Contract workers doing some marble repair/replacement, etc., found this “pocket door” on the 3rd floor. The door probably went to the jury room in the District Judge’s courtroom back in the day, like decades ago. The door has since been covered up with a new panel of Danby marble from Vermont. The Danby Marble Quarry is the largest marble quarry in the world.
Below is a link to Karen Crowson’s 12 minute video of Lake Murray’s Tucker Tower and nature center. If you have not been to the tower in years, Karen gives an inside view of everything in Tucker’s Tower.
The early voting voting place in Carter County is at North Washington and 3rd Street at the Trinity Baptist Church. The polling place is open today 8:00am (Thursday) til 6pm and Friday. On Saturday it is from 8am til 2pm for early voting. Average wait time in line is about 1 hour. Be kind to others while you wait your turn to vote.
Southern Oklahoma Ambulance Service is planning to build a new station at 7th and E Street NW. This is the same location as where Ardmore’s 1928 Franklin Elementary School was located. It closed in 2010 and demolished in 2021.
Ferries across the Red River by The Red River Historian by Robn Cole-Jett.
https://www.redriverhistorian.com/ferries
From this week’s Mailbag
My Grandpa Prater stayed at the Mulkey Hotel in Ardmore his last few years of his life, he would put on my Uncle Dale’s letter jacket and walk around Ardmore High School. -Ralph Ford
I found this wireless codegraph brass plate for sale online and I thought you would enjoy taking a gander at it. -Larry Paul
Here is the link to the web site:
Original Wireless Codegraph Morse Code Brass Plate dated August 13, 1912 – 4 months after Titanic sinking – Scripophily.com | Collect Stocks and Bonds | Old Stock Certificates for Sale | Old Stock Research | RM Smythe |
HAM Talk by KC5JVT via Echolink
The local Net is held every Sunday night at 8:00pm. Hope to hear more local HAMs who can hit the Repeater north of Ardmore to check-in.
Below is the Boredom Breaker Net held everyday 7 days a week starting at high noon Oklahoma time. There are always 50 to 70 HAMS checking in daily from all over the country and even overseas.
Below is from my newsletter archives dated
January 18, 2007 – Issue 521
I received a box this week in the mail. The package was from Dallas and sent in by Jayson Pruitt originally from Pruittville, Oklahoma. Now don’t look for Pruittville on the Oklahoma map, because you probably won’t find it. But many years ago when the Pruitts first settled in Marshall county, they settled in an area about 7 miles east of Madill on Highway 199 that was known to the locals as Pruittville. Jayson is one of those Pruitts of Marshall county. Anyway, inside the box was the most unusual seeds I think I’ve ever seen…. something called Air Potatos. Even though they make a beautiful vine, I’m almost afraid to plant them since many areas of the U.S. label them a nuisance and hard to get rid of once they take over your plot of ground. The pic below is the air potatos sent in by Jayson. I have a quarter next to one to show size. Maybe instead of planting them in a ground, I’ll plant them in a five gallon bucket. Something to think about by next spring.
“Butch, here are some pics I took while flying around south central Oklahoma last year.” -Jon Lofton
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/TurnerFalls7a.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/TuckerTowerLakeMurray7a.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/RedRiverBridgeAndI35.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/MoutainLakeDam7a.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/MountainLakeDam2.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/LakeMurrayAirport7a.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/DavisLookingEast7a.jpg
I remember all the good time I had and all the good people that I met when I was there, well, I can mention a lot of people that made me feel like one of them, now that you mention in your last T&T of the Walter C. Dean Jewelry Store on Main Street, remind me of the other Jewelry Store in Main St. also, I am talking about Mr. and Mrs. Peden, they had a really beautiful Store and at that time they said it was one of the best in Oklahoma, but I don’t know about that, but what I know that they were one of the best people in Oklahoma, they were incredible people. I can talk about them and a lot of other people but I probably be all day in my computer and my wife will start to complain, Anyway Mr. and Mrs. Bridges this happen more than 50 years ago and I am very grateful to this beautiful town that made me knew the really American People, sorry I took to much time, but I just feel that way and I know you are a good man that like to listen, your friend.” -Ernie in NJ
Added Note from April 14, 2005 T&T: “Butch, I think I’ve told you this story before. Being the last County Surveyor for Carter County, I came into the County Clerk’s Office one morning in 1978. The clock that had hung on the clerk’s office for a number of years had fallen and broken. The clock had been given by Mr. Peden of Peden’s Jewelry Shop, but the glass had broken and couldn’t be fixed so I told Florence Gregory Jones who had thrown the clock into the trash that I would fix the clock and hang it back up for her. So I went to the Light Gallery on North Washington and ordered the glass which is on the clock today. However I modified it to give me, Mike Carr, a little advertisement as County Surveyor. And that is the story of the clock. I have replaced the fluorescent bulb 3 or 4 times in the last 25 years, the 2nd hand was lost along the way which I replaced with a bent paper clip, but it still keeps good time, thanks to Mr. Peden.” -Michael D. Carr
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos7a/CarrClock.jpg
“Butch, I’m sending you a copy of a restored version I took the liberty of doing of her Woodmen of The World Uniform picture. Using Photoshop I removed all the scratches, dust specks and blemishes, increased the contrast and sharpened it slightly then cropped it just a bit to straighten the edges. I don’t know how to reach Dee Ann Burris so if you can, please forward these to her. I just wanted to show what can be done to restore old pictures by modern photo techniques.” -Bowden Miller
“Does anyone have color pictures of the old fountain that was located in the park in Downtown Ardmore? I used to love seeing that thing work as a kid. The colors were really nice to see. As I can recall, it had 4 or six different lamps in the water. Also, in the park near the rodeo, there is a cement structure near the picnic areas. Was this once a fountain as well? It seems like a pool was built around it, but I never can recall any water coming from it? Remember the Easter hunts in the park? I always thought that was a really fun thing to see, and participate in as well. And last of all, for now anyway. Who remembers eating a good ol’ burger from Hardees on West Broadway? I loved that place as a kid, and always enjoyed getting a race car (hot wheel) when we would eat there.”
“Henry House and Hickory creeks are two separate parallel creeks running south from the mountain, about 5 miles apart. Hickory Creek crosses State Highway 53 just over the hill west of Woodford, and is the one on which Mountain Lake (aka Woodford Lake, an Ardmore water supply) is built. The most significant falls on Hickory is quite sizeable (probably 15-20 feet tall on about a 45 degree angle, and maybe 35 yards long across the creek), and I’m surprised you haven’t found it (when I get this sent and get to your next issue, I’ll probably read where someone else is giving this same information). Anyway, it is located just about 100 yards east of the Mountain Lake road, about a mile south of the dam. For years, and possibly still, there was a house on the west side of the road there, and a tremendously big tree right against the road so that the road had to take a slight zag-zig to miss it. When you get up to Mountain Lake again (in better weather than this!), it would be worth the short hike out there to see it. You can’t miss it, since Hickory Creek runs parallel to the road.
Henry House Creek crosses State Highway 53 at the bottom of a L_O_N_G hill 4 or 5 miles east of Woodford (some nut “told me” that a ’56 Ford with a 202 Thunderbird engine and overdrive would register 140 mph going down that hill—can you believe what some people will say?!) . I have never been up House Creek to see the falls.
By the way, there is another sizeable falls and a small deep water hole on Hickory Creek that everyone in the 40’s and 50’s used to call the “Blue Hole”, and the locals used it extensively then to swim in. If it still looks like it used to, you would not believe there is such a nice place anywhere near there. It is located just about a half-mile north of State Highway53 just north of where the short-lived black school was just west of the Hickory bridge. The land is now owned or controlled by Creede Speake, but you might persuade him to let you in to photograph it.”
-Keith Ward, Oklahoma City
Wilson News April 8, 1915
The youth, Curry, who shot bank robber-outlaw Henry Starr and to whom no doubt belongs the credit for capture of that notorious bandit is likely to be spoiled by the prominence and notoriety that he will get. Unless he has careful guidance he will probably think he is a sure enough “gun man”, and will contract the habit of “toting” one or two guns with him at all times; and that is what will probably do the damage. A “gun toter” is usually good for nothing in a business or social way. That’s what young Curry may come to unless he is carefully watched by his parents. Contributor’s note: Henry Starr was shot by Curry after having committed a double bank robbery in Stroud, OK in March 1915. He was shot and killed in February 1921 while robbing a bank in Harrison, AR. Paul Curry later became a school teacher, farmer and family man. -submitted by Mindy
Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore, Oklahoma
580-490-6823
