The picture above is Bill Short and his wife Norma, owners of the old Bill & Barbs Restaurant. The Barb on the sign is Bill’s sister Barbara Gay (1939-2025). It was established in 1955 and located at 1225 North Washington in Ardmore.
Below is the long gone Chinaman’s Restaurant east of Marietta, Oklahoma next to Lake Texoma.
Some mail from this week’s MAILBAG….
Q. I have heard of Rock Crossing all of my life but I cannot put my finger on its exact location. Can you give me the location of the actual crossing on Hickory Creek?
A. Take I-35 Exit 24 (Lake Murray exit) and go west a few miles on County Line Road and you come to Rock Crossing.
Hey, “On The Halves Bridges”
Just a FYI
My family Scottish connection is through the McLaughlin Clan.
Whenever attending Scottish Festivals, I would make sure I hung my
“scotch spoon” around my neck. This was so I could receive a wee dram
of scotch as needed. When visiting the McLaughlin Clan booth, they
made sure that I (being of the blood) received my fair share of the
golden liquid. This came after my fill of shepherd’s pie of course ! -Steve
HAM Radio Talk By Butch Bridges KC5JVT
Allstar node # 58735 – Echolink # 101960 – HamsOverIP # 103010
The Arbuckle 97 Net has check-ins every Sunday night at 8:00pm.
Below is from my newsletter archives
March 2000 – “In the article from the Lone Grove Ledger, it mentioned that there was no information on Dundee. Approximately 3 miles West of Healdton (on Texas Street) was a community that emerged during the oil boom. It was called “Ragtown” or “Tent City”. There was a school there which was known as Dundee. To the best of my knowledge…Dundee was only the corner on which the school stood. There is a large granite monument there. Across the street, there was a post office… it was McMann, Oklahoma. Back to the East, there was another post office and it was Wirt, Oklahoma. I think Wirt was the main name of this area. In some Oklahoma history, there was an article written about the outlaws that came to this big boom area. The name of the article was “The Wickedness of Wirt”. One of the post offices (Wirt, I think) consisted of a wooden one window structure inside the building and this structure is on display at the Healdton Oilfield Museum. My Mother was a 1927 graduate of Dundee and she worked in that post office. She is 94 years young and still living at home!”
March 2000 – “Thanks to Bill and Boots Hamm the mystery of “Dude” Rickey buried on the Goddard Ranch has been solved. I am a Rickey descendent so of course the paragraph caught my eye. “The Hunt Began”. The only info the Rickey Family Tree had was his birth in Portsmouth, OH. Bill Hamm researched him at the Library, then at the funeral home. Boots did all of the neccessary scanning and pc activity. He apparently was a prominent citizen, as the Governor came for his funeral. L.D. “Dude” was a first cousin to the well known baseball legend Branch Rickey. It seems “Dude” left OH in 1906 and never looked back. His passion for the Ardmore area was very strong. He his buried on the Goddard Ranch by his own request. The researcher of the Rickey Family asked me to send you and the Hamms his gratitude and appreciation for all the information he received. I thank you also!!!!! No info on Little Joe, the horse.”
March 2000 – I had a heart touching phone conversation with one of the survivors of the 1966 air crash. Terry Meyer (1951-2015) was 19 years old when that plane went down northeast of Ardmore. He said he spent a total of 18 months in the hospital from his injuries, most of that time at Ft Sill, Oklahoma. At the time of the crash Terry lived in Star City, Arkansas. He now resides in Plattsmouth, Nebraska. Terry said the accident haunts him everyday and he will never get over the pain and anguish that night.
https://www.georgeboom.com/obituary/5795495
March 2000 – The original Hargrove College in Ardmore was located at 10th and D Street NW. It burned down in 1894. Here is a pic of it.
“Go out D street N.W to 9th Avenue (Ardmore) and you will find a little park located between 9th & 10th avenues. There is a plaque that was placed there by the Oklahoma Methodist Historical Society in 1964 which states, “Hargrove College 1895-1914” “A Methodist college once stood here, begun by the City of Ardmore it was given to the Indian Mission Conference of the Methodist Church, named in honor of Bishop Robert K. Hargrove. In 1907 the school burned but was rebuilt north of the city. It exerted a vital religious & educational influence throughout the area.” I don’t know where it was rebuilt but when I was growing up on 12th. Ave the entire block north of the little park, which would be all the area between 10th & 11th. N.W stood vacant. No houses appeared on that block for many years – I was told that the land was a part of the Hargrove College campus. You may find a history of the school in Paul Frame’s History of Ardmore.”
The second Hargrove College (below) was located at the Carter Seminary on Chickasaw Blvd NW in Ardmore. It burned down in 1957.
A couple weeks ago I mentioned the round barn northwest of Ardmore on the Merrick Ranch. I heard it was moved here in the 1940s from the Military Depot at McAlister, Oklahoma. The pic shows the south side of the round barn, it looks pretty good. But the north side is all caved in and rotten.
March 2000 – “You sure did rattle the ole memories in this weeks T&T when you talked about Ulis Barnett. I knew Ulis because he only lived about 2-3 blocks from my dads service station and we would watch him go to work and go home in his 3 wheel specially made bicycle cart. A lot of the times he would stop at the station and just talk about what ever was going on at the time. I have even watched him perform a wedding ceremony at the old temporary fire station across the street from dad’s station. I’ll bet that his son has a lot of interesting stories.”
Ulis Barnett, Justice of the Peace and Carter County County Assessor, 1954
I had a special visitor from Roff, Oklahoma. He is the son of Ulis Barnett, a Justice of the Peace here in Ardmore back in 1935. He had some old photos, so I scanned one showing Ulis Barnett in his office at the courthouse. His office was in the southwest corner on the first floor, which is now known as the “land records room”. This is a 1935 photo belonging to Gary Barnett (1944-2021). Thanks Gary for the pic!
Note: picture below has been modified by AI (reason for misspellings)
March 2000 – This week my 82 year old uncle, Pratt Carmon (1917-2000), here in Ardmore had a severe stroke, leaving him unable to speak or walk. The Ardmore Fire Department responded to his house at 805 3rd NE and assisted the ambulance in getting him to the hospital. Firefighter Tim Hill called me at work (county commissioners office) to tell me of the emergency. I was the only relative my uncle had in Ardmore for nearly three hours, until his daughter, Carol Jean Cole, could get to the hospital from Hurst, Texas. It’s really nice to have friends who step up to help in an emergency as Tim Hill did for me. Thank you Tim. Friends, they make life worth living.
March 2000 – “Butch: I love This and That! Thanks for taking the time to put it together. I am fascinated with the history of Southern Oklahoma. We bought the old St. Agnes Academy building on E Street Southwest in Ardmore and have turned it into a beautiful Bed and Breakfast. We are looking for tidbits of history about the Academy and anyone who attended the Academy or had a relative who attended. You have found a couple of wonderful pictures which our friend Steve Sexton forwarded us (before we subscribed to T&T. Do you have anything else about the Academy? How about some of your readers? We’d love to hear from anyone about this fascinating bit of history. Thanks, Jim Huggins.”
Henry Berry (1910-1993) running his concession stand at the Carter County Courthouse.
From my Feb 2010 newsletter: “One day in the early 1970’s when I was District Attorney, I entered the courthouse from the west side and noticed Mr. Berry sitting high on his stand, head resting against the wall, with feet on the footrests. He was fast asleep and quietly snoring. I couldn’t resist playing a little prank on him. Without a word, I simply started giving him a shoe shine, starting with a large brush, then applying polish, finishing off with a shine rag. I worked in silence, not saying a word.
Of course he awakened immediately and started saying “Who’s this? Who’s this? Mr. Wallace? Mr. Bickford? Who are you?” I remained silent, and continued my pro bonno shine work. Henry was really curious, so he started feeling of my head, saying things like “…..oh, you’re Mr. Thomas, aren’t you? Are you Mr. Thomas?” I said nothing, and gave Henry my best shine.
A day or so later I had to confess. I walked up to him and said “Mr. Berry, how did you like that shoe shine I gave you?” He recognized my voice immediately and smiled broadly. “Mr. Clark, I knowed all along that was you.”
He was a fine man. One of the best.”
-james clark, Ardmore
My plan is I’ll probably stop publishing my weekly newsletter at the end of this year. I’ve been doing it every week for the last 28 years. That’s not to say starting in 2026 I won’t be publishing some tidbits of history from time to time via a newsletter just not every Thursday. Plus I’ll continue posting some history on my Facebook. My website gets over 10,000 visitors a month so I can’t just quit cold-turkey because I’d probably go into withdrawals. lol
See everyone next week!
Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore Oklahoma
580-490-6823
https://oklahomahistory.net