Below is an original brick from the old Harvey-Douglas Funeral Home I made into a history brick. I asked the courthouse maintenance crew to save me a brick to make it. The old funeral home was torn down a week ago to make way for more parking spaces at the courthouse.
After doing some research I found Cecil “Bub” Harvey and his brother opened the Harvey Brothers Funeral Parlor in 1928. The building’s prior use: The documentation says the building “originally served as a hotel for petroleum entrepreneurs” before it was converted into a funeral home. It remained a funeral home until January 2008 when the new Harvey-Douglas Funeral Home on South Commerce in Ardmore was opened.
Below is a 12″ by 12″ patio stone I made the other day for a grave marker.
I was honored to make the above grave marker for my friends Joe and Kim Keeton. It turned out really nice.
When I was a we lad I used to walk with my great grandmother, Ida Miller, to Carl Parker’s Grocery at 5th and I Street Northeast (827 5th NE). This would have been in the 1950s and 1960s. My great grandmother would put on her bonnet and away we’d go walking in the hot sun to Parker’s grocery store. Below is a picture of Carl and Flora Parker send in by their grandson, Robert Gates.
Below is the Vendome Plunge that used to be in Sulphur, Oklahoma.
1948 – Ardmore – intersection of Commerce and West Broadway
Some mail from this week’s MAILBAG….
That “cheater knob,” that you pictured on the tractor, we guys used to call a “suicide knob.” I guess that was in honor of all the speeders! -Skip Joers
Butch, about your picture of the tractor at Swadley’s you said “only in Oklahoma”. I grew up in Iowa and we had them on all of our tractors and many farm trucks. Also some of the guys had them on their jalopies. I have one on my current tractor. We called them spinner knobs.
-R. J. Woodbridge DVM, Retired
Butch, If the Section number and Township and Range are correct for the Henderson Ferry near Gene Autry, the drawing is way off. I have always thought that the ferry was just below Annie Conway’s place on the bluff above the river where the old eastside bridge was located. Correct me if I am wrong.
Hey Butch, I suspect you probably already know all this, but I thought I’d share my experiences with computer stuff.
My son Elijah is a professional A/V tech magician, so he has showed some stuff. I work with windows at my job, and when we upgrade computers, it is like you described, and long and aggravating mess, and when it is all done, there is still stuff that haven’t and won’t migrate.
I’ve always used Apple products at home and when I upgraded my old MacBook Pro to this newer one I was moaning and groaning thinking it was going to be the same frustrating mess. My son came over, took my old laptop and hooked it to my newer one with a Thunderbolt Cable. The computer has an internal Migration Assistant, you just engage and it basically copies your old hard drive to the new one, log ins, passwords and all. Then you can tell it to wipe clean the old drive.
I was just goofing around with one of the old pics on your newsletter and tossed it in Preview and diddled it for a couple minutes, and it came out of the washing machine clean!
HAM Radio Talk By Butch Bridges KC5JVT
Allstar node # 58735 – Echolink # 101960 – HamsOverIP # 103010
Below is last Sunday night’s Arbuckle 97 Net check-in.
The Tech Corner
I successfully extended my Windows 10 for another year on all 3 of my computers last week, all is working fine. To get the free Win 10 extension, go to /Settings/Update and Security/ and there you can request the FREE extension on your Windows 10 machine. Plus my free addition of Ubuntu to all 3 computers went fine. So I have the computers dual boot to either Operating System. It all works fine!
Below is from my newsletter archives
Sept 1999 newsletter – “Well Butch: Looks like all through these years I have been living under the allusion that the east side of the old building on the NW corner of Caddo & Main was badly damaged upstairs & therefore the brick replaced the sand stone in the 2nd floor level. Although the picture makes it appear sound, I still believe the damage was worse than it appears & caused the upper structure to be redone in brick. Actually the picture in this weeks T&T, also shows that the Whittington Hotel, which was across Main street to the south, appears to be in recoverable shape. But, Mrs Whittington told me that the uppermost part of that building was so badly damaged that those floors were removed and the Hotel was renamed “THE NEW WHITTINGTON HOTEL”. That name remained on the old building until it was closed & dismantled many years ago. I remember the Whittington Hotel served many people that were arriving on the train. It was very plush and also accommodated many a traveling salesman that remained loyal throughout its remaining years. Now, for the so called old Hardy Hospital building, its lower floor on the west side of the stairs housed a cafe known as the Innman Inn when I first knew of it. The east side of the down stairs, housed Drug stores for most, if not all, of its years… That part of the building was leased at the time of the Explosion (1915) by Mr. Adcock, an old-time Pharmacist. Mr. Adcock told me that at the time of the explosion, all of his fixtures fell face down to the middle of the floor. He leased the Drugstore from a Mr. Ramsey who would only lease the Store for 5 years at a time. Mr. Adcock said that after he suffered through the damage of the explosion & his 5 years time was up, that Mr. Ramsey would not renew his lease. Years later, in the 1930’s, my Dad acquired interest in the McCan & Stewart Drug Store which was in that building. Mr. Ramsey’s estate still owned the place & Dad continued to lease from his daughter for the rest of his life. The Drug Store went under the name of Martin Drug Co. until his death in 1968. The Pharmacy is now gone & the building remains empty at this time.”
Sept 1999 issure – “Here’s a picture of the Ardmore balloon Kaleidoscope being filled at the Campflite balloon meet at Western Lodge on Ft. Gibson Lake near Wagoner, OK. Aug 27th, 28th, and 29th (1999). The picture was taken by team member Barbara Riley of Ardmore. Hope you can add these to your ‘This ‘n That’ newsletter. Thanks for all your hard work putt’n your newsletter together and sending it out to all us ‘Okies’. Keep it up!!!!! from a fellow history buff.. near Russett… -Jerry Dodds
Below is a 1956 photo of the ATSF FT #160 at, Ardmore OK. The photo was taken by A. E. Brown.
Dec 1999 newsletter: “I have been reading your This & That pages. Enjoy the articles very much. I am sending you this picture, of the last days of the Ambert Page Grocery store on Marsden road, Love County. I last entered this store in 1940, before my family moved from Marsden to Cheek Road, Lone Grove, OK. The store, at that time was south on Marsden Road. I don’t know when it was moved to the cross roads of Marsden and Oswalt. Photo taken in December 1983, a very cold winter. My next trip down Marsden road, the store was gone.”
“I seem to have upset some of your readers! I should explain that an “Old Geezer” is a London (Cockney) expression and was used affectionally! So please let them know that I am a Londoner and I am sorry if I have offended you or them as that was not my intention!” -Ireland
Pop: A common term for soda.
Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore Oklahoma
580-490-6823
https://oklahomahistory.net