.” -Jerry W. Engler
“Butch, another one of my neighbors (at the farm near Springer, Ok.) just btained a vintage biplane. You may recall that about a month back Casey Smith purchased a vintage 1943 Boeing Steerman biplane and I sent you photos of that beautiful aircraft. Well today Glenn Smith Jr., also of the Springer Area, flew in with a 1939 Waco (pronounced Wauko, not like the Texas City of Waco) cabin biplane, model YKS-7. I’ve attached several photos of this magnificent plane including a shot of the cabin interior and a close up of the 275 HP Jacobs radial engine. Like the Steerman it is in pristine condition as you can see from the photos. Note the counter-weights on the adjustable pitch prop. Looks like Springer, Oklahoma is trying to make it’s mark as the vintage biplane capitol and there are lots of other vintage planes in the area as well.” -C. Dwane Steven
Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s the Ardmore post office was looking for a new location to build a new post office. According to a picture I have from The Daily Ardmoreite the first runner up was a home at the SW corner of 1st and C Street SW which belonged to the Randols (across the street west from Craddock Funeral Home property). This is the same Randols who owned the famous Randol Hotel on Main Street and for which there is a historical marker placed next door to Ray’s Office Supply. Anyway, my great aunt, Eva Carmon, married Robert Randol and it was the site of his home at 1st and C Street the post office was looking at to build on. But as we know, the location was finally decided to be at 1st and B SW. Here is a picture of the Randol home place and the newspaper clipping.
The only thing left of the Randol property at C and 1st Southwest is the concrete border that ran along the south side of the Randol place.
Doug Williams sent a photo this week of what is left of the old Coolbranch School house north of Ratliff City, Oklahoma in far NW Carter county. The only thing visible now is the school’s concrete storm cellar.
Lewis and Clark: They went west to explore, and millions followed in their wake
Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore, Oklahoma
580-490-6823
