I spent a lot of time in Betty Brown’s Health Food store in the 70s and 80s. Her store was located in the unit block of 3rd Northeast.
Below is the Wilson, Oklahoma Fire Department back in 1925.
The postman really did ring twice! Or blew a whistle, or, most commonly, knocked. For decades, letter carriers waited for residents to answer their signal; if no one was home, they took the mail back to the post office and tried again the next day. Some letter carriers used wooden, dumbbell-shaped door knockers on their rounds. Studies in the early twentieth century showed that carriers spent an average of two hours daily waiting at the doorstep. To save work hours, the Post Office Department required residents to install mailboxes or letter slots in 1916.
First National Bank at Stonewall, Oklahoma
A fire at the Top Dollar store, West Main in Ardmore. I see Babcocks and Luke’s Music Store in the picture too.
Some mail from this week’s MAILBAG…..
Thanks for publishing the picture of Bob Boykin a couple of weeks ago. Bob is the reason I got into radio. I hung around the railroad tracks growing up in Ardmore and had plans to go to work for the Santa Fe RR and get one of those cushy union jobs. One night, my cousin, Jimmie Marchesani, and I went by the old KVSO Building and up to the second floor.
I met Bob. He talked on the radio, played music, and told jokes. I remember thinking, “I can do that.” Best of all, he got paid for it. On graduation from Ardmore High in 1965, I went off to O.U. for a year and studied radio and television. The Vietnam War called, and I wound up in Vietnam as a DJ. After I got out, I was at KOZA radio in Odessa for a while. I came back to Ardmore in the early 70s and had a chance to work with Bob at KVSO. It was a wonderful time. I later moved to Dallas, where I still live.
Bob was one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. He was brilliant and strange and quirky, and that does not come close to describing him. He was also one of the kindest people I have known and a great mentor to me and others. I assume Bob spent his entire career at KVSO. I never knew him working anywhere else. That is unusual in the radio business.
Bob never learned to drive, so he took a cab everywhere he went. At his funeral, at the end, many of us looked at each other and wished we had hired a yellow cab to follow the Hurst to the cemetery.
Thanks for posting the picture of Bob Boykin. A Legend in Ardmore.
John Bagwell
Bagwell Marketing / Bagwell Promotions
Phone: 866-281-8830 972-480-8192
Mobile: 214-240-9447
E-MailJohn@Bagwell.com
13211 Deer Run Trail
Dallas, TX 75243
Follow me on Social Media https://marketingresourceblog.com/connect-with-john-bagwell/
HAM Talk By Butch Bridges KC5JVT – Allstar node # 58735 – Echolink # 101960
Hope to hear some new HAMs on the Sunday evening at 8:00pm check-in!
Below is from my newsletter archives dated
September 25, 2008 – Issue 609
During the Taste of Ardmore and Black Gold Festival last Thursday, there was a trolley available to take folks on a tour of the downtown area. Judge Tom Walker gave insights to the places of interest along the route as the trolley moved from place to place. (By the way, if you haven’t been on one of his “Walking Tours” of downtown Ardmore, you have missed out on a ton of local history.)
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos8a/TomWalkerTour091808.jpg
Albert and Rita Cullum at Overbrook celebrated their 53rd Wedding anniversary this week. Al stopped by to show me a handmade quilt he had Calico Country Crafts on Main Street make for the occasion. The blanket was a surprise gift and Al said he had a hard time sneaking photos out of the house without his wife knowing it. lol It is a beautiful blanket, with family photos and relatives and even a picture of their wedding license stitched into the blanket. The pic I took below does not do justice for this hand crafted blanket.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos8a/CullumBlanket8a.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos8a/CullumBlanket8b.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos8a/CullumBlanket8c.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos8a/CalicoCountryCrafts.jpg
Arnett, Oklahoma. Linda Fox sent in these two photos of the Arnett School bell. This is a magnificent bell.
https://oklahomahistory.net/bellphotos/ArnettBell8a.jpg
After Harold Newman completed drilling our water well to a depth of 185 feet and placing 4 1/2 inch PVC pipe (not 4 inch) down the hole, he finished it up by dropping pea gravel down the outside of the PVC. The pea gravel is small, about 3/8 inch, and can only be found in one place in Oklahoma according to Harold, near Asher Oklahoma. Here is a picture I took of a small pile of pea gravel he left on the ground near the well.
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos8a/PeaGravel.jpg
“Across from Franklin School, J.D. Lane grocery was at 6th ave & E St NW in the 1920s. The building is still there on the SE corner and the name can still be seen up on the North side. I was driving by and saw it which triggered my memory. I went to Franklin School from about ’31-’35 and recall the sign then but I don’t recall whether the store was still operating in the ’30s. Highway 77 was on E Street then and the Ardmore Police Dept had a man there to make cars stop for kids at the crossing, then in the middle of the block facing the then school’s front door. I was one of the “Junior Police”, something of an honor, who actually held out the ‘stop’ flags while the policeman stood by -kindly “Ole Man Naylor”, not in uniform but with a badge and gun. He once fired at a car that failed to stop but it kept going. I recently gave away my white canvas sam brown belt, marked “JUNIOR POLICE”, that we wore when we were doing our thing” -Bob McCrory
“I am attaching the probable last resting place of Nelson Chigley. It is in an actual Chickasaw Cemetery next to their Casino at I-35 and Davis exit. The place used to be called Lone Hill in the days Nelson Chigley was still around.” -Tuklo Nashoba
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos8a/NelsonChigleyMarker8a.jpg
https://oklahomahistory.net/ttphotos8a/NelsonChigleyMarker8b.jpg
“You had someone ask if anyone remembers Doc’s Pig Stand in Ardmore. My earliest memories probably go back to the early 1950’s. It was located about a block east of Washington on US 70 on the south side of the road. It had an awning on the east side of the building where the carhops operated. There may have been an awning on the west side of the building but I can’t remember. The door was on the northwest corner of the building. Inside you walked past a row of stools to about 3 booths in the back. The grill was on the east wall behind the counter.
I remember “Doc” as being a stout man, but I don’t think I ever knew his name. The same woman cooked in the mornings there for years. I remember her as being tall but don’t think I ever knew her name. My dad ate breakfast there almost every morning between 6 and 7 a.m. and that is when I would be there most often, with him. He ate the same thing every morning, a cheese omelet. She always called my dad “O.C.” It was always a magic time for me because it was my first exposure to men getting ready to go to work and the banter between them over their breakfast coffee.
I remember there was always a punchboard somewhere on the counter for those who wanted to try their hand at small time gambling.
Once during the summer of 1961 my dad and I were working on the service station he was building in Mannsville and we had a day laborer that my dad had used many times over the years. After we finished work, we drove back into town and went to Doc’s to eat. We got out of the pickup and my dad and I went in the front door. Our helper went to the back door for service because he was black. That is when it finally dawned on me that we really lived in a segregated society. I knew that blacks had to sit in the balcony at the Tivoli and that they had their own water fountain in various stores in town but that incident at Doc’s focused the issue for me and I had a long discussion with my dad after that incident.
Later in high school during the mid sixties my friends and I would occasionally grab a burger in the evening at Doc’s and maybe a beer but it always depended on who was working outside.” -Monroe Cameron
You may get what you want, but you may not want what you get.
Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore Oklahoma
580-490-6823
https://oklahomahistory.net