Oklahoma Today Magazine July/August 2023

47 Treasure Maps

The truth is, pretty much everyone is a history buff—it just depends on which history we’re talking about. Whether you want to follow the trail of Oklahoma’s celebrated movie stars, spend the night in a historic hotel, tour the original seven state parks, or check out some of the coolest places in the state’s sports story, these ten illustrated itineraries will have you road-tripping through Oklahoma history.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY KYLE GANDY, CHRISTOPHER LEE, AND JJ RITCHEY

58 Hear Them Sing

At the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, the legacy of Oklahoma’s favorite troubadour shines bright.

BY BEN LUSCHEN

64 Blessed Is He

A beautiful new pilgrimage site in southeast Oklahoma City honors the Sooner State’s first Catholic martyr.

BY BROOKE ADCOX

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRENT FUCHS

72 Soldiering On

The story of the Buffalo Soldiers, the first black Americans to fight in the U.S. Army, runs right through Indian Territory.

BY QURAYSH ALI LANSANA

RESEARCH BY NICK ALEXANDROV

80 The Longest Yard

Oklahoma City’s Stockyards City is one of the state’s most storied districts.

BY CAROL MOWDY BOND

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LORI DUCKWORTH

From a downtown statue to the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, Okemah continues to celebrate its most famous native (“Hear Them Sing,” page 58).

Page 47

15 On the Map

Rest in bucolic beauty at 3J Farms in Blanchard; Hennessey’s Prairie Quilt shop proves it’s hip to be square; the past is a present to all who visit Shooting Star History; the state’s offbeat museums are stuffed with strange treasures; and the Oklahoma City Farmers Market District is keeping things fresh after all these years.

OKLAHOMA CITY

Oklahoma’s largest Catholic church pays respects to a blessed soul. PAGE 64

SHATTUCK

An outdoor windmill museum you won’t want to miss PAGE 23

TULSA

Great food with a side of board game PAGE 30

POTEAU

Get muddy at this fun run. PAGE 94

FORT SILL

Where the Buffalo Soldiers roamed PAGE 72

39 Originals

Big 10 Ballroom in Tulsa dons its dancing shoes again; TG&Y made commerce history starting in Oklahoma; poet Jackie Smith showcases a “Sale Day at the Stockyards”; and The Flaming Lips celebrate the band’s ruby anniversary and look forward to whatever weirdness the future holds.

27 Order Up

The Vintage Steakhouse is heating up Morrison; Shuffles Café in Tulsa is board but not boring; mead, the ancient honey drink, makes a comeback; Yukon built Progress Brewing Company; and The Lookout Kitchen offers delicious bites at half a dozen Oklahoma state parks.

In Every Issue: 6 Contribs 8 Point of View 10 Welcome 12 Feedback 89 Out There 96 Off the Map

On the Cover

From The Twister Movie Museum in Wakita to The Ninety-Nines Museum of Women Pilots in Oklahoma City to the midcentury glory of the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma’s landscape is dotted with historic sites and memorable places. Turn to page 47 for “Treasure Maps,” featuring ten history-themed road trip itineraries sure to turn any interest into a travel adventure—whether you’re touring Oklahoma’s movie history, visiting important Native sites, or dining at Will Rogers’ favorite chili place. Illustration by JJ Ritchey

LORI DUCKWORTH

BLAKE STUDDARD

FLYINGDOCTOR/SHUTTERSTOCK

With ten itineraries for any interest, our history-themed road trips will make you wish you had a DeLorean.

THE BUFFALO Soldiers were tasked not only with protecting the northern border of Indian Territory from eager white settlers, or ‘Boomers,’ they also, in many instances, served on the frontlines of the Indian and Mexican Wars—all of this while battling the racism and discrimination of the times,” says Quraysh Ali Lansana, an Emmy-winning author, poet, and radio producer. For his illuminating story (“Soldiering On,” page 72) about these honorable warriors, Lansana collaborated with Tulsa researcher Nick Alexandrov. Alexandrov’s Q&A with retired U.S. Army Sergeant Major Wallace C. Moore shed even more light on this important chapter of history. “The Buffalo Soldiers are gone, but we still have Wallace Moore,” Alexandrov says. “He makes their history live.”

Adcox’s latest story had her reporting on someone considered by many to be holy, “Blessed Is He” (page 64) shows Blessed Stanley Rother was just one of many Oklahomans toiling to make the world a better place. “I have written about every type of Oklahoman in my more than twenty years working with Oklahoma Today,” she says. “Blessed Rother fits the mold: someone who worked hard for the benefit of others.” That’s not to say this was just a run-of-the-mill reporting experience for the wife and mother of two teen boys, however. “I was moved by Very Reverend Don Wolf’s retelling of the last time he spoke to Blessed Rother,” she says. “I was so moved that I cried—the first time that has happened in the years I’ve worked on Oklahoma Today stories.”

MAGAZINE

Since 1956

KEVIN STITT, Governor

COLLEEN MCINTYRE, Director of Operations

STEVEN WALKER, Walker Creative, Inc., Art Director

NATHAN GUNTER, Editor-in-Chief

MEGAN ROSSMAN, Photography Editor

KARLIE YBARRA, Managing Editor GREG ELWELL, Web Editor

BEN LUSCHEN, Research Editor

BECKY CARMAN, STEFFIE CORCORAN, JUDY HILOVSKY, and JOHN SELVIDGE , Copyeditors

CONTRIBUTORS

BROOKE ADCOX, JERRY BENNETT, SHANE BEVEL, LIZ BLOOD, GRAHAM LEE BREWER, SHEILAH BRIGHT, TRISHA BUNCE, SARA COWAN, SUSAN DRAGOO, LORI DUCKWORTH, BRENT FUCHS, KYLE GANDY, GORDON GRICE, BRIAN TED JONES, PRESTON JONES, RANDY KREHBIEL, QURAYSH ALI LANSANA, CHRISTOPHER LEE, MELISSA LUKENBAUGH, TOM LUKER, JEREMY MARTIN, JEANETTA CALHOUN MISH, MASON WHITEHORN POWELL, JAMES PRATT, RYAN REDCORN, JJ RITCHEY, DYRINDA TYSON, and VALERIE WEI-HAAS

STAFF

BRIDGETTE SLONE, Production Manager

STEPHEN HARRIS, Director of Advertising Sales

DANEKA ALLEN PENNINGTON, Advertising Account Executive

BILLY MUSSETT, Advertising Account Executive

RAMÓN RENTERÍA-LARA, Advertising Account Executive

MARY WATERS, Advertising Account Executive

THROUGHOUT THE course of his professional career, Christopher Lee has helped shape many iconic Oklahoma brands and figures: Oklahoma City Energy FC, Blake Griffin, 405 Magazine, Green Box Arts, ArtDesk, Kevin Durant, A’ja Wilson, The Oklahoman, and the Kirkpatrick Foundation, to name a few. For Oklahoma Today, Lee’s finely tuned sense of design and ability to problem solve have resulted in some truly beautiful collaborations, including the story of the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival (“Hear Them Sing,” page 58) and “Treasure Maps,” (page 47) in this issue. “It’s always great collaborating with the Oklahoma Today team,” he says. “They trust in my abilities as a designer, and together, we’re able to create engaging content for the readers. One reason I love working with Oklahoma Today is it allows me to read new stories about our state and find creative ways to portray them through design.”

OKLAHOMA TOURISM & RECREATION DEPARTMENT

LT. GOV. MATT PINNELL, Secretary of Tourism & Branding

SHELLEY ZUMWALT, Executive Director

OKLAHOMA TOURISM AND RECREATION COMMISSION

Val Callaghan, Michelle Finch, Mandy Haws, Hobie Higgins, Elizabeth Larios, Dr. Krista Ratliff, Emily Smith, and Andy Stewart

EMAIL

Advertising@TravelOK.com

Circulation@TravelOK.com

Editorial@TravelOK.com

Oklahoma Today (ISSN 0030-1892) is published bimonthly: in January, March, May, July, September, and November by the State of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department, P.O. Box 248937, Oklahoma City, OK 73124.

OKLAHOMA TODAY ’S AWARDS INCLUDE:

Six 2023 International Regional Magazine Association (IRMA) awards; six 2023 Great Plains Journalism Awards; five 2022 Oklahoma SPJ Awards, including Best Magazine; eleven 2022 IRMA Awards; fourteen 2021 IRMA awards, including Magazine of the Year; three 2021 Great Plains Journalism Awards, including Magazine of the Year; the 2015 FOLIO: Designer of the Year award; a 2014 FOLIO: Top Women in Media award; a 2013 Western Heritage Wrangler award; a 2012 Wilbur award from the Religion Communicators Council; IRMA Magazine of the Year 2021, 2020, 2018, 2012, 2010, 2005, 1996, 1994, 1993, and 1991.

Periodicals postage paid at Oklahoma City, OK, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Oklahoma Today Circulation, P.O. Box 248937, Oklahoma City, OK 73124. Oklahoma City Advertising Sales Office, P.O. Box 248937, Oklahoma City, OK 73124, (405) 522-9535 or (800) 652-6552 ext. 3. Subscription prices: $24.95 per year in the U.S. U.S. copyright © 2023 by Oklahoma Today Reproduction without permission is prohibited. Oklahoma Today is not responsible for the care or return of unsolicited materials of any kind. In no event shall submission of unsolicited material subject Oklahoma Today to any claim or holding fee. Payment is upon publication. Visit OklahomaToday.com.

THOUGH OKLAHOMA City journalist Brooke

CHARLIE NEUENSCHWANDER

KELLY KURT BROWN

Peace Okie - Mug with Color Inside

Peace out with this Peace Okie mug with an assortment of color options! ese ceramic mugs not only have a fun design on them, but also a colorful rim, handle, and inside. Find it in your favorite color, or collect them all!

Dishwasher and microwave safe $13

Okie Bison Beach Towel

Your new favorite towel! Made from a cozy cotton terry and soft poly face, this water-loving towel features the Okie Bison and Oklahoma Today brand. Available in Black or White. 30” x 60”.

Okie Bison Spiral Notebook

Write things down in style with this Okie-themed spiral notebook. With 140 pages and a soft, velvety textured cover you can keep your notes, doodles, and to-do lists all in one place. 5.5” x 8.5” $15

Okie Bison

3 sizes available. $26

Peace Okie Tie-Dye Fanny Pack

You can go retro with this stylish Peace Peace fanny pack with a sunset tie-dye background. It has everything—the right size, a small inside pocket, and adjustable straps—to become your favorite fashion item if you’re going to a festival, getting ready for a vacation, or just like to keep your hands free. 16” x 14.5” $35

Okie Bison - Eco Tote BagI

Say goodbye to plastic, and bag your goodies in this organic cotton twill tote bag featuring our popular Okie Bison design. ere’s more than enough room for groceries, books, and anything in between. 15”x17” $21

Print Premium Pillow

Be Our Guest

PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

SINCE THEIR DEBUT in the first half of the twentieth century, Oklahoma state parks have been a sanctuary for travelers looking to unwind and explore. At the Western Hills Guest Ranch, seen here shortly after opening in 1956, cowboy-themed comforts met midcentury modern at the lodge overlooking Fort Gibson Lake at Sequoyah State Park. Today, the wholly contemporary but mod-inspired Lodge at Sequoyah State Park makes visitors feel at home in 104 rooms, 45 cottages, and a brand new restaurant, plus warm-weather amenities like a swim beach, zero-entry pool, and splash pad.

SEQUOYAH STATE PARK

The lodge is located at 19808 Park 10 Road in Hulbert.

> ( 918) 772-2545

> TravelOK.com/state-parks/sequoyah-state-park

The Chemistry Teacher

ASIWRITE this letter, it’s May 31, 2023: It’s my dad’s eighty-eighth birthday.

OKIE NOTES

1. My eighteenth anniversary with my sweetie was perfect: an afternoon Dodgers game at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark followed by drinks, dinner, and a room at The National—on the sixth floor, no less, where my first Oklahoma Today office was located. okcdodgers.com

2. We also spent two days at one of the new tiny cabins at Beavers Bend State Park. We hiked the Friends of Beavers Bend Trail, had amazing food at The Eat Out in Hochatown, and luxuriated in our cabin’s river view. TravelOK.com/ state-parks/beavers-bend-state-park

3. Just in case you haven’t heard: On April 8, 2024, anyone in McCurtain County will be able to witness a total eclipse of the sun. It’s a must-have life experience, but if you want to stay overnight, make your booking now.

4. If this was the 1990s, I’d tell you to go buy a big box of blank VHS tapes as soon as you can. Why? Season three of Reservation Dogs, set and shot in Oklahoma, hits FX on Hulu on August 2. Just be sure not to tape over the game. hulu.com

My dad, Bobby Dean Gunter, grew up in Hackett, Arkansas, in the throes of the Great Depression. His own father was not in the picture for a big chunk of his childhood, and his heroic mother, Clara Mae, raised him largely on her own until he was ten. When he was eighteen, his high school principal called him to his office and said, “If I could get you into college, all expenses paid, would you go?” Dad shrugged and said sure, and the principal replied, “Okay, go home and pack and be back here at five p.m.”

Dad went home, where his mother— who already knew of the plan—handed him a cardboard suitcase and every penny she had, which wasn’t much. Dad earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of the Ozarks, a master’s in nuclear physics at Vanderbilt, and a PhD in chemistry at the University of Arkansas. He was a fellow at the National Laboratory at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and worked at General Dynamics as a health physicist, but it was in Oklahoma that he found his calling.

In the mid-1960s, Dad began teaching chemistry at Southwestern State College in Weatherford, and for thirty years, he molded the lives of young people—many who, like him, had grown up tending crops and working cattle and were the

first person in their family to go to college. A natural-born performer—he could’ve easily been a politician or an actor—Dad had a teaching style that made a class on stoichiometry as enjoyable as a standup comedy set. His voice boomed: If he was lecturing and you were anywhere in the Chemistry-Pharmacy-Physics building at SWOSU, you could hear him clearly enough to take notes. In the days before email and cell phones, he gave his students our home number and encouraged them to call anytime—which is how, more than once as a child, I picked up the phone to find a crying college student on the other end. Dad would always take the call, always help, always see his students through.

He believes in the power of education, because education elevated his life. He believes—and he taught his five children— that every piece of knowledge you gain is a bit of power no one can take away. He believes learning is a good end unto itself, and for three decades, he dedicated himself to being the best teacher he possibly could be. He believes in kindness, because someone was kind to him, and he believes in helping others, because he was helped.

As my dad’s life nears its denouement, I’m taking a fresh look at these values and how they shaped me, how thankful I am for them. For him. I’m taking time every day to be grateful for Dr. Bobby Gunter’s life, what he gave, what he endured. And however much longer we have together, I’ll spend it—and all the time that follows—being proud to be his son.

Nathan Gunter, Editor-in-Chief nathan.gunter@TravelOK.com

Clockwise from top: Dad, center, at General Dynamics in the early 1960s; Dad’s 1945-’46 school picture; Dad and me at Christmas, 1980s

My father was an educator, and as he turns eightyeight, I’m looking back on his many lessons.

Court of Appeal

Reba reigned on our May/ June 2023 cover, but the inside was filled with all the BMX thrills, caffeinated corners, and small-town diner delicacies the Sooner State has to offer.

High Steaks

Several years ago, my brother called and asked if I would consider giving him a subscription to Oklahoma Today for his birthday. I told him I would love to, and that continued until he passed away more than ten years ago.

More recently, you published an article about our Kat’s Steakhouse in Lamont (“Food Worth the Drive,” January/February 2023). It doesn’t compare to the article about Reba’s lovely steakhouse in your last magazine (“The Queen’s Court,” May/June 2023), but we did have a good response in

STEVEN WALKER

our area. I just thought you may enjoy hearing from a reader. I am eighty-three now and not so sharp but continue supporting our state and its people.

Bonnie Muegge Lamont

The Feeling Is Mutual

I love your magazine. I was born and raised in Oklahoma.

Bobbie Akers Salina, Kansas

In the Lupe(r)

I have been taking this magazine for a long time. Upon seeing the picture of Clara Luper on page fifteen of the May/ June issue, you should check out artist LaQuincey Reed, who is sculpting a life-sized Clara for an Oklahoma City downtown project. His studio is on the ground floor of the Skirvin Hotel.

Marcia

Award-winning Answer

Honor Roll

Foster

The answer to the May/June “Off the Map” question is the Council Oak Tree located at West 18th Street and South Carson Avenue in Tulsa.

Christie

Olde-Fashioned Fun

Morehead Tulsa

I got my May/June copy of Oklahoma Today magazine and really like the creative context to mention the thirtysecond annual Dewey Antique Show (“Out There”)!

Pat

Q&A

Oklahoma Dreamin’

How to have your best summer ever? Start at a

state park.

Middleton Dewey

Oklahoma! was written by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and it was based on a 1931 play called Green Grow the Lilacs. The setting was a town outside Claremore in 1906.

Tammi Bear Oklahoma City

EDITOR’S NOTE: Tammi’s letter was a response to a Tuesday Trivia question, posted at oklahomatoday.com each week. If we pick your answer to publish in print, you’ll get a free one-year subscription!

At the 2023 Great Plains Journalism awards, Oklahoma Today magazine took home six honors including Photographer of the Year for Shane Bevel and Best Magazine Page Design. The 2023 International Regional Magazine Awards garnered OKT half a dozen accolades as well, among them silver for Nathan Gunter’s Welcome column and silver for single photo for David Joshua Jennings’ “Bull House.” Finally, our cover of the September/October 2022 Animal Issue by John Paul Brammer won the American Society of Magazine Editors Reader’s Choice Award for Best Illustrated Cover.

We love hearing from readers. Letters are subject to editing and must include name, address, and a daytime phone number. Send correspondence to Oklahoma Today, Attn: Editor, P.O. Box 248937, Oklahoma City, OK 73124. Address email to Letters@TravelOK.com.

ON PAGE 49 of this issue of Oklahoma Today, you’ll find a travel itinerary through Oklahoma’s seven original state parks. Exploring these public lands is a great way to spend a summer. And though each of our parks is a treasure, I have a particular fondness for one of them: Sequoyah State Park. This summer, my extended family and I will gather at this breathtaking property on Fort Gibson Lake for our reunion. We’ll take boats out on the lake, check out Harry and Bixby, and play Bingo! (I’m a bit competitive). We’ll also eat lots of great food and catch up on memories. We have family coming from both coasts and everywhere in between, and there’s no place like an Oklahoma state park. My anticipation for our gathering has me thinking about the “Best Summer Ever” campaign we launched recently. For me, summer in Oklahoma means my daughter is home from school, long days packing in the fun, fireflies, swimming when it’s a hundred-plus degrees, travel with my family, and my favorite sound: the chorus of crickets and cicadas that reminds me of going to the lake when I was a kid. We hope no matter how you spend yours—whether touring our gorgeous state parks, hanging out at Pastures of Plenty during the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival (see Ben Luschen’s feature on page 58), or following one of the Oklahoma Today staff’s travel itineraries for history buffs (check out all ten starting on page 47), we hope you also have your best summer ever.

—SHELLEY ZUMWALT, Executive Director, Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department

Twitter: @oklahomatoday

Instagram: @oklahomatoday

facebook.com/oklahomatoday

Sequoyah State Park

LORI DUCKWORTH

“I’m walking on sunshine, whoa, and don’t it feel good!” —KATRINA AND THE WAVES

Do Go Chasing Waterfalls

Though the 77-foot waterfall at TURNER FALLS PARK in Davis is a stunning attraction on its own, the beautiful views are but one of many reasons for the area’s magnetism. This scenic spot on Honey Creek cools visitors down with plenty of opportunities for aquatic fun. Nestled in the ancient Arbuckle Mountains, it also features three caves and nature trails to explore.

Turner Falls Park is located at Interstate 35 and U.S. Highway 77 in Davis. (580) 369-2988 or turnerfallspark.com

LORI DUCKWORTH

Rural Retreat

Though it’s only minutes from the city, 3J Farms offers a bounty of bucolic delights.

BY WHITNEY BRYEN

ONCE STUFFED WITH cow feed, two grain silos at a family-run farm near Blanchard now are filled with peacock- and chickenthemed decor. At least twenty-five chickens don the pillows, wall art, and dishes in a bedroom known affectionately as the chicken coop, which looks nothing like the actual chicken coop outside. Dozens of peacock feathers spray the walls of the abutting silo outside where Dwayne, the resident peacock and inspiration for the room, can often be found flashing his vibrant eyespots.

About an hour south of Oklahoma City, these graindominiums are one family’s effort to bring the best of farm life to city folks and suburbanites, weary travelers and students, the curious and the exhausted.

NEW RELEASES

Extra Sensory

Inundate your eyes and ears with colorful music and writing by Okie artists.

BY BECKY CARMAN

“The goal is to offer something unique, fun, and peaceful,” says Jennifer Hernandez, who grew up at 3J Farms and now runs it with her husband Luis. “It’s not about luxury. That’s not what farm life is about. It’s about getting your hands dirty and taking in the fresh air, and that’s what we’re offering people.”

The farm’s large metal bins offer cozy beds, heat and air conditioning, and a wet room complete with a shower and toilet in the former dairy barn next door, which also boasts a community kitchen.

Hernandez is one of the three Js—along with her younger brother Jesse and sister Jillian—who grew up working on the dairy farm. Hernandez’s father left in 1988, leaving her mom in charge. A womanrun agricultural operation was almost unheard-of back then, Hernandez says. Her mom struggled to find workers willing to take her direction. She began hiring women who turned out to be gentler with the cows, which led to increased milk production.

That progress wasn’t enough to sustain the single mom of three. In 1992, she sold the milk cows and took up ranching and

truck driving and rented land to local farmers to make ends meet.

But that pivot would set the tone for the farm’s future ingenuity. Hernandez took over the farm in 2016 shortly after Jesse died suddenly in a car crash.

“My brother and I, we made plans for this utopian version of the farm that would sustain us when Mom was gone, and I realized if I was going to get any of that done, I’d better start now,” Hernandez says.

She grows seedlings in greenhouses where patrons shop each spring, tends to nearly a hundred head of cattle, and sells grassfed ground beef at farmers’ markets. During the pandemic, Hernandez brought community to her neighbors and fellow farmers who gathered at 3J Farms for themed dinners, miniature farmers’ markets that were more like trading booths, and holiday celebrations. Change became the new normal, and creative solutions became the sustenance on which the family would survive. So when her sister suggested turning the old grain silos into overnight rentals, Hernandez didn’t think twice. They cleaned and insulated the metal cylinders,

HEAVY PETAL MUSIC

Heavy Petal Music, the new album from Norman rock band Rainbows Are Free, came out digitally, on CD, and on limited-edition vinyl June 9. The songs were recorded live at a Summer Breeze concert in 2021—the band’s first post-pandemic show— and feature a selection of songs from RAF’s fifteenyear history.

THE RADCLIFFE LADIES’ READING CLUB

Tulsa novelist Julia Bryan Thomas released The Radcliffe Ladies’ Reading Club June 6. The book follows protagonist Alice Campbell’s 1950s bookshop-opening journey and explores feminism and friendship. Thomas’ last book, the historical fiction novel For Those Who Are Lost, was released last year.

furnished them with antiques inherited from their grandparents and mom, and opened the first room to guests in September 2021.

Hernandez’s mom Rita Estes, the farm’s matriarch, lives on the hill near where guests arrive at the silos. She can be found driving an all-terrain vehicle checking up on things when the weather’s nice. Hernandez’s sister Jillian Estes visits often, usually leaving a colorfully painted gnome sign or other artful contribution to her former home. Hernandez and her husband are at the farm most days and love greeting guests between chores.

“I like growing food, but I love growing people,” Hernandez says.

All of them occasionally can be found talking to Jesse in a phone booth placed along the main drive, just a short walk from the silos. It’s dedicated to the grieving and the lost—a place where the two can reunite for a few minutes, overlooking 3J Farms. A binder under the nonworking rotary phone includes handwritten messages to loved ones from guests of the farm.

“Grieving people seem to be drawn here for some reason, drawn to me, or to this place, or I don’t know what,” Hernandez says. “It’s amazing what people tell me when they see the booth and hear about my brother. I think we’re all looking for calm, for peace, and that’s what draws us together, this peaceful place.”

> (405) 596-0492

> 3jfarmsok.com

CHROMA CRAWL

Norman psych rock band Helen Kelter Skelter recently released a new EP called Chroma Crawl in June via Tulsabased label Horton Records. The songs were recorded in 2019 in Oklahoma City with engineer Joe Bello and feature the band’s signature intricate, reverb-drenched songwriting. The EP is available digitally and on CD. helenkelterskelter. bandcamp.com

3J FARMS

A student from Jordan, a German couple, and hikers visiting the Wichitas have stayed at 3J.

Patchwork Perfection

Prairie Quilt in Hennessey has thousands of fabrics to create a classic quilt, a modern dress, or anything else you can dream up.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LORI DUCKWORTH

Quilts long have been relegated to Grandma culture along with hard candy and couches covered in plastic. While Prairie Quilt sells everything to make a gorgeous traditional quilt, the shop in Hennessey also has modern patterns—like the Tula Pink collection seen here—for crafting pieces that are contemporary and cozy. The shelves also are stocked with all the notions sewists could possibly need.

PRAIRIE QUILT

> 101 South Main Street in Hennessey

> (405) 853-6801

> prairiequilt.com

Gigglemugs Aplenty

Visitors to Shooting Star

History in Hitchcock will leave with brains full of information and faces full of smiles.

BY ZOE TRAVERS

SHOOTING STAR HISTORY is more than a museum, the couple behind it more than docents. On their Centennial Ranch, which has been in the family since about 1905, Marna Jean and Doug Davis offer a chance to step into the shoes of people living in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Davises provide a fully immersive experience with costumes, storytelling, crafting, blacksmithing, and even singing. Their guests may experience a campfire dinner, afternoon tea, and croquet games while learning about the lives they could have led had they been born just a century earlier.

The Davises share a longstanding love of history, especially the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and they’ve dedicated their home near Hitchcock to recreating some of the intricate fashions and accessories of the time. Doug is the resident leatherworker, woodcarver, and saddle and boot maker—he even apprenticed with famed Guthrie designer Lisa Sorrell. He’s also worked as a professional cowboy on ranches in Missouri and Wyoming.

Marna Jean began her journey back in time very early. When she was four, her grandparents bought her and her brother a flock of sheep with which to make money in lieu of an allowance. By the time she was ten, she was spinning her own yarn and learning how to make historical pieces, and while in high school, she designed her first dress.

Today, Marna Jean has an extensive collection of patterns dating back as far as 1886. She also has crafted a collection of clothes the average gal might have worn, sizing them to fit modern women and making them as accurate as possible based on her knowledge of everyday

life. Her pieces also have been featured on the silver screen: She made parasols for Cold Mountain, The Legend of Zorro, and Bolden, a 2019 film about Buddy Bolden, the Cornet King of New Orleans.

“I’ve learned to interpret the stress points of original dresses, so I understand how they were being worn and what kinds of stresses they had on them,” she says. “I’ll wear them while doing the types of things that the original women of the time would have been doing, like cooking, dealing with livestock, and sewing—and make sure they’re still wearable.”

Every experience at Shooting Star History is uniquely arranged for groups small and large, including Marna Jean’s detailed dress demonstrations. For these, the clothier may take visitors through the history of work dresses, parasols, corsets, and summer gowns. She shows them how these dresses were made at the time and demonstrates how to operate a loom, detailing the shortcuts of Victorian sewing, or diving into the evolution of the bustle-era skirt or the sunbonnet.

Marna Jean and Doug Davis aren’t historical reenactors—they bring history to life in Hitchcock.

But there’s a lot more to learn about than fashion at Shooting Star. The Davises offer lectures about famous cowgirls, the practical uses of herbs, dating historical photos, and other topics by request. They’ll also introduce visitors to Teddy and Alice Roosevelt, Annie Oakley and Frank Butler, and Lucille and Zack Mulhall, among others, during activities in which the couple brings these figures back to life. They even host cowboy cookouts where they make things like stews, cobblers, and bread pudding— dishes popular in the state around the late nineteenth century.

There’s a genuineness that transcends historical authenticity at Shooting Star. The Davises are a time capsule of knowledge, with all the skills to turn their herbs into medicinal remedies or to expertly date antique photos. And they clearly love sharing their passion and knowledge with others.

“Marna Jean and I were just talking the other day about things we take for granted,” Doug says. “Other people don’t have a clue. There are people who just don’t have any concept of how things worked during the Victorian era.”

After some time with Marna Jean and Doug, however, guests will leave with treasured memories and a much better understanding of that fascinating time.

SHOOTING STAR HISTORY

Classes, lectures, or any other historic adventures at Shooting Star History must be booked in advance.

> 14950 State Highway 8 in Hitchcock

> (405) 448-6260

> marnajeandavis.com

Every experience at Shooting Star History is uniquely arranged for groups small and large.

Curious Collections

Oklahoma is home to more than a hundred museums, but these six are sure to leave an impression on visitors of all ages.

BY COOPER MARSHALL

his death in 1998, he donated his array of vintage vehicles—like a 1922 Franklin featured in the upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon movie—mining tools, a mummified cat, and more to the city he called home. Rock hounds particularly enjoy perusing the extensive mineral and fossil collection, which includes a UV-lit darkroom where fluorescent stones cast an eerie glow. 19934 East Pine Street in Catoosa, (918) 266-3612 or cityofcatoosa.org

museum opened in a former Guthrie drugstore in 1992, but many of the glass bottles within are much older. If gazing at all those forbidden liquids leaves you parched, stop by the counter store, where you can purchase sarsaparilla that’s guaranteed safe to drink. 214 West Oklahoma Avenue in Guthrie, (405) 282-1895 or drugmuseum.org

1

Those interested in historical artifacts from minerals and fossils to cars should spend a few hours at the D.W. Correll Museum in Catoosa. Correll was a longtime resident of Catoosa who had a large private collection, but after

2 Definitely don’t drink anything on display in the Oklahoma Frontier Drugstore Museum, which contains one of the largest collections of narcotics, physician’s tools, and other sometimesfrightening medical ephemera. The

3Thanks to the Pioneer Woman, Pawhuska now has some of the best food in the state, but it also has a delicious history. Located in Pawhuska, the Osage County Historical Society Museum houses exhibits about the Boy Scouts—the first troop was established here—the Osage people, ballerinas

Maria and Marjorie Tallchief, and more. There’s even a section that invites visitors to guess what old tools and contraptions are for. Bibliophiles will want to check out the museum’s gift shop for out-of-print and rare books. 700 Lynn Avenue in Pawhuska, (918) 287-9119 or visittheosage.com

Astrobleme Museum provides an idea of what it looked like through an animated video. 109 East Main Street in Ames, (580) 753-4624 or aoghs.org/oklahomapetroleum-museums

4

Millions of years ago, a meteor crashed into what would become the town of Ames, scaring the daylights out of nearby trilobites and other prehistoric marine creatures. The heavily researched astrobleme is around nine thousand feet deep and has an eight-mile diameter. While visitors can’t see the crater itself because it is totally covered, the Ames

5 Wind is so important to the state that it makes an appearance four words into our official song, so why not pay respect to our blustery master with a visit to Shattuck Windmill Museum & Park? Sixty-two windmills of all shapes and sizes are open to view at any time. The park features terrestrial history too, with a dugout residence (otherwise known as a soddie) and an early pioneer cabin. 120 East 11th Street in Shattuck, (580) 938-5291 or shattuckok.com/windmillpark.html

6 Discover the stories behind sports legends at the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. Fittingly located in the same building as the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City, this museum houses uniforms, art, photographs, and other memorabilia celebrating some of the talented athletes and coaches from Oklahoma. Featured hall of famers from this year are Sandy Fischer, a celebrated Oklahoma State University softball coach, and former footballer and track star James Trapp. The Jim Thorpe Museum also is located inside of the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. 20 South Mickey Mantle Drive in Oklahoma City, (405) 427-1400 or oklahomasportshalloffame.org

Market Value

The Farmers Public Market in Oklahoma City has been a bustling center of commerce since before statehood.

BY KARLIE YBARRA

1. When Oklahoma City businessman John J. Harden built the Farmers Public Market around the beginning of the twentieth century, it was on the grounds of Delmar Gardens. While that amusement park is long gone, the market is going strong as the site of weddings, a large antique mall, and a produce, dairy, plant, and basically-everythingelse mercantile each Saturday. 311 South Klein Avenue, (405) 232-6506 or okcfarmersmarket.com

2. The Loaded Bowl is one of Oklahoma’s most popular vegan eateries for good reason. Though the menu is meat-free, it’s packed with flavorful and filling comfort food like cashew mac and “cheese,” nachos, and or-

ange “chicken.” 1211 Southwest 2nd Street, (405) 820-9599 or theloadedbowlokc.com

3. Those looking to recharge will find plenty of tasty fuel at Power House bar and grill. Dishes like Hawaiian pig biscuits, spicy chile pork verde, and Chipotle Chile Fudge Pie are shockingly good, but pair them with a Rio Sunrise—Dakabend rum, prickly pear, fresh cantaloupe, and lime—and you’ll have an electrifying evening. 1228 Southwest 2nd Street, (405) 702-0699 or facebook.com/powerhouseokc

4. While Palo Santo is the new kid on the block in the Farmers Market District, the bar and kitchen already has secured a place in the

hearts of Oklahoma cocktail enthusiasts. Where else can drinkers Instagram a Palo Mule concocted with house-brewed ginger beer, a Tokyo Old Fashioned sweetened with smoked black tea demerara syrup, or a tamarind-, Benedictine-, and ginger-flavored El Dorado? 1203 Southwest 2nd Street, (405) 594-3676 or palosantobar.com

5. Though the Farmers Public Market only hosts vendors on Saturday, Urban Agrarian a few steps away sells fresh local produce, cheese, bread, jam, and more seven days a week. Be sure to look out for the baked hand pies—they’ll probably be your new favorite dessert. 1235 Southwest 2nd Street, (405) 231-1919 or urbanagrarian.com

MEGAN ROSSMAN

THE LOADED BOWL PALO SANTO

POWER HOUSE

THE OKLAHOMA CITY FARMERS MARKET DISTRICT > okcfmd.com

Heaven Sent

In McAlester, customers can choose from two different dining experiences under one roof. ANGEL’S DINER features classic American comforts including beans and cornbread, fried green tomatoes, and, of course, juicy cheeseburgers. On the weekends, ANGEL’S STEAKHOUSE & PUB offers a perfect date night experience with low lights and high fare like filet mignon and Cajun-seasoned ahi tuna. 1402 South George Nigh Expressway in McAlester, (918) 423-2633 or angelsdinerok.com

LORI DUCKWORTH

“There are only forty people in the world, and five of them are hamburgers.”

—CAPTAIN BEEFHEART

Grills, Gills, and Thrills

The charm might be oldschool, but the upscale menu at The Vintage Steakhouse is fresh and delicious.

BY ERIC HOWERTON

OKLAHOMA AND CATTLE go hand in hand—or hand in hoof—like gravy on meatloaf or cheese on a burger. But Oklahoma and lobster? Do these two ever go hand in . . . claw?

Despite being landlocked on all sides, Oklahoma restaurants now offer some of the best seafood in the country, much of it flown in daily or throughout the week from docks hours away. One such oasis in the shade, reeling in patrons from across the state, is The Vintage Steakhouse, a unique, fanciful, and homey surf-and-turf eatery in Morrison.

Overseen by portraits in classic frames; twisted iron rods creeping through concrete ceiling beams; and glimmering, oversized chandeliers, The

Vintage Steakhouse dining room— open Wednesday through Saturday by reservation only—fills quickly with locals and out-of-towners who’ve caught wind of the restaurant’s upscale niche.

Stuffed jumbo shrimp, flame-kissed salmon, and “grilled and chilled” shrimp cocktails swim across the menu and sizzle through the air on server’s trays. Succulent sirloins, rib-eyes, and baconwrapped filets mignons are trotted out to tables under the eager eyes of watchful diners. But the lobster tail—grilled to perfection, split, and bursting from its crimson shell—is the pearl of the menu.

“People come from all over the world,” says Brittany Rupp, owner of The Vintage Steakhouse, noting the reputation her cold-water lobster has been generating.

The lobster here is uncommonly soft and velvety. While monitoring a lobster’s internal temperature to prevent the proteins from binding too tightly would alone be enough to satisfy most diners, Rupp has a trick up her sleeve that elevates a Vintage lobster to a class of its own. Whereas most chefs boil a lobster before serving, every crustacean—and every other protein served here, for that matter—is cooked over open flame.

“We are the only restaurant in the state of Oklahoma grilling steaks over charcoal indoors,” Rupp adds. “And nothing can mimic what we do with the rubs.”

While indoor smokers might be the standard for barbecue purists and pit masters, they are a rarity in upscale restaurants. Rupp and her staff cook on two Tulsa-made Hasty Bake signature series grills. With coal chambers that can be raised and lowered much like a salamander broiler, Hasty Bake ovens afford chefs more control over the proximity and intensity of the flame.

The Vintage Steakhouse serves perfectly grilled steaks and seafood starting at 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

BRENT FUCHS

BRENT FUCHS

Reservations are required for a scrumptious evening at The Vintage Steakhouse.

Steaks come out wall-to-wall red, diabolically seared, and with just enough smoke to evoke a campfire. The lobster jumps off the grill steaming with brine, uplifted with spice, and boasting a texture so pliant it makes boiled shellfish seem rubbery by comparison.

Rupp and her co-owner and husband Kyle opened the steakhouse in September 2022, honoring a family legacy of bringing satisfying fare to the masses. When she was younger, Brittany’s parents owned and operated The Vintage House in Burlington from 2008 to 2018, along with The Vintage Inn Bed and Breakfast. When the time was right, Brittany and Kyle recruited her brothers Justin Clark and Colten Craft to help with renovations. With decades of industry expertise and a commitment to reviving the family brand, The Vintage Steakhouse opened to the fanfare of local residents and to those who remembered The Vintage House and Brittany’s mother Lori Kraft’s excellent baking and pastry skills.

The location the Rupps chose for The Vintage Steakhouse also has a storied history. Set on the same block as the Morrison City Hall and across the street from the post office and the railway, the Vintage building previously functioned as a woodshop, then an indoor batting cage operation, and in the late 1970s and early ’80s was home to one of the largest illegal gambling halls in Oklahoma.

Today, however, there’s no gambling at The Vintage Steakhouse, just safe bets. With comforting and classy Victorian decor, superlative preparation of temperamental meats, and timeless sides like garlic mashed potatoes, fried mushrooms, cheesy potato soup, and grilled vegetables, The Vintage Steakhouse is a jackpot of flavor waiting to be claimed.

Cruise Route 66 out to the home of the 66-foot tall soda pop bottle! While you are there, pop in and check out hundreds of different soda pops! Then order up a shake and an old fashioned hamburger or a chicken fried steak! Learn more at pops66.com!

THE VINTAGE STEAKHOUSE

> 318 Woolsey Avenue in Morrison

> (580) 724-3600

> Search The Vintage Steakhouse on Facebook

Hunger Games

Shuffles Board Game Café in Tulsa is on a roll with food and fun aplenty.

BY CALEB FREEMAN

IN 2015, ERIC Fransen, a former math professor turned furniture maker, started making plans with his friends during their weekly game nights.

Board game cafés had opened in cities across North America from Toronto to Galveston. In a time when digital communication had become the new norm, these cafés offered patrons a chance to connect in person while discovering new games and rediscovering old favorites.

Fransen conspired to bring this experience to Tulsa. After a year and a half of hosting pop-up events and visiting board game cafés across the U.S., he opened Shuffles Board Game Café in 2018. Today, it is a beloved meeting spot in downtown Tulsa.

“There are so many places to go and play board games,” says Fransen. “But there aren’t very many board game cafés. It’s the combination of the food, coffee, and booze—and having everything in one space—that’s the draw.”

Located on the eastern edge of the Tulsa Arts District, Shuffles serves everything from local craft brews and cocktails to wraps and charcuterie boards.

More uniquely, it’s home to a rotating collection of more than a thousand games, including classic titles like Yahtzee, Catan, and Risk, as well as acclaimed newcomers like Scythe and Wingspan.

Curating a library this big is a timeconsuming venture. But Fransen, who completed his undergraduate degree at Oklahoma State University before beginning a PhD. in mathematics at University of Kansas, has a mind for numbers, systems, and strategies.

“It’s a restaurant with a lot of moving parts,” says Fransen. “It is a lot of work, so I have all kinds of systems and processes, even for how the games flow through Shuffles and how we organize them and all that.”

Thanks in part to crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, there are more options than ever gaming-wise, with more than three thousand board games released each year. That means titles constantly filter in and out of Shuffles as it keeps up with new releases.

Brandon Collins, the junior high band director for Coweta Public Schools, spearheads the effort to find and buy new games. Fransen also employs a game librarian who regularly checks the collection to make sure it’s well maintained and up to date on the Shuffles website.

“We have an amazing curation of games that we’ve kind of percolated or distilled down to this really big collection,” says Fransen, noting that new games start in the “hot game” section of the library, where they stay until newer ones arrive.

Though strategically designed with gaming cubes, a loft area, and gaming tables and chairs invented by Fransen himself, the space is warm and accessible—perfect for enjoying fried pickles made with Shuffles’ own fermented cucumbers, chicken and waffles, crispy potstickers served with house-made dipping sauce, and more.

VALERIE WEI-HAAS

Open to people of all ages, Shuffles also serves sodas, mocktails, and milkshakes— including the Twenty Dollar Shake with a double shot of espresso, Jameson, and Irish crème liqueur. Super fans also may quench their thirst with Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Star Trek liquid homages including adult butterbeer with vodka, butterscotch liqueur, and cream soda.

“We have an amazing curation of games that we’ve percolated or distilled down to this really big collection.”

For Fransen, an atmosphere of openness is the foundation for the café’s success. After almost being driven out of business by the COVID-19 pandemic, he says people are returning in full force—and not just from Oklahoma.

“I often get people from Dallas, Kansas City, northwest Arkansas, and Missouri that come to Tulsa to come to Shuffles,” he says. “They spend the whole day here, and they tell me their stories.”

These days, Fransen is fine-tuning Shuffles, working to revamp the website and find new ways to recommend games. In the long term, he’s working toward franchising the café and bringing it to other parts of the country. In the meantime, the Shuffles team members are continuing to spread the love of tabletop gaming to people across northeastern Oklahoma.

“Once someone starts going on the game, it’s just like when you were a kid or when you game with friends,” says Fransen. “It’s always a good time. I mean—barring the times where people are playing Risk and getting mad at each other.”

A game of Azul is more enjoyable alongside a Truffle Shuffle pizza with sweet pepper bacon.

BOARD GAME CAF É

Drunk History

The oldest fermented alcoholic beverage on Earth is finding new life in two Oklahoma meaderies.

BY GREG ELWELL

MUCH LIKE HER Trojan namesake, Cassandra Gore has a prediction most might not believe: The future of Oklahoma alcohol is in the past. Like, before-thewheel past.

In the small south-central Oklahoma town of Stonewall, Gore and her husband Matthew run B&G Meadery, home to a deliciously intoxicating beverage historians believe was first created in 6500 BCE.

Mead is the oldest fermented alcoholic beverage on Earth, predating both wine and beer, but a history lesson is only a small part of what the Gores serve in B&G’s rustic tasting room. Using clover honey, the meadery creates a variety of fruit-infused honey drinks that are ready to take Oklahoman palates on a roller coaster ride of flavor.

In 2017, they opened their shop in Stonewall and began putting out enticing flavors like the raspberry-and-mintfocused Razzle Dazzle, the Long Island iced tea-inspired Ice Chest, and the boozy blackberry of Darker the Berry.

“I tried using local wildflower honey, but the flavor of the honey was too strong to taste the fruit,” she says. “Clover honey is milder, so the other flavors can come through.”

The meads don’t just vary in flavor, though. B&G sells eight main varieties with alcohol content ranging from 7 percent all the way up to 18 percent.

Initially, Gore was going to sell the mead in mason jars, but because mead is considered wine—albeit one that ferments honey instead of grapes—she had to package it in 375 and 750 milliliter bottles per state law. But instead of wine bottles, she chose to use moonshine-style liquor jugs.

“What can I say?” she asks. “I’m country.”

The business already is attracting attention from outside the state. B&G has welcomed tasters from Tennessee, Arizona, Missouri, Colorado, Texas, and more. One fellow from Arkansas drives through Oklahoma on business every few months, and he always stops in to buy a case to take with him.

In Sapulpa, Alex Long’s Dancing Skeleton Meadery is approaching the ancient drink from a different direction. Instead of using fruit, Long and his crew use honeys from all over the world, several yeasts, and three types of oak with three kinds of char in several amounts for a nearly infinite variety of meads.

B&G offers mead club memberships that garner members 2, 4, or 6 jugs of nectar quarterly.

For those worried that honey wine will be too sweet, a sample of the meadery’s Nostalgia will disabuse them of that notion. Dancing Skeleton’s eighteen meads range from extremely dry to dessert sweet and every stop in between. Nostalgia could be confused for a Pinot Grigio were it not for that signature honey flavor, which is not interchangeable with that signature honey sugar. In fact, in making Dancing Skeleton mead, yeast does the yeoman’s work of converting every drop of sugar into alcohol—giving the company’s products ABVs that mostly hover at 12 percent, with a few exceptions. The sweeter meads have more honey added in after fermentation until they reach the desired flavor and sweetness.

“When people come in for a flight, I always suggest they pick one from each level of sweetness,” he says. “Some people who say they only drink very dry wines ended up preferring our sweeter meads, while some of those who thought they’d want sweeter meads liked the dry.”

The challenge, of course, is picking just four of the delicious meads to sample. Dancing Skeleton’s assistant production manager Jerrica Smith says her current favorite is F2 Tornado, which sits around semisweet and is made with raspberry blossom honey. The balance of sweetness and tartness helps this mead blow away thirst.

“You can make mead and sell mead, but it isn’t until people come back and buy it again that you’ve got a real business,” Long says. “When I realized the people who were coming to buy from us had tried it before or heard about it from someone who had, I knew this was going to work.”

B&G MEADERY

> 16451 County Road 3670 in Stonewall

> (580) 265-4654

> bgmeadery.com

DANCING SKELETON MEADERY

> 609 South Main Street in Sapulpa

> (918) 280-8481

> dancingskeletonmeadery.com

Golden Age

One Czech immigrant helped build a brewing empire—and the city of Yukon.

BY CAROL MOWDY BOND

AROUND THE TURN of the twentieth century, Czech immigrant John F. Kroutil began pushing Yukon toward modernization. He and his family created a monster milling operation with global ties—the Yukon Mill and Grain Company. An entrepreneur and innovator, Kroutil crafted Yukon’s infrastructure, including electricity, a bank, and massive job opportunities while using Yukon’s railroad system to propel new ideas forward.

Amid Yukon’s growth, a national paradigm shift took place on January 16, 1919, when the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified. Though it legally prevented the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages in the U.S., the situation didn’t change many Americans’ taste buds, which still

hankered for spirits. So bootlegging went viral.

Prohibition aside, Kroutil and a partner experimented cooking their suds in a barn located near the former’s $75,000 mansion ($1.31 million in today’s dollars) in the heart of Yukon, and local rumors still circulate that Kroutil was brewing in his home basement. But what was he doing with his beer during Prohibition?

“When John started brewing, family, friends, and employees enjoyed the fruits of his labor,” Kroutil’s great-grandnephew Ray Wright says.

he incorporated Oklahoma’s first legal, post-Prohibition beer brewing operation with the assistance of experienced, oldschool, German brewmasters. Kroutil named his endeavor Progress Brewing Company as a nod to their innovation and forward-thinking attitude.

Then on December 5, 1933, the TwentyFirst Amendment uncorked Prohibition and allowed states to write their own laws governing alcohol. Oklahoma’s tight leash on alcoholic beverages only allowed production of nontintoxicating, lowpoint beer with 3.2 percent alcohol content. But Kroutil knew the sweet spots. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1933. Then in 1934,

PROGRESS BREWING COMPANY

Progress Brewing Company’s historic taproom is located inside NewView Oklahoma. Tours are available by appointment only.

> 501 North Douglas Avenue in Oklahoma City

> (405) 232-4644

A Depression-era price tag of $500,000 launched Progress’ six-story, eighty-thousand-square-foot Oklahoma City brewhouse, which showcased medieval castle merlons and embrasures lining the roof. Located at 501 North Douglas Avenue, the facility was strategically situated near railroad tracks and atop an aquifer. Kroutil channeled water into a well house, then pumped it into the basement into concrete-lined cinder block tanks. A conveyer belt moved grain to the sixth floor. Then gravity moved the process to the floors beneath. At ground level, where workers bottled the beer, the train car rolled into the building

OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Progress Brewing Company is long gone, but its impact still is evident today.

and carried away the product. With a thousand employees, Progress eventually produced about a hundred thousand barrels annually, initially selling beer in cone-top cans and then in bottles. Kroutil was so proud that he even stamped his name on the beer labels.

“When John started brewing, family, friends, and employees enjoyed the fruits of his labor.”

The enterprising entrepreneur promoted his liquid gold through televised wrestling matches. Ads appeared on buildings, baseball game scorecards, and Future Farmers of America livestock and rodeo programs.

After Kroutil’s 1954 death, San Antonio’s Lone Star Brewing Company purchased Progress and produced the beer from 1959 into the 1970s. Of the initial post-Prohibition Oklahoma breweries, Kroutil’s was the longest-lived.

Lone Star sold the Oklahoma City building to the Oklahoma League for the Blind—now NewView Oklahoma—in 1973. NewView’s COO Damon Swift is proud of the building’s history; in fact, he gives tours of the Alpine-themed taproom along with the rest of the property by appointment.

While shelves haven’t held Progress beer in a long time, Oklahomans like Wright recall those days fondly.

“When I was young in the 1960s, after the Lone Star buyout, my job at Yukon’s mill was to offer farmers either a Grapette or a Lone Star Beer when they brought their wheat in,” Wright says.

And Wright is carrying on the Kroutil family legacy. He and his wife Cathy, a winemaker who owns Farfalla Wines not far from the founding patriarch’s historic Yukon mansion, are still filling glasses with the spirit of progress and inspiring exclamations of na zdravi—or “cheers” in Czech.

Epic Eats

Six restaurants in Oklahoma state parks mean less time looking for food and more time having fun.

BY KARLIE YBARRA

OKLAHOMA STATE PARKS offer just about every kind of outdoor adventure travelers might seek, from rock climbing to scuba diving. After a long day of hiking or horseback riding, visitors can relax and reconnect with friends and family in comfortable lodges or cabins. But historically, when it came to refueling for more fun, hungry patrons had to leave their little oases and schlep to the nearest town for food. Now, those staying at Lake Murray, Robbers Cave, Beavers Bend, Sequoyah, Roman Nose, and—as of early July—Quartz Mountain state parks can get their grub on without having to use up one ounce of gas thanks to The Lookout Kitchen

Just after the Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department announced that La Ratatouille—the dining group behind Falcone’s Pizzeria in Oklahoma City—would open restaurants in six parks, it became clear that the public was clamoring for these culinary outposts.

“We’ve received a lot of support from the local communities,” says owner and operator J.P. Wilson. “We’ve had chambers of commerce, mayors, and many more reaching out to see what they can do to help.”

Wilson and his team didn’t waste a single second: They started hiring staff, writing menus, and finessing all the necessary little details immediately. Luckily, they didn’t have to do much in the way of locations, since they already had some of the most beautiful views in the state.

“Each restaurant has a unique look,” Wilson says. “You get the gorgeous lake view at Murray; at Robbers Cave, you enter through a cave; at Quartz, you’re tucked right into the mountains. . . . You leave each one thinking, ‘This is the prettiest one.’”

While the sites are important to travelers, the tastes have to be stunning as well. The Lookout’s menus were carefully crafted to satisfy people of all ages and backgrounds—the same plethora of folks that visit Oklahoma’s state parks. Manny Davila, head chef and kitchen manager for the Lake Murray location, worked with Wilson and manager John Skidmore to highlight the best of Falcone’s authentic pizza and pasta while adding homestyle comfort classics and healthy options.

For instance, Davila knew scratch-made biscuits and creamy gravy were musts for the breakfast menu, but his big breakfast burrito stuffed with Blue and Gold sausage, bacon, and crispy hash browns is a less traditional but equally filling option. For a light lunch, folks can grab a sandwich or caesar salad before heading to the water. Dinnertime brings pizza—naturally—sandwiches, salads, traditional and Impossible burgers, and pasta, including the spaghetti and gargantuan half-pound meatballs made with Oklahoma beef. And, as difficult as it may be not to fill up on apps and entrées, The Lookout’s menu ends with a bang too.

LORI DUCKWORTH

Each Lookout Kitchen offers a different view, like this clear lake vista at Lake Murray State Park.

LORI DUCKWORTH

Exploring Oklahoma state parks is hungry work. Luckily, The Lookout Kitchen has plenty of options to satisfy a beastly hunger.

Cocktails, beer, and wine pair perfectly with a day of outdoor fun.

“You leave each one thinking, ‘This is the prettiest one.’”

“Our desserts are wonderful,” Davila says. “We’re featuring a giant chocolate chip cookie, decadent chocolate cake, strawberry cake, and an Oreo cheesecake that’s just to die for.”

While Wilson and Davila certainly hope guests enjoy their dining experience, they also hope to be part of a broader picture, to help create family memories and provide a hub for the towns that embraced them from the beginning of this whole process.

“We want to provide for the campers and people staying at the lodge, but we also want to draw in crowds from the surrounding communities so everyone can come out for a while, have a great meal, and relax with a wonderful view,” Davila says.

THE LOOKOUT KITCHEN

The Lookout Kitchen is open at Beavers Bend, Lake Murray, Robbers Cave, Roman Nose, and Sequoyah state parks. The Quartz Mountain location will be open in early July.

> TravelOK.com/ thelookoutkitchenoklahomastateparks

LORI DUCKWORTH

“Let’s go on with the show!” ANNIE GET YOUR GUN

Screen Play

Since 1927, the PONCAN THEATRE has entertained Ponca City residents and visitors with the luminaries of stage and screen including live productions starring Will Rogers and Ethel Barrymore. These days, Poncan audiences still can witness regularly scheduled movies, live concerts, children’s performances, and more at one of the most elegant venues in the state.

104 East Grand Avenue in Ponca City, (580) 765-0943 or poncantheatre.org

LORI DUCKWORTH

Tens Across the Stage

Once a stop for the likes of Etta James and Otis Redding, Tulsa’s Big 10 Ballroom now is shaping the stars of the future.

BY MARGARET SKAY HARTLEY

FOR NEARLY TWENTY years after its opening in 1948, the Big 10 Ballroom in North Tulsa was the place to be on Friday and Saturday nights.

“The Big 10 was a big deal,” says L. Joi McCondichie, remembering her parents and their friends heading out for date night in the ’60s. “Everybody was dressed up and decked out. The women had their hair done and their jewelry on, and the men were suited and booted.”

Inside the swanky art deco building, among white leather banquettes and stylish glass block features, the Big 10 offered smooth cocktails, a huge dance floor, and a safe place for black performers playing the so-called Chitlin’ Circuit. Giants of soul like Ray Charles, Etta James, Little Richard, Ella Fitzgerald, and Ike and Tina Turner took to the stage every weekend. People hired photographers to capture them in their evening best: Beaded gowns and long gloves or suits and tuxedos were the usual wear. It was hailed the “toniest Negro nightclub

this side of Harlem” by the Tulsa Tribune in a 1948 article.

For Andranez Williams-Stephens, the third daughter of Big 10 owner Lonnie Williams, those halcyon days sometimes found her sharing a breakfast table with The Temptations or The Platters, who had performed the night before and slept in one of the family’s spare bedrooms. She chuckles as she recalls her adolescent reaction when Count Basie or Fats Domino came for dinner.

“Here we go again, no Friday night football game,” she’d say.

Looking back, Williams-Stephens recognizes what an amazing time that really was. As the owner of Big 10 Pool Hall on Greenwood Avenue and Tulsa’s second black police officer, her father was a busy man, but along with his business partner and lifelong friend Richard Thompson, he managed to create an iconic venue despite segregation.

“What a life my father gave us,” she says of Lonnie.

However, the music faded in 1966 as performers skyrocketed to fame and became more difficult to book. After a short stint as an overstock warehouse for beauty products, the once-posh gathering place sat empty.

Lester Shaw was a child during the Big 10’s heyday, but he kept hearing stories of the Big 10 and its importance to the community throughout his life. As a music educator at Booker T. Washington High School, Shaw regularly drove past

the dismal structure on his way to and from work.

Shaw began to look past the collapsed roof and trees growing up through the dance floor. Instead, he saw a piece of history and a place where kids could connect to their past while shaping their future. There would be enough space for recording, photography, and filmmaking studios, and they would be able to act or dance or sing on the same stage as music icons Jackie Wilson, Bo Diddley, and of course, Shaw’s favorite, Ray Charles.

After much deliberation, Doc Shaw went all in. He purchased the Big 10 in 2007 and began a fifteen-year slog of fundraising, renovation, and restoration. Finally, the ribbon cutting took place on February 25, 2023, with much fanfare.

So after decades of silence, the Big 10 is regaining its voice as a vital venue in North Tulsa, as a new addition to Oklahoma’s culture tourism, and most immediately, as a new and bigger home base for Shaw’s A Pocket Full of Hope.

Founded in 2000, APFOH has worked with five thousand kids to inspire them through the performing arts. Shaw brings his heart, his education, and his experience as a musician, counselor, and educator to work with the kids of North Tulsa. In addition to providing a positive peer culture for kids, the nonprofit afterschool program has a 100 percent high school graduation rate.

Keeping those kids in mind, Shaw holds fast to preserving as much of the

BIG 10 BALLROOM

BIG 10 BALLROOM

Big 10 Ballroom hosts regular concerts, plays, fundraisers, and youth engagement activities.

original Big 10 as possible, even though he was advised early on by one potential donor to tear it down and start over. Shaw declined.

“If I did that, the Big 10 wouldn’t really be the Big 10 anymore,” he says. “I know what it used to be, but the kids need to know and have that historical perspective. It’s hard to empower them without one. Vision needs to go both ways.”

Judy Clark, another of Lonnie’s four daughters, is delighted to see her father’s legacy being shared with new generations in Tulsa.

“I am really happy for the simple fact that someone else has connected to a dream that my father had started,” she says. “Doc Shaw has the same idea but is focused on serving a different need for the black community.”

From showcasing some of the finest black talent to come through the Sooner State to helping create future superstars, Big 10 Ballroom has secured its spot as a pillar of Oklahoma culture.

> 1624 East Apache in Tulsa

> (918) 430-1700

> apocketfullofhope.com

BIG 10

BALLROOM

BIG 10 BALLROOM

BIG 10 BALLROOM AND A POCKET FULL OF HOPE

The Prices Were Right

Though the last store closed in 2002, TG&Y lives on the hearts of Oklahoma bargain hunters.

BY CAROL MOWDY BOND

OFTEN CHEEKILY REFERRED to as “Turtles, Girdles, and Yo-Yos,” TG&Y five-and-dime stores helped mold America’s lifestyle consciousness throughout sixty-seven years of existence.

Though the acronym actually stood for the founders’ last initials—Rawdon

E. Tomlinson, Enoch “Les” Gosselin, and Raymond A. Young—the last of the three men was perhaps the most instrumental in the founding of TG&Y. Born in Stillwater in 1904 as one of eight children, Young was picking cotton by age six.

Throughout his poverty-ridden childhood, traveling peddlers often helped break up the monotony.

Forerunners to small variety stores, wandering salesmen visited the Young farm with wagons loaded with everything from tonics to calico. Young’s mother gave peddlers a bed for the night in return for a few items she chose from their rolling mercantiles. Naturally, when Young needed money to pay his college tuition, he peddled door-to-door merchandise. After graduating from Oklahoma A&M with a degree in commerce and marketing in 1924, he soon went into merchandising and worked for S.H. Kress & Co., a five-anddime store chain.

At one point, some TG&Y stores had cafeterias so customers could shop, dine, and then shop some more.

In 1935, Young met fellow variety store owners Tomlinson—a Kansas expat living in Frederick—and Gosselin from Cordell. The trio wanted to purchase goods at wholesale prices so they could pass the savings along to their customers. That same year, they founded Central Merchandise Company in Oklahoma City. The first TG&Y store opened in Norman shortly thereafter.

Though the chain’s first stores were in the Oklahoma City metro, they became staples of rural communities and expanded into urban centers and suburbs when malls appeared during the 1960s. TG&Y Family Centers also emerged and averaged forty thousand square feet. By 1966, the brand mushroomed into the sixth-largest mass-merchandiser in the nation. Shoppers found TG&Y stores in 930 locations in twenty-nine coast-tocoast states by the late twentieth century, with the giant selling approximately $2 billion annually. Through the decades, several buyers took TG&Y’s reins until the final stores closed in 2002—also the year Young died.

But the iconic stores were more than the chain’s catch phrase: “Your best buy is at TG&Y.” They were also about relationships and experiences. In 1962, fifteen-year-old Ardmore native Bob Herriott began his fifteen-year TG&Y career as a stock boy, climbing to manager and beyond. The cheapest TG&Y item Herriott recalls is penny candy. And the highest-priced?

“We sold $1,500 pool tables and motorcycles,” Herriott says. “We had whatever you thought you had to have. We even had an orangutan from the Oklahoma City Zoo as part of a promotion.”

OKLAHOMA HALL OF FAME

> 1400 Classen Drive in Oklahoma City

> (405) 235-4458

By 1927, Young co-owned a five-anddime store in Pauls Valley. With a simple philosophy—“Have what people want at a price they can afford to pay”—he launched R.A. Young Co. 5¢ to $1.00 Store in Kingfisher in 1928. Within seven years, he’d expanded to eight rural towns— farmers needed quality products at low prices.

> oklahomahof.com

Though TG&Y stores may be long shuttered, those three letters and the unique shopping experiences they provided will linger on in many Oklahomans’ memories for much longer.

OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Raymond A. Young was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1967. See his portrait at the GaylordPickens Museum near the grand stairwell.

Sale Day at the Stockyards

Wind has whipped up the dust. The stockyard is shrouded in a haze the color of dirty sheep. Cattle groan complaints to the auctioneer while cowmen high step over patties and stream into the Corral Café.

J.L. Griffin hangs his head over a plate of today’s special: fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy.

Outside, he will help load livestock onto trailers, now parked at odd angles in the graveled lot. A dry leaf stuck in a pile of icy slush is flapping like a bird with a broken wing. He is wearing work clothes which he will not change till Saturday when he cleans up, slicks down his black hair and rides his bike to town.

—Jackie Smith

Jackie Smith is a grandmother, poet, and essayist. She is a senior in the Creative Writing Program at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, and she lives and writes in Tulsa.

JJ RITCHEY

The Lips at Forty

Even after four decades, one of Oklahoma’s most avantgarde bands still rocks.

BY PRESTON JONES

I THOUGHT THERE was a virtue in always being cool,” Wayne Coyne warbles less than a minute into The Flaming Lips’ tenth studio album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

Taken from the LP’s opening track, “Fight Test,” it’s a knowing line, and one that serves a dual purpose. The song’s protagonist is wrestling with masculinity—“I should have fought him/But instead I let him/I let him take you”—just as the band performing it was coming off its critically acclaimed 1999 masterpiece The Soft Bulletin, which endeared the Oklahoma City act to legions of new fans and increased its mainstream visibility.

All of that is to say, the Grammywinning Yoshimi, which marked its twentieth anniversary in 2022, and the

band—celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year—remain a vivid microcosm of The Flaming Lips’ left-of-center appeal.

“You don’t really want to just be doing the same thing year after year after year,” Coyne told the British music magazine Uncut last fall. “We’ve been around a long, long time. But luckily, every five or six years, it’s a little bit of a new world.”

The riotous, carefree, and lysergic experimentation of the band’s early years gave way to an embrace (well, perhaps more of a side hug) by the musical mainstream, which in turn gave The Flaming Lips the wherewithal to spend much of the 2000s and 2010s plunging ever deeper into the recesses of the human heart and mind.

The psychedelically inclined rock band—currently counting Coyne, Steven Drozd, Derek Brown, Matt Duckworth Kirksey, and Nicholas Ley as its core membership—has always embodied the spirit of the state in which it formed. There is a questing, fearless quality to their music, befitting a state whose history includes land runs, moments when its residents charged headlong into the future with little more than their ambition and a desire to make something of themselves.

Whether it’s the bracing oddity of 1986’s debut Hear It Is, the loopy singularity of 1997’s Zaireeka project, or the harrowing intensity of 2013’s The Terror, The Lips rarely shy away from fusing glittering pop melodies with avant-garde presentation. That commitment to experimentation and finding new, creative ways to share a vision—not to mention the relentless work ethic Coyne and his bandmates have had from the earliest days—has made The Flaming Lips a persistent point of pride for the state, so much so that the band’s “Do You Realize??” was named the official rock song of Oklahoma in 2009.

What lies beyond the horizon? Apart from touring across the world to perform Yoshimi in full during 2023, only the group knows what is left to explore.

It’s vanishingly rare to think about the number of bands that have remained as creatively inspired and artistically challenging over such a span of years, and to know one of them has steadfastly called Oklahoma its home base throughout is to feel gratitude. The Flaming Lips could’ve been a phenomenon from anywhere—but it’s one that first freaked out right here at home. How cool is that?

flaminglips.com

BLAKE STUDDARD

The Flaming Lips rocked The Criterion in Oklahoma City during their January 23, 2021, concert.

It’s easy enough to learn about history in books, but to really get a sense of the past, there’s nothing like seeing it for yourself. Using these ten itineraries, travel the state to immerse yourself in the world of yesterday— no flux capacitor required: W hether touring historic hotels, Native museums, or decades-old restaurants, every Okie will find an angle to explore on this road trip.

THE JIM THORPE Home has been preserved by the Oklahoma Historical Society so visitors can have a glimpse of what life looked like off the field for the Olympic gold medalist and his family. Don’t forget to take a gander at the 1876 Rice/Kerby log cabin, the oldest known homestead in Payne County, right next door. » 706 East Boston Avenue in Yale, (918) 387-2815 or facebook.com/jimthorpehome

NO COLLEGE WRESTLING program can claim more national titles in its history than the Oklahoma State Cowboys, so it’s fitting that the National Wrestling Hall of Fame calls Stillwater home. The hall not only honors legends of the sport— like brothers Pat and John Smith—but wrestlers who have gone on to great careers in other fields, like actor Mario Lopez.

» 405 West Hall of Fame Avenue in Stillwater, (405) 377-5243 or nwhof.org

SHARING A SPACE with city hall, the Johnny Bench Museum in Binger honors the area’s most

BALL POINTS

BY BEN LUSCHEN

It doesn’t matter what the rules are—if it’s athletics, there’s probably an Oklahoman somewhere at the top of the game. See some of the best history has to offer at these sporty sites.

famous former resident. Bench—who shone for the Cincinnati Reds alongside Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Tony Perez in the 1970s and often still is called the greatest catcher in baseball history—got his start as the son of a propane salesman in the farming community.

» 202 West Main Street in Binger, (405) 656-2426 or johnnybench.com

UNLESS YOU GREW up in Commerce in the 1940s, you probably never got invited to young Mickey Mantle’s house for a game of catch. But if you grew up playing baseball in the ’50s or ’60s—and really any period after that—you probably dreamed about it. Thankfully, part of that dream never has to die, as the Boyhood Home of Mickey Mantle has been preserved in Commerce. » 319 South Quincy Street in Commerce, (918) 675-4373

THERE MIGHT NOT be a bigger or more varied collection of sports memorabilia in the

Sooner State than can be found in Guthrie’s Territorial Capital Sports Museum. Among the curiosities are displays honoring Earlene Risinger, the only Oklahoman to play in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League depicted in A League of Their Own, and Harlem Globetrotter Hubert “Geese” Ausbie, who’s a founder of the museum. » 315 West Oklahoma Avenue in Guthrie, (405) 260-1342 or territorialcapitalsportsmuseum.org

AS COOPERSTOWN, NEW York, is to baseball, so is Oklahoma City to softball. The National Softball Hall of Fame chronicles the sport’s history from its creation in 1887 to the college game and the international exploits of Team USA—women and men—today. Don’t forget to check out the many championship plaques belonging to the Oklahoma Sooners.

» 2801 Northeast 50th Street in Oklahoma City, (405) 424-5266 or teamusa.org/usa-softball/ national-softball-hall-of-fame

1. CONSTRUCTION BEGAN on this 12,500-acre park in 1933, making Lake Murray State Park the oldest and largest in the state park system. Its iconic Tucker Tower, once intended to be a summer home for the state’s governor, now serves as a museum and 360-degree overlook above the park’s aquamarine lake. » (580) 223-4044 or TravelOK.com/ state-parks/lake-murray-state-park

2. ROMAN NOSE State Park is named for Southern Cheyenne chief Henry Roman Nose, whose profile graces the sign. Set among canyons and spring-fed creeks, the lodge, golf course, and rock-lined pool built

by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1938 are a handful of highlights worth traveling for. » (580) 6234218 or TravelOK.com/state-parks/ roman-nose-state-park

3. CRADLED WITHIN the Wichita Mountains in southwestern Oklahoma, Quartz Mountain State Park in Lone Wolf offers spectacular sunrises over Lake Altus-Lugert, some of the state’s starriest skies, and dramatic vistas. And with the roomy lodge, cabins, RV sites, and camping, it’s easy to kick your feet up. » (580) 563-2238 or TravelOK.com/stateparks/quartz-mountain-state-park

SEVEN WONDERS

BY MEGAN ROSSMAN

Built more than eighty years ago by the Civilian Conservation Corps, Oklahoma’s seven original state parks continue to be gathering places for nature lovers across the state.

4. BUBBLING WATERS give Boiling Springs State Park in Woodward its name, but it is underground rock formations—not temperature—that generate this effervescence. While visitors can’t cool off in the springs, they can splash around in the pool and Shaul Lake or hike along five walking trails in this oasis on the plains. » (580) 256-7664 or TravelOK.com/state-parks/ boiling-springs-state-park

5. WHETHER THEY want to zipline over Broken Bow Lake or Segway through the woods, guests at Beavers Bend State Park in Hochatown will find no shortage of thrills. When it’s time to relax, they’ll find the park’s newest digs at the recently renovated lodge and in twelve well-appointed tiny cabins on the bank of the Lower Mountain Fork River. » (580) 494-6300 or TravelOK.com/state-parks/ beavers-bend-state-park

6. THE SANS Bois Mountains have drawn travelers—and outlaws—for generations. When they’re not traipsing through the forest, riding horses, or rappelling, visitors find a variety of accommodations at Robbers Cave State Park ranging from quirky to luxurious, including a covered wagon, a yurt, cabins, and a cliffside lodge with mountain and lake views. » (918) 465-2562 or TravelOK.com/stateparks/robbers-cave-state-park

7. SMALL BUT densely wooded, Osage Hills State Park near Pawhuska is a hiker’s sanctuary, with walking trails, a lake, creeks, and bluffs to explore. It’s also home to several CCC structures, including Bobcat Hollow Bridge, a picnic pavilion, and native stone cabins. » (918) 336-4141 or TravelOK.com/ state-parks/osage-hills-state-park

ROAD TRIP OF FAME

BY GREG ELWELL

BEGIN IN MCALESTER at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, where Tom Joad, played by Henry Fonda, is released from prison to find his family's been evicted. From there, The Grapes of Wrath takes the Joads to California.

» 1301 North West Street in McAlester

THOUGH THE EL Reno motel that stood in for Amarillo in the film Rain Man was demolished, fans will want to stop by Cogar, home of the abandoned W.S. Kelly General Merchandise gas station, where Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman’s characters made a phone call.

» State Highway 37 and State Highway 152 in Cogar

Plenty of stars came from Oklahoma to Hollywood, and even more came from Hollywood to Oklahoma to make films. Here are some fun stops that set the scene for Sooner State movies and movie stars.

NOT ALL MOVIES are big-budget affairs, as guests at Skeleton Creek Productions and Simpson’s Old Time Museum in Enid can attest. Rick and Larry Simpson make their own classic-style Westerns as Stormy Lane and Texas Clapsaddle using props and sets in the museum. » skeletoncreekproductions.com

FILMING FOR THE movie Twister took place all over the state, but pivotal scenes were shot in Wakita, which was destroyed by an F5 in the film. That town now houses The Twister Movie Museum » twistermuseumstore.com, twistercountry.com

AT THE BEN Johnson Cowboy Museum in Pawhuska, get to know the Oscarwinning star of The Last Picture Show. Downtown also was a filming location for Killers of the Flower Moon and August: Osage County.

» 201 East 6th Street in Pawhuska, benjohnsoncowboymuseum.com

DANNY BOY O’CONNOR of House of Pain loved The Outsiders so much that he moved to Tulsa in 2016 and purchased the house where the Greasers lived and turned it into a museum to preserve it for future generations.

» 731 North St. Louis Avenue in Tulsa, theoutsidershouse.com

TULSA HOSTED WEIRD Al Yankovic’s star turn as the filming location for UHF Stop at Knotty Pig BBQ, Burger & Chili House to see where Yankovic’s character worked as a cook at the fictional Big Edna’s Burger World. » 6835 East 15th Street in Tulsa, facebook.com/knottypig

THE FIRST AND last name in Oklahoma film belongs to Will Rogers, at one time the biggest movie star in the world. Rogers’ life and career are immortalized at the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore and the Will Rogers Birthplace Ranch in Oologah. » willrogers.com

DARK DEPARTURES

BY KARLIE YBARRA

NORMALLY, IF YOU find yourself surrounded by the bones of a humpback whale, giraffe, monkey, or hundreds of other creatures, something has gone very wrong—unless you’re visiting SKELETONS: Museum of Osteology

This Oklahoma City ossuary may be a little unsettling, but it offers a one-ofa-kind glimpse of what lies beneath. » (405) 814-0006 or skeletonmuseum.com

ON A DARK May day in 1947, a massive tornado tore through the Dewey County town of Leedey, ending the lives of six people. Fifty years later, local children collaborated on a mixed-media sculpture to honor those who died, and visitors today can view

the Leedey Tornado Monument in the city park. » (580) 488-3616

SINCE AS FAR back as 1866, there have been reports of mysterious illuminated orbs floating in a heavily wooded area near Peoria. The far northeastern Oklahoma Spook Lights have attracted dozens of paranormal investigations over the years—some of which attribute the phenomenon to nearby headlights— but believers maintain the area is haunted by otherworldly beings.

» Search online for directions.

THRILL SEEKERS GET double the boo for their buck at Guthrie’s historic Stone Lion Inn , a Victorian man -

sion turned bed and breakfast. Visitors can stay in one of five luxurious suites—which were built in 1907—and perhaps encounter one of the ghostly residents, but they also can solve a ghastly crime during the inn’s themed murder mystery dinners. » (405) 282-0012 or stonelioninn.com

NOTHING CREATES RUMORS of hauntings like an epic tragedy, and that seems to be the case for the Sacred Heart Mission in Konawa. While attending a service at the beautiful Sacred Heart Catholic Church might be an uplifting experience, a visit to the nearby graveyard and mission, which was destroyed by fire in 1901,

often leaves travelers with a sense of dread. » (580) 925-2145

A STATE AS young as Oklahoma might not seem like a paragon of paranormal activity, but there are dozens of paranormal tour operators to help you embrace the eerie. » There’s the Guthrie Ghost Walk (405/2938404 or guthrieghostwalk.com), Enid Cemetery Tombstone Tales (580/233-3643 or visitenid.org), Historic Fort Reno Historical Spirit Tours (405/262-3987 or fortreno. org), and Tulsa Spirit Tours features walks in downtown Tulsa and Broken Arrow (918/694-7488 or tulsaspirittour.com), and more, especially during October.

This terrifying tour will curdle your blood, tingle your spine, and show you the spookier side of the Sooner State.

THE FIRST AMERICANS Museum in Oklahoma City is dedicated to telling the stories of the thirty-nine Native nations headquartered in Oklahoma with films, recordings, games, and so much more. This 175,000 squarefoot facility houses galleries, event spaces, a theater, Thirty Nine Restaurant, and an expansive gift shop. » (405) 594-2100 or famok.org

OUTSIDE THE MAIN building of the Chickasaw Cultural Center near Sulphur, visitors find sculptures, gardens, and even a traditional Chickasaw village on the grounds. Inside,

NATIVE SOIL

BY MEGAN ROSSMAN

the Chikasha Poya Exhibit Center guides visitors from the tribe’s origins through modern times. Stop by the Aaimpa’ Café for venison stew, Indian tacos, grape dumplings, and other treats. » (580) 622-7130 or chickasawculturalcenter.com

EXHIBITS TELLING THE story of the Choctaw Nation wind visitors through more than twenty-two acres of indoor and outdoor spaces at the Choctaw Cultural Center in Calera. The living village, Luksi Activity Center, Champuli Café, and Hvshi Gift Store are just a few highlights on

this cultural expedition. » (833) 7089582 or choctawculturalcenter.com

HISTORY, MILITARY, AND religion are front and center at the Comanche National Museum and Cultural Center in Lawton. Guests can learn about World War II Code Talkers, go on an interactive bison hunt, and see art by Doc Tate Nevaquaya, Cynthia Clay, Quanah Parker Burgess, Woogie Watchetaker, and others. » (580) 353-0404 or comanchemuseum.com

tage Center in Shawnee showcase thousands of artifacts, art pieces, and exhibits that tell the story of the Potawatomi people. Don’t miss the aviary, which houses injured eagles that are being rehabilitated or homed permanently. » (405) 8785830 or potawatomiheritage.com

Learning more about the state’s Indigenous histories and cultures is as easy as hopping in the car. Here are eight stops to get you started.

ALONG WITH SEVEN thousand square feet of cultural exhibits, the Cherokee National History Museum in Tahlequah offers classes on making moccasins, basket weaving, and other crafts. Visitors also can learn more about the Cherokee Syllabary introduced by Sequoyah in the nineteenth century. » (877) 779-6977 or visitcherokeenation.com

THE GALLERIES AT the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Cultural Heri-

A TWENTY-TWO-FOOT BRONZE figure of the namesake Ponca chief greets visitors at the Standing Bear Park, Museum, and Education Center in Ponca City, with viewing courts dedicated to six tribes situated throughout the grounds. » (580) 762-1514 or standingbearpark.com

THE PLAINS INDIANS & Pioneers Museum in Woodward covers the history and culture of northwest Oklahoma, including Kiowa buffalo hunters and the lives of Kiowa and Cheyenne tribes. A beaded cane made by a wife of Geronimo and given to prominent local lawyer Temple Houston also is on display. » (580) 256-6136 or nwok-pipm.org

BY BEN LUSCHEN

1. The Love County Courthouse in Marietta sits a few miles from the banks of the Red River and was one of the first courthouses built in Oklahoma following statehood. Its grand white columns and clock-tower dome earned the building a place on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. » 405 West Main Street in Marietta, (580) 276-3059

2. The story of Native and settler cohabitation in the area is etched into the details of the Pawnee County District Court. Brush past the façade of this courthouse in Pawnee and you’ll miss the intricate particulars of bas relief paneling and stone lintels that give the art deco edifice a distinct Western feel. » 500 Harrison Street in Pawnee, (918) 762-2547 or

3. For more than a hundred years, visitors to Sayre have been impressed by the tall, domed Beckham County Courthouse. The structure was built in 1911, and its distinguished stature was enough to earn the building a cameo in the 1940 film version of The Grapes of Wrath » 104 South Third Street in Sayre. (580) 928-2457 or facebook.com/beckhamcounty

4. The first thing visitors to the Noble County Courthouse in Perry notice is the bronze Hopes and Dreams, erected in 1993 to commemorate the Cherokee Strip Land Run centennial. Little else has changed on the site of the white stone building with fluted Corinthian pillars since its opening

Perry. (580) 336-2141 or noblecountyok.com/county-clerk

5. Originally McAlester’s post office and federal courthouse,the Carl Albert Federal Building was renamed in 1985 for Carl Albert, speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to ’77. Built in the neo-classical revival style, it now is home to the McAlester Police Department, municipal court, and local emergency call center. » 301 East Carl Albert Parkway in McAlester, (918) 423-9300

6. If you're coming from or going to the Panhandle’s remote Black Mesa summit, Boise City’s Cimarron County Courthouse will be one of

you’ll see on the way. The red brick edifice, originally opened in 1926, looks good considering it was accidentally bombed during an Army training mishap in 1943.

» 1 Courthouse Square in Boise City, (580) 544-2221

7. Even Rocky Balboa would have trouble ascending the interminable stairs leading to Pawhuska’s Osage County Courthouse, perched above town on a hill. When guests finally do make it to the top, they’ll be standing at the site of the infamous murder trial of Ernest Burkhart—the 1926 “trial of the century” depicted in the book and upcoming feature film Killers of the Flower Moon.

» 600 Grandview Avenue in

Sure, these structures serve their own stately functions, but often, these centers for law and order become majestic town symbols with decades of captivating stories contained within their walls. All rise for this collection of honorable county courthouses.

COME FLY WITH ME

BY NATHAN GUNTER

Since the early days of flight, Oklahoma has been a hub for aviation—from airplane manufacturing to space exploration. Trek through some of the state’s most high-flying history.

CLYDE CESSNA TESTED his creations in northwestern Oklahoma near Jet. Stop at the Alva Regional Airport Museum in the Alva airport terminal for displays on Cessna’s work plus antique airplane parts and World War II artifacts. » (580) 327-2898

IN 1929, THE Transcontinental Air Transport line added a stop in Waynoka, drawing Will Rogers and Amelia Earhart to the town. Learn about it at the Waynoka Air Rail Museum in the town’s old Harvey House and Santa Fe train depot. » waynoka.org

MANGUM NATIVE PAUL Powell flew the Stinson SM-8 aircraft Wings

PAST FOOD

BY GREG ELWELL

Oklahoma’s historic restaurants only reach back a century or so, but these eateries are still serving tasty favorites to customers all these years later.

of Mercy, one of Oklahoma’s first air ambulances, in the 1930s. His flights are memorialized at the Old Greer County Museum & Hall of Fame in his hometown. » oldgreercountymuseum.org

HE PILOTED THE Apollo 10 spacecraft that met the Soviets in lunar orbit, and in his hometown of Weatherford, Thomas P. Stafford’s legacy lives at the Stafford Air & Space Museum » staffordmuseum.org

THE ONLY MAN ever fashionable enough to pair a white eye patch with a white suit, Wiley Post was the first pilot to fly solo around the world. Learn about him by

visiting Science Museum Oklahoma. » sciencemuseumok.org

IN OKLAHOMA CITY, The NinetyNines Museum of Women Pilots celebrates the considerable number of women in flight and serves as headquarters of The Ninety-Nines, a women’s pilot association founded in part by Amelia Earhart. » museumofwomenpilots.org

GO BOLDLY IN the planetarium, learn about the Tuskegee Airmen, and be a pilot in the Ray Booker Flight Lab at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium, the state’s flagship for all things aviation. » tulsamuseum.org

JOSEPH BARTLES FORMED the Dewey Aeroplane Company to build Curtiss JN-4D “Jennies," for the government, marking the beginning of aircraft manufacturing in Oklahoma. Learn all about it at the Bartlesville Area History Museum » bartlesvillehistory.com

PERRY’S KUMBACK LUNCH has been a local favorite since 1926, serving café classics including smothered meatloaf, homemade chicken and noodles, and coconut cream pie. Outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd reportedly once entered the restaurant with his gun, sent all the customers packing, and demanded the owner make him the biggest steak in the place. » 625 Delaware in Perry, (580) 336-4646

THE TOWN OF Okarche has a big claim to fame with Eischen’s Bar, which proclaims itself the oldest still-operating bar in Oklahoma. Despite the name, Eischen’s is more an eatery than a bar these days, though pitchers of freshly tapped beer pair nicely with that fa-

mous fried chicken. » 109 South 2nd Street in Okarche, (405) 263-9939 or eischensbar.com

OKLAHOMA CITY’S CATTLEMEN’S Steakhouse is the place to take out-oftown guests for an old-school dining experience. It’s famed for its Presidential Choice T-bone Steak, which was a favorite of President George H.W. Bush during his visit to the Sooner State. » 1309 South Agnew Avenue in Oklahoma City, (405) 2360416 or cattlemensrestaurant.com

SITTING HALFWAY BETWEEN Oklahoma City and Tulsa on Route 66, Stroud’s Rock Cafe has been feeding hungry travelers since 1939. This classic eatery

nearly disappeared in a fire in 2008, but renovations brought it back bigger than ever, ensuring future generations of road-trippers will get to taste a bevy of Oklahoman and German fare, including chicken-fried steaks, spaetzle, and unforgettable peach cobbler. » 114 West Main Street in Stroud, rockcafert66.com

MOVIE STAR, NEWSPAPER columnist, and trick roping expert Will Rogers was a frequent patron of Ike’s Chili in Tulsa, which has been serving Green Country diners since 1908. In addition to chili served straight, on spaghetti, in a Frito chili pie, or atop a cheese coney, the restaurant makes burgers, salads, and wraps for its still-loyal clientele.

» 1503 East 11th Street in Tulsa, (918) 838-9410 or ikeschilius.com

OKLAHOMA ISN’T THE first place people think of when they want fresh fish, but Tulsa’s White River Fish Market is a whole other matter. Since 1932, the market has been bringing in fresh fish from the East Coast for sale. In 1942, the market added a restaurant serving fresh seafood grilled, broiled, and fried. » 1708 North Sheridan Road in Tulsa, (918) 835-1910 or whiteriverfishmarket.com

HORSE COURSE

BY KARLIE YBARRA

THE GREAT WESTERN painter Augusta Metcalfe was particularly inspired by horses, and she captured their bold spirit with reverence and awe from the age of four. Now, the Break O’ Day Farm and Metcalfe Museum in Durham allows visitors to tour the former homestead where Metcalfe trained horses, learn about the equine-powered tools that helped tame her 160-acre ranch, and see more than two hundred photographs, sketches, and paintings depicting the grandeur of the West.

» (580) 655-4467 or metcalfemuseum.org

IN THE 1960S, television viewers had a touch of hay fever thanks to Mister Ed, the sitcom about a talking horse gaslighting his bumbling owner. Though there’s been much debate over whether it’s actually equine actor Bamboo Harvester or his body double Pumpkin buried here, fans are welcome to visit the grave of Mister Ed near Tahlequah to pay their respects—just be sure to bring apples or peanut butter to leave as an offering.

» (918) 456-3742

IN MARCH 2014, the Oklahoma legislature recognized the Oklahoma Colonial Spanish horse as the official heritage horse of Oklahoma. For decades, hundreds of these magnificent steeds have roamed the southeastern Oklahoma hills. The Rattan-based Oklahoma Heritage Horse Sanctuary facilitates tours for visitors to see the colorful horses in their natural, breathtaking environs.

» (580) 271-8678 or okheritagehorse.com

IN 2007, TO celebrate the state centennial, Shawnee’s then-mayor Chuck Mills tasked local artists with a collaborative public project: Horses in the City. These multimedia sculptures—each with a different theme ranging from Steampunk to a seaglass mosaic—were installed in locations around Shawnee, and more are added each year. Grab a brochure from Visit Shawnee to find the thirty-four painted horses currently on display.

» (405) 275-9780 or visitshawnee.com

SOME OF THE most famous names in Western history thrilled audiences around the world with their horsemanship as part of the 101 Ranch Wild West show: Lucille Mulhall, Bill Pickett, and Geronimo, just to name a few. Today, visitors can peruse artifacts owned by 101 performers and ranch hands as well as an elaborate miniature display of a live performance in the lower room of Marland’s Grand Home in Ponca City. » (580) 767-0427 or marlandgrandhome.com

KNOWN AS THE parade horse, palominos long have captured the public’s admiration thanks to their golden coats. The Palomino Heritage Museum, located behind the Palomino Horse Breeders Heritage Foundation office in Tulsa, houses a thoroughbred collection of artifacts related to the breed and horsemanship in general, including the last silver-gilded saddle famed leathersmith Ted Flowers crafted before he was arrested for murder.

» (918) 438-1234 or palominoheritage.com

The West couldn’t have been tamed without noble steeds, so trot through history at these fine equine destinations.

ANCIENT INDIGENOUS HISTORY sidles up to the Wild West at the rocking Hoot Owl Ranch near Kenton. This working cattle ranch gives guests a taste of a mostly bygone cowboy life and lets them take a tour of ancient petroglyphs in the onsite cliff faces. » hootowlguestranch.com

VISITING MEDICINE PARK already feels like stepping through some kind of portal to the past, so why not stay in a historic home? Book the Bonnie & Clyde cabin, one of the town’s original cobblestone buildings now named for the famous

outlaw couple whose notorious spree blew through this area. » airbnb.com/rooms/33856396

THE PENNINGTON INN in Tishomingo—located across the street from Blake Shelton’s Ole Red—occupies an early 1900s building that has housed a slew of businesses including a furniture store, Stamp’s Dry Goods, Marty’s Boutique, and more. When in town, don’t forget to tour the many Native historic sites like the Chickasaw Council House Museum and the Chickasaw Bank Museum. » thepennington-ok.com

NIGHTS TO REMEMBER

BY NATHAN GUNTER

Whether they played host to famous guests—or ghosts—or just offer a glimpse at bygone times in Oklahoma, these hotels are each a must-stay for history buffs.

WHETHER YOU BELIEVE in ghosts or not, you’ll believe in the supernatural power of a cushy night’s sleep at Oklahoma City’s luxurious Skirvin Hilton. This 1911 building marries vintage charm and modern comfort like jazz at the Red Piano Lounge, an indoor pool, digital keys, and comfy linens.

» hilton.com/en/hotels/okcskhf-theskirvin-hilton-oklahoma-city/

OPENED IN 1925, Tulsa’s Mayo Hotel featured new-fangled ceiling fans and the city’s first running ice water. Over the years, notable guests included John F. Kennedy, Lucille Ball, and Elvis Presley. Since reopening in 2009, it’s become a bastion for travelers who want to spend a night in historic comfort. » themayohotel.com

KNOWN BY ITS architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, as the “tree that escaped

the crowded forest” due to its arboreal-inspired design, Bartlesville’s Price Tower is one of Oklahoma’s most unique night stays. On the first floor, stop by the new Price Tower Plaza restaurant for steaks, gumbo, and other Southern favorites. » pricetower.org

HOUSED IN A 1912 building just a few steps from Pawhuska’s most popular attractions, the Frontier Hotel is the perfect spot for a historic exploration of the town the Osage have called home since the Trail of Tears. With Killers of the Flower Moon headed to theaters, it’s sure to become a popular hub for history buffs from all over the world.

» frontierhotelpawhuska.com

Ellis Paul performs on the Pastures of Plenty stage at the 2022 Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah.

AFTER MORE THAN A QUARTER CENTURY, THE WOODY GUTHRIE FOLK

FESTIVAL HAS MADE OKEMAH A YEARLY MUSIC DESTINATION AND GIVEN

MUCH-NEEDED HISTORIC SHINE TO THIS TOWN’S MOST FAMOUS SON.

BY BEN LUSCHEN

HEAT HAS LINGERED THROUGHOUT

most of the day, but now a cool, gentle breeze rolls in over Pastures of Plenty. Steadily, people claim their spot by plopping down yard chairs and blankets on the open field. The water tower overhead is printed with the phrase OKEMAH INDUSTRIAL PARK in capital letters. This is the familiar setting for the 2022 Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, the twenty-fifth edition of the annual music and cultural celebration honoring the birthday week of the seminal Dust Bowl scribe who was born and raised in the town.

More than fifty artists have shared their songs in Okemah throughout the week, but now it’s Sunday evening, and only a handful of performances remain. If any of the faithful find this bittersweet, it’s not at the forefront of their minds as Tulsa-based singer Branjae and her band make their way through the smooth rhythm of one of their opening numbers.

Branjae’s stage theatrics separate her from the festival’s more stationary musicians. She takes heavy drinks from a prop bottle as part of a song about being addicted to love. Later, she grabs the mic stand and mimes playing it like a guitar. There are even costume changes mid-set. The audience loves every minute.

Branjae’s blues, R&B, jazz, and hip-hop might seem out of place for a folk festival, but above all else, she is a songwriter and a storyteller dedicated to peace. Her show is an extension of those qualities, which couldn’t be any more Guthrie. At WoodyFest, she’s right at home.

“Are you happy to be alive?” she shouts from the stage with a huge smile. The crowd responds with an enthusiastic affirmative.

“Excellent,” the artist says. “That’s why we’re here.”

there was Guthrie, there were Will Rogers, the Carter Family, and Lead Belly. And before any of them—before anyone at all—there was the wet plop of a diving alligator, the pitter-patter of rain dripping down on dry leaves, the steady gale of wind and sky wisping through the desert sands.

“Life is this sound, and since creation has been a song,” Guthrie wrote in Bound for Glory, his partially fictionalized 1943 autobiography. “And there is no real trick of creating words to set to music, once you realize that the word is the music and the people are the song.”

In his fifty-five years, Woody Guthrie never experienced booming digital surround sound, Ticketmaster presales, or worldwide arena tours. In that spirit, WoodyFest feels like a return to the natural order of music. This July, the folk festival, entering its twenty-sixth year, will feature headliners like Folk Uke (the country-folk duo of Cathy Guthrie, Woody’s granddaughter by way of Arlo, and Willie Nelson’s daughter Amy), John Fullbright, and Parker Millsap, in addition to days’ worth of other music and programming. It has no gimmicks, no façades. Nothing separates listener and artist. Musician, message, instrument, stage—music made with simple, natural ingredients without artifice.

WoodyFest is a festival that primarily attracts folk-loving acoustic singersongwriters, but what matters here more than genre is a dedication to message, storytelling, and peace. Branjae might stand out from the other acts with her performance style, costume changes, and soulful R&B grooves, but in songcraft, she fits right in.

“Everyone is so welcoming at WoodyFest,” she says after the show. “They really love the music, and they aren’t stuck on, ‘Well, you’re not folk.’ They really listen to your message.”

BEFORE THERE WAS A BOB DYLAN , a Bruce Springsteen, or a Joni Mitchell, there was a Woody Guthrie. And before

Guthrie remains a folk icon around the globe, but even the most legendary figures can fade into obscurity if no one puts in the effort to preserve their memory. Randy Norman, president of the Woody Guthrie Coalition—the organization that works year-round to put on the festival—has been involved with WoodyFest since its opening year. He

says awareness of Guthrie and his monumental anthem “This Land Is Your Land” is not as automatic with today’s youth as it has been in generations past.

“Time moves on; people don’t remember stuff like that,” Norman says.

“People care about right now. Our job as a festival is to hopefully educate and help them learn.”

MIKE DUNCAN

Joel Rafael has performed at the festival every year since it started.

Tulsa musician Branjae at the 2022 festival

GUTHRIE’S LEGACY TAKES many forms at WoodyFest. There are musical performances from fifty artists and bands over five days in venues like the historic downtown Crystal Theater and the cozy Corral, in addition to the stage

at Pastures of Plenty on the east side of Airport Lake near the edge of town. But the music is just the beginning. Ticket holders can attend a variety of unique educational presentations and programs each year. The 2023 festival will include lectures like “Finding & Using Your Songwriting Voice” from author and songwriter Mary Gauthier and “A Con-

versation Around Mental Health” with music photographer Chad Cochran. WoodyFest isn’t just about passively taking in songs but sparking dialogue and building a sense of community. Miranda Huff, the festival’s treasurer, says the event’s power to foster conversations and new understandings between strangers never ceases to amaze.

MIKE

DUNCAN

MIKE DUNCAN

EVERYONE IS SO WELCOMING AT WOODYFEST. THEY REALLY LOVE THE MUSIC, AND THEY AREN’T STUCK ON, ‘WELL, YOU’RE NOT FOLK.’ THEY REALLY LISTEN TO YOUR MESSAGE.

— BRANJAE

Crowds gather every year in front of the familiar Woody banner.

Fiddle player Sienna Yetter accompanies R.T. Valine.

“They see perspectives of the world they never would have, simply because they come here and meet somebody and become their friend,” she says.

WoodyFest’s concurrent annual Children’s Festival has become one of the biggest aspects of the schedule. Hundreds will gather for free in Okemah City Park for family-friendly music, face-painting, jewelry-making, a giant water slide, and more. Best of all, the first two hundred kids receive prizes like free ukuleles, harmonicas, music lessons, and T-shirts just for showing up. The Children’s Festival produces a lot of happy families, but longtime WoodyFest board member and volunteer Cheryl Graham knows the importance of this outreach goes well beyond Saturday fun.

“That’s our start,” Graham says. “That’s getting Woody into these homes. These kids are taking Woody home.”

The buzz of activity also transforms the town of Okemah and its population of around three thousand. Every parking space downtown is full. Hotels in city limits are booked—as they are in surrounding towns as well.

“The town has a completely different vibe that week than it has the rest of the year,” says Bobby Green, marketing manager at Okemah Casino, which is operated by the Muscogee Nation, one of WoodyFest’s sponsors. Green grew up in Okemah and says his friends come back for the festival each year. “Every business in town, they profit from it.”

was not at all honored. Visitors could find signs in storefronts decrying the songwriter as un-American and communist. Norman says it took a couple of years before the majority of the town started to come around on the festival.

Joel Rafael, a California-based singersongwriter and Guthrie aficionado has, impressively, performed at every iteration of WoodyFest since it began in 1998. His dedication is so great that he received an official artist legacy award from the festival and even has a song, “Talking Oklahoma Hills,” that explicitly details his early experiences with WoodyFest. Rafael says the generational difference WoodyFest has made in Okemah is clear. Guthrie’s reputation has been largely rehabilitated here.

WOODYFEST’S BOON IN OKEMAH DID not come unearned. Longtime festival organizers tell stories of a time decades ago when Guthrie’s legacy in the town

“Someone who is younger, they want to perform in the festival, whereas when the festival started, the only people to cast judgment were the people who were

A backyard performance area at the Rocky Road Tavern in Okemah

MIKE DUNCAN

Folk singer Jaimee Harris

already there and already had opinions,” he says. “For the younger folks, this is just part of the legacy of their town, and they’re proud of it.”

Rafael’s experiences in Okemah predate WoodyFest. As an obsessive student of Guthrie and his writings in an era before Tulsa’s Woody Guthrie Center or the proliferation of the internet, new information about his life and career was hard to come by. Rafael read what little was available to him, including Bound for Glory, but while on a cross-country tour in 1996, he noticed a sign on the highway for Okemah and recognized it as Guthrie’s birthplace. He immediately pulled into the town to see the troubadour’s former stomping ground with his own eyes. He walked into a quiet local shop and talked to the owner about Guthrie. She went back to the storage and returned to show him an old town sign naming

TRANSFORMS

Okemah as the songwriter’s birthplace. The placard had been vandalized, painted with a misspelling of the word communist and other defamations. But Rafael explains that pinning a particular ideology or set of beliefs to the freethinking Guthrie is likely a fool’s errand.

“You hear people ask the question, ‘Well, what would Woody do?,’ like they’re going to come up with the answer,” he says. “But I don’t think there is an answer to that question when people ask it. He was pretty unpredictable.”

BACK AT PASTURES OF PLENTY, as sunset slips to dusk on WoodyFest’s final day, the illuminated main stage stands out in a sea of rural darkness. The sky is so big and the terrain so flat that the starlit heavens bend in a dome over all

who gather. Looking up at the same summer sky Guthrie once did, it’s easy to imagine how the sight might have shaped him. There’s something about the smallness of existence that brings what truly matters in life to the foreground. Closing out the festival is the Guthrie Girls duo, Cathy and Sarah Lee, Woody’s granddaughters. As they lead the singalong of “This Land Is Your Land,” a song they once assisted their father Arlo with in the years he performed here, there is no possible way to feel closer to those famous words. The crowd joins in with smiles they can’t contain. The world might never know peace, but for a few days each July, this land sure does.

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woodyfest.com

MIKE

DUNCAN

LINDSEY FLOWERS

LORI DUCKWORTH

Woody Guthrie Folk Festival

July 12-16 in Okemah

A Woody Guthrie mural and nearby statue in downtown Okemah pay homage to the iconic musician.

THE TOWN OF OKEMAH AND ITS POPULATION OF AROUND THREE THOUSAND. EVERY PARKING SPACE DOWNTOWN IS FULL. HOTELS IN CITY LIMITS ARE BOOKED—AS THEY ARE IN

The Children’s Festival is a popular draw for families at WoodyFest.

BLESSED IS H e

The Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine honors an Okarche-born priest and the United States’ first Catholic martyr. This massive campus will attract thousands of annual pilgrims and visitors while also providing a new church home for Oklahoma City’s growing Hispanic community.

OLDEN SUNLIGHT

BOUNCES off the bright cream exterior, orange terra cotta-tiled domes, scrolled arches, and bronze crosses of the towering Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine, bathing the Spanish baroque and mission-style church with visual warmth reminiscent of the Latin American churches that served as its inspiration. The glowing cathedral is sharply contrasted by the crisp, near-freezing temperatures of a bright February Oklahoma morning—a reminder that while this structure feels like it should be in a historic Mexican town square, it’s intentionally placed on a fifty-three-acre swath of land in southeast Oklahoma City.

In fact, everything is intentional about this place, from the grand main church and intimate prayer chapel to the sprawling pilgrimage center

and leisurely plaza. The new $50 million facility now is Oklahoma’s largest Catholic church, a feat organized to honor the United States’ first papally recognized martyr: Blessed Stanley Rother, a priest from Okarche, Oklahoma.

“Blessed Stanley, pray for us,” chant the crowds that stretch around the building. This morning, thousands of faithful are waiting to be among those who witness the church and altar dedication Mass. They chat in a mix of languages, sharing the locations of their home parishes and their excitement to see the culmination of the multiyear project.

Then the transition begins. The church accepts the visitors, the 3,600-pipe organ rings with the accompaniment of a robust choir, the walls and altar are anointed and incensed, and the Catholic faithful celebrate the Eucharist. And after, this new place built on Oklahoma soil becomes a sacred space, one that is blessed.

BY BROOKE ADCOX | PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRENT FUCHS

The Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine in Oklahoma City was dedicated in February. It is open daily to visitors, and on July 28, it celebrates the Feast Day of Blessed Stanley Rother.

T’S A VERY Oklahoma story,” says the Very Reverend Donald Wolf, a first cousin of Blessed Rother and current rector of the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine and Sacred Heart churches. “The first thing about Stan’s life is that it’s a life you know and recognize, because you’ve met one thousand people like Stan Rother. You might be one.”

Stanley Rother was born to Franz and Gertrude Rother, a German farming couple, in Okarche in 1935. The oldest of four children, he spent his childhood working the farm, milking cows, and collecting eggs before heading to the nearby Holy Trinity Catholic School. It was assumed that Blessed Rother would take over the family’s farm, but in 1953, the eighteen-year-old announced he would enter seminary.

Seminary was a challenge. He struggled learning Latin, a requirement for theology studies. In a letter to Oklahoma City Bishop Victor Reed, the rector of Rother’s first seminary wrote that he lacked “intellectual ability to continue on for the priesthood.” But the archdiocese’s leaders rallied around him, helping him locate another seminary where he could continue his studies.

Blessed Rother soon graduated from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Maryland, having passed Latin and theology. He was ordained into the priesthood on May 25, 1963, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Oklahoma City and was immediately put to manual works of service, including clearing

land and preparing retreat cabins on Lake Texoma. His priestly humility was present in his personal life as well.

“At family gatherings, he was just one more cousin,” says Wolf. “He wasn’t born with a halo, and while he was the priest, he was just one of the family.”

In 1968, Blessed Rother joined the Micatokla mission, an Oklahoma-led mission in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala. He worked with a mission team to improve the rectory of La Iglesia Parroquial de Santiago Apóstol—established in 1547—and build a new hospital. He learned Spanish and Tz’utujil, the language spoken by the Indigenous Mayans in the area. The mission work slowed, and by 1975, Blessed Rother was the only priest who remained. Blessed Rother was called “Padre Francisco” or “Padre Apla’s” by the approximately twenty-five thousand he served. He performed the traditional roles of a priest, such as conducting mass or blessing children, but he was more known for his ability to drop everything and help. Blessed Rother fixed vehicles; grew wheat, corn, and garlic with local farmers; ate in the homes of those in remote villages; found homes for orphaned children; fed the hungry (he was known to cut the meat for and eat lunch with a local elderly homeless man each day); and worked to help translate the New Testament into Tz’utujil.

“There was a horrible earthquake in Guatemala in ’76,” says George Rigazzi, archivist for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. “He was one of the few people who would go into ravines to

Blessed Rother was called “Padre Francisco” or “Padre Apla’s” by the approximately twenty-five thousand he served. He performed the traditional roles of a priest, such as conducting mass or blessing children, but he was more known for his ability to drop everything and help.

try to rescue people, because it was so dangerous. But that’s who he was.”

The Guatemalan Civil War, which ran from 1960 to 1996, began to affect Santiago Atitlán in 1980, when the area was occupied by the army and catechists were kidnapped, tortured, and executed. During this time, Blessed Rother wrote, “The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger.” And in another letter, he wrote, “If I get a direct threat or am told to leave, then

I will go. But if it is my destiny that I should give my life here, then so be it. . . . I don’t want to desert these people.” Blessed Rother fled to Oklahoma on January 28, 1981, after a threat to his life. However, he wouldn’t leave until he secured a visa for Reverend Pedro Bocel, a local Indigenous Kaqchikel man who worked by his side. After four months, Blessed Rother returned to reside to Santiago Atitlán, driven by his promise to protect the flock.

At 38,000 square feet, the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine is the largest Catholic church in the state. It was constructed over four years by The Boldt Company in Oklahoma City and designed by Franck & Lohsen Architects in Washington, DC, with support from ADG|Blatt Architects in Oklahoma City.

“Having been to Guatemala, it’s easy for me to see how Blessed Stanley totally fell in love with those people. They’re beautiful people,” says Deacon Norman Mejstrik, director of permanent diaconate and Rother Cause, the official campaign for Blessed Rother’s beatification. “I believe he knew he would be killed. He still went back knowing his name was on a death list, knowing they were coming to get him.”

Reverend Wolf recalls his cousin’s final journey to his home state.

“Stan’s last trip to Oklahoma was for my ordination. It was May 1981,” he says. “We were standing in line to go into the cathedral in procession. One of the other priests came by and said, ‘You know, Stan, you’re down in Guatemala now for all these years. One of these days, maybe you could bring some of the priests from Guatemala up here.’ Stan says, ‘No, I haven’t come to bring people up here. I’ve come to

get Don to bring him down there.’ He turns to me and says, ‘You know, really, it wouldn’t be that dangerous for you.’”

Blessed Rother was killed on July 28, 1981, when three men broke into the Iglesia de Santiago Apóstol rectory and shot him after a physical altercation.

“The last time I saw Stan, he left my aunt and uncle’s house after supper,” says Wolf. “None of us knew that ninety days later, he’d be back at the cathedral, lying in a coffin.”

HE

GUATEMALAN PARISH mourned Blessed Rother at a funeral that was so crowded, the church pews had to be removed to accommodate more people. While his body was returned to his family for burial, his heart and a jar of his blood remained at Iglesia de Santiago Apóstol.

Stanley Rother was raised on a farm in Okarche before eventually joining the seminary.

ARCHDIOCESE OF OKLAHOMA CITY

“They wanted something to symbolize that he was still with them,” says María Ruiz Scaperlanda, author of Blessed Rother’s biography The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run . “I know for most Americans, it is a little freaky, but it’s really quite beautiful.”

Blessed Rother originally was buried at Holy Trinity Cemetery in Okarche, though his body now is interred in the wooden altar at the shrine’s 144-seat chapel, the result of a nearly four-decade journey that gained momentum in the 2000s when the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City organized a cause for Rother’s canonization.

“We gathered up everything written by him, to him, and about him. And by the time we sent off all the documents in 2010, there were more than seven thousand pieces of information to be sent to Rome,” says Rigazzi.

The effort was fruitful. In 2016, Pope Francis declared Rother a martyr, and in 2017, he was beatified, giving him the recognition of Blessed.

“We need to prove a miracle for him to become a saint,” says Mejstrik, who leads a team that collects and evaluates favors attributed to the intercession of Blessed Rother. “If the favor looks legitimate, it can be sent to Rome for their review and assessment. And if it’s found to be a miracle, that may be the quickest way for him to be canonized as a saint.”

As a martyr, Blessed Rother was able to receive beatification without a verified miracle. The work of collecting and verifying miracles for his possible sainthood continues.

ART OF THE experience of the shrine is the beauty,” says Leif Arvidson, executive director of the Blessed Stanley Rother Shine. “The beauty of the architecture, art, stat-

“We were standing in line to go into the Cathedral in procession. One of the other priests came by and said, ‘You know, Stan, you’re down in Guatemala now for all these years. One of these days, maybe you could bring some of the priests from Guatemala up here.’ Stan says, ‘No, I haven’t come to bring people up here. I’ve come to get Don to bring him down there.’ He turns to me and says, ‘You know, really, it wouldn’t be that dangerous for you.’”

Left, the shrine’s dedication ceremony took place on February 17, 2023. Right, Stanley Rother’s likeness is the centerpiece in a retablo that overlooks the church’s sanctuary.

ues, and paintings. And the beauty of traditional Catholic devotions: praying the rosary and honoring the saints, especially Blessed Stanley and Our Lady.”

A visit starts with the 6,000-squarefoot Pilgrim Center and Museum. The museum is organized in three areas: Blessed Rother’s early life and faith formation, the Guatemalan mission and his death, and his beatification and lasting impact. The space includes interactive exhibits and artifacts from Blessed Rother’s life, including his stoles, rosary beads, and family photographs.

Guests can visit the church or attend one of the daily masses offered in English or Spanish, as the shrine also is home to local congregations. The 2,000-seat church provided the space for the archdiocese to combine two churches and better support Oklahoma City’s growing Hispanic community.

“Our work is to connect the life of the church in Oklahoma and its 120 years here with the people who are now newly among us,” says Wolf. “We make a place, learn their language, respond to their needs, and conform our expectations to what they have to offer.”

Outdoors, visitors can see Tepeyac Hill, a recreation of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s apparition to St. Juan Diego, a pivotal event for the church in Central America. Here, a path winds around the perimeter of the hill that leads guests to the apex, a landscaped area featuring the prominent twelve-foot statue of Our Lady and eight-foot statue of the saint.

Latin American inspirations continue in the main church, including a custom twenty-seven-foot-tall retablo, a hand carved, intricate wall treatment that features a crucifix, saints, and at the center, an original statue of Blessed Rother. The altar area is flanked with statues of Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph colored with soft creams, blues, and reds. Along the center aisle, there are rich paintings that depict

More than 3,000 visitors gathered for an outdoor mass at the shrine on December 11, 2022. About sixty Matachines dancers joined parishioners in a procession to the shrine.

Jesus’ last day, hand-painted replicas originally featured in the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Puebla, Mexico.

“All the details that are there culminate in the small chapel where his body rests,” says Scaperlanda of the chapel with a sweeping mural that fills an entire dome. “I looked up, and I saw that beautiful rendition of him being welcomed into Heaven by our savior. There he is with his arms open to Blessed Stan, and Stan is reaching up to him with all the other martyrs.”

Blessed Rother gave his life in service to his faith and his fellow humans; he often is described as an ordinary man who lived an extraordinary life worthy of celebration and reflection.

“Think about this for a second: A farm boy from Okarche, Oklahoma, is recognized by the universal church of 1.3 billion people as a Blessed, and he’s one step away from being canonized a saint,” Rigazzi says. “A kid from Okarche! You know, anything is possible.”

Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine

› Open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

› 700 Southeast 89th Street in Oklahoma City

› (405) 421-9800

› rothershrine.org

ARCHDIOCESE OF OKLAHOMA CITY

Blessed Rother and parishioner Elena Petzey in Santiago Atitlán

SOLDIERING ON

Research by Nick Alexandrov

BEGINNING IN THE CIVIL WAR, BLACK SOLDIERS IN INDIAN TERRITORY FOUGHT THE CONFEDERATES, KEPT THE BOOMERS AT BAY, AND HELPED BUILD WHAT WOULD BECOME OKLAHOMA. IN THE PROCESS, THEY EARNED A PLACE OF HONOR IN AMERICAN HISTORY. MEET THE BUFFALO SOLDIERS.

There were six regiments, these sons of Africa, who wore the blue and the gold.

It is a shame that history failed to properly record their gallant deeds, but now at long last their story is being told.

Maybe it was their curly black hair, all covered with dust, that reminded the Indians of the hair of the buffalo, maybe that’s why they called them the “Buffalo Soldiers,” anyway just that’s how the story goes.

WALLACE C.

MOORE SR., The Black, The Blue and The Gold

Members of Group E Company of the 25th Infantry pose for a group shot at Fort Reno in 1891.

THOUGH THE HISTORY of African American men fighting alongside the U.S. military dates to the Revolutionary War—George Washington and Andrew Jackson both fought with black soldiers—the first all-black regiments did not exist until the Civil War. More than 180,000 black men fought—and more than 36,000 died—as part of the United States Colored Troop in volunteer units from 1863 until the war’s end two years later, but they weren’t allowed to join the Army until the war was over. Many did just that, eventually comprising four segregated regiments that became known as the Buffalo Soldiers, a name given to them by Native warriors.

“The origin of the term buffalo soldier is uncertain,” wrote historian William H. Leckie in his 1967 book The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Black Cavalry in the West, “although the common explanation is that the Indian saw a similarity between the hair of the Negro soldier and that of a buffalo. The buffalo was a sacred animal to the Indian, and it is unlikely that he would so name an enemy if respect were lacking. It is a fair guess that the Negro trooper understood this and thus his willingness to accept the title.”

The exploits of these black soldiers are as intrinsic to the Oklahoma story as the Indigenous Americans they battled in the name of Manifest Destiny or the frontier posts they constructed that became

Above, The Fort Sill National Historic Landmark and Museum features a display and information about the U.S. Army’s Buffalo Soldiers. Below, black soldiers hold sabers in a crowded tent.

present-day towns and cities. Buffalo Soldiers were of vital importance in the development of Indian Territory.

President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 began the era of black soldiers in the Union army. But it was not wellreceived by all, as many Union men op posed the integration of their ranks— one division in Ohio even plotted to go home. But a commission with a black regiment often led to faster promotion, which served as ample enticement for some white officers. Though some of the animosity dissipated when the white soldiers witnessed their black colleagues’ acts of valor and grit, that didn’t end the discrimination or increase the black soldiers’ pay—which totaled seven dollars compared to the white soldiers’ thirteen.

Some of the first black soldiers to enlist during the Civil War worked in Indian Territory, and they helped the Union succeed on several fronts. The First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment, who were stationed at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, engaged in two critical battles here.

In 1861, the U.S. government relocated its smaller forces in the territory to the east, where skirmishes were more populated, more violent, and more regular. Shortly after this relocation, the Confederacy signed treaties of alliance with the Cherokee, Muscogee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole nations. Together, this alliance controlled Indian Territory for a year without hindrance. Union troops returned in April 1863, led by Colonel William A. Phillips of Kansas, and set up camp at Fort Gibson with the

aim of dominating the Confederates and returning control of the Texas Road— and the territory—to the United States.

The army was an attractive alternative for many men, and now, their pay was equal to the white rank and file.

The First Battle of Cabin Creek, which took place July 1 and 2 1863, marked the first time black soldiers fought in company with Indigenous and white troops. Leading a Union supply train from Fort Scott, Kansas, to Fort Gibson, Colonel James M. Williams and his men—which also included the Third Indian Home Guard—clashed with Confederate Cherokee Colonel Stand Watie and his forces. Williams, tipped off by captured Confederate soldiers, knew that Watie was readying an attack, so the Union men forced Watie’s battalions away with two cavalry charges and artillery fire.

THE DECISION TO use the Negro as a soldier did not necessarily grow out of any broad humanitarian resolve,” wrote Civil War historian Bruce Catton in his 1936 book The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War. “It seems to have come more largely out of the dawning realization that, since the Confederates were going to kill a great many more Union soldiers before the war was over, a good many white men would escape death if a considerable percentage of those soldiers were colored.”

Keeping the supply line open from Fort Scott to Fort Gibson was a constant struggle for Phillips. It didn’t help that the rebels made camp twenty miles southwest of Fort Gibson in Honey Springs near present-day Rentiesville. But these Confederates did more than camp—they constructed a log hospital, a commissary building, arbors, and several tents. And they had plenty of spring water nearby.

William Gilbert Gaul’s untitled painting of a Buffalo Soldier is part of the collection at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

LORI DUCKWORTH

Considered the largest Civil War engagement in Indian Territory—involving a total of more than 9,000 soldiers—the Battle of Honey Springs occurred on a rain-soaked July 17, 1863. The First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment were tasked with capturing the four-gun Confederate artillery battery supporting the 20th and 29th Texas Cavalry Regiments. Their valor in battle may have been attributable in part to the fact that the Confederate troops had brought shackles to the battlefield in order to return captured black soldiers to slavery in the South.

“The First Kansas (colored) particularly distinguished itself; they fought like veterans and preserved their line unbroken throughout the engagement,” read the official battle report by Major General James G. Blunt. “Their coolness and bravery I have never seen surpassed; they were in the hottest of the fight and opposed to Texas troops twice their number, whom they completely routed. One Texas regiment (the 20th Cavalry) that fought against them went into

the fight with three hundred men and came out with only sixty.”

ranks as an experiment—and one that might fail. Could recently emancipated black men—many of whom were illiterate by design—conduct themselves in a manner befitting the U.S. military?

SHORTLY AFTER THE war’s end, the federal government returned to its policy of maintaining a small peacetime army. According to the Annual Report of the Secretary of War for the year 1866, the army numbered 38,540 troops. The nation had no time to catch its breath, with brewing conflicts with Natives in the West and along the Mexican border.

Congress, in a hotly debated quest to address these matters, passed an act on July 28, 1866, that paved the way for African American men to serve in the regular army. The act authorized the founding of six black regiments: two cavalry, the 9th and the 10th; and four infantry units, the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st. It also included unique mandates, including one that chaplains be assigned to regiments rather than posts so they could teach the black soldiers reading, writing, and basic math. Across the country, many saw the inclusion of black soldiers in the peacetime

MOORE’S LAW

Trooper Wallace C. Moore is a retired United States Army Sergeant Major. He is a cowboy poet, western reenactor, and an interpreter of history specific to African Americans during the Indian War period. He has been a living history interpreter of the Buffalo Soldiers at the Fort Sill National Historic Landmark and Museum for more than thirty years and took us on a tour of Fort Sill steeped in his knowledge of the impact of Buffalo Soldiers here.

Q: We’re here at Fort Sill. Could you tell me about where we’re standing now?

A: This is the Old Post Quadrangle. That’s what it’s called. This is the handiwork of the Buffalo Soldiers. So you have a hard time telling the Buffalo Soldier story without talking a little bit about this. They did all construction. All the labor. In 1869, the spring of that year, three regiments came here. They were the 19th Kansas, the 7th Cavalry under Custer—and of course the 10th Cavalry,

Ulysses S. Grant—then a war hero and eventually the president—telegraphed two division commanders in August 1866 with instructions that they organize a regiment of black cavalry in their divisions. So the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry were born, with the former established in Greenville, Louisiana, and the latter in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Despite this, racism and discrimination continued apace. Black veterans often were victims of violence during this time, and unemployment for blacks was very high, especially in the South. The army was an attractive alternative for many men, and now, their pay was equal to the white rank and file.

The 9th and 10th came into existence at the beginning of a twenty-year period of unceasing warfare, law enforcement, and hard labor in the Indian, Arizona, and New Mexico territories. Buffalo Soldiers regularly had to work with wornout horses and equipment that barely

which was black soldiers. The end result was that General Sheridan put his camp down here on Medicine Bluff Creek. At first, it looked like that's what the Buffalo Soldiers were going to be used for: just a large labor force.

Q: How did the Buffalo Soldiers—the troops we remember today—emerge from that labor force?

A: It wasn’t African Americans who were pushing the Buffalo Soldier idea. It

functioned, received as hand-me-downs from white regiments. But by August 1867, three companies of the 10th Cavalry were stationed in Indian Territory. The remaining companies joined them in 1869, and they were charged with protecting the Five “Civilized” Tribes, building forts, and maintaining order, which often set them against Indigenous people. The summer of 1870 brought an increased number of attacks near Fort Supply and Fort Dodge, Kansas. That June, a large group of Comanche warriors stole some horses from Fort Supply, only to find themselves in a losing battle with the 10th.

In total, Buffalo Soldiers participated in at least 177 conflicts, comprising almost 20 percent of the U.S. Cavalry troops during the Indian Wars. Nineteen of them earned medals of honor for fighting against Indigenous warriors between 1870 and 1890.

Soldiers of the 10th also removed Boomers from the territory—and often

In 1886, Allen Allensworth had the distinction of being the first black soldier to earn the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army.

was whites. So when I tell the Buffalo Soldier history, I include white people. The reason I do is because, without certain white people putting their careers on the line, the Buffalo Soldier project would never have gotten off the ground.

Q: In your collection of poems, Ebony Horse Soldier , you not only talk about the heroism the Buffalo Soldiers demonstrated but also about the more difficult aspects of their service—daily hardship, loneliness, early death. What

should we know about those darker parts of Buffalo Soldier life? And how did black soldiers confront the challenges they faced daily?

A: The biggest problem they had was garrison life. And, of course, where the post was built. The reason that there were always black soldiers here—there’s nothing else here. There was no Lawton. There was no civilian community. There was nobody to complain. There was no place for them to clash with white civilians

when doing their off duty, as they did in Texas. Everything outside of Fort Sill was Indian Country. It was a lonely life. Blacks did something then that we don’t do real well today. That is co-op and look out for each other—necessity demanded that blacks in the cavalry and infantry stick together. Therefore, we had a low AWOL rate. You got a problem, somebody could help you resolve it: “Don’t run away. Don’t commit suicide. Let’s sit down and talk about this and figure it out. We’re all on your side. We’re all in this together.”

Henry Ossian Flipper became an officer in the 10th Cavalry only to be dishonorably discharged in 1882. More than a century later, he was pardoned by President Bill Clinton.

prevented them from entering altogether. These mostly white settlers, who had campaigned for the land to be opened before the passage of the 1889 Indian Appropriations Act, often crossed the Kansas border to illegally stake claims. In 1872, the 10th Cavalry moved from Fort Sill to Fort Gibson in part to keep Boomers out and to drive away the ones who had already arrived. This work kept the Buffalo Soldiers increasingly busy, and in 1879, the swarms of intruders included hundreds of black Americans. In the summer of 1880, six companies of the 10th Cavalry were placed at the Kansas border. In the mid-1880s, more than two thousand Boomers streamed across the border, a migration crisis that taxed those six companies to their limit—and caused an explosion of racist sentiment and action. One Boomer referred to a black officer as “one of a litter of mud turtles born of a Negro woman.”

Another black officer, Chaplain Allen Allensworth, came to Fort Supply in 1886 assigned to the 24th Infantry. Allensworth believed black soldiers needed an education to work skillfully, so he taught U.S. History and English at the post and created a whole curriculum for black soldiers. Allensworth and Flipper were the only two commissioned black officers to serve in Indian Territory, but they were by no means the only notable black soldiers.

Buffalo Soldiers participated in at least 177 conflicts, comprising almost 20 percent of the U.S. Cavalry troops during the Indian Wars.

AMONG THE MOST notable Buffalo Soldiers in Indian Territory during this time was Second Lieutenant Henry Ossian Flipper, who in 1877 was the first black graduate of West Point. Flipper was assigned as an officer in the 10th Cavalry based at Fort Sill. There, he designed and constructed a drainage system—known as Flipper’s Ditch—that vanquished a malaria outbreak. He was transferred to Fort Davis, Texas, where he served until 1881.

At Fort Davis, Flipper was accused of embezzling commissary funds. He was acquitted at his court martial, but he was convicted of conduct unbecoming of an officer and dismissed from the army. He spent the next few years fighting to clear his name while working as an engineer and an expert in Spanish and Mexican land law. He died in 1940, but the army granted him an honorable discharge in 1976. President Bill Clinton granted him a full pardon in 1999.

Cathay Williams was the only female Buffalo Soldier and the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. Army. Williams was enslaved as a house servant in Jefferson City, Missouri, when Union soldiers took control of the city in 1861. As she was considered contraband at that point, she took a support role as a cook and washerwoman with the army. She then posed as a male to enlist, using the name William Cathay, and was only discovered to be a woman during a hospitalization due to complications from smallpox. She was honorably discharged.

Soldiers were no longer as needed in Indian Territory, and the 9th and 10th cavalries, along with the 24th and 25th infantries, were reassigned to Florida in the 1890s to engage in the brewing Spanish-American conflict that would, in 1898, erupt into full-blown war.

In this conflict, Buffalo Soldiers saw action—and continued to prove their valor—at the Battle of San Juan Hill, the Battle of El Caney, and the Battle of Las Guasimas. The 9th and 10th also served in the Philippines and were assigned to protect the Mexican border during World War I. But both the 9th and 10th were demilitarized in 1944, and in 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, which eliminated racial segregation across the U.S. military. But the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers continues to speak across the years. They had the lowest military court-martial and desertion rates of their era, and several of them received the Congressional Medal of Honor for their service. After leaving the army, many acquired better jobs, purchased land, built homes, and were able to access higher education thanks to their service. Others—including some in Oklahoma—were lynched, confirming once again that their journey toward equal citizenship had yet to end.

Cabin Creek Battlefield

› 442370 E 367 Road in Big Cabin

› okhistory.org/sites/cabincreek

Honey Springs Battlefield

› 423159 E 1030 Road in Checotah

› (918) 617-7125

› okhistory.org/sites/honeysprings

Fort Sill National Historic Landmark and Museum

› Preregistration is required before visiting.

THE END OF the nineteenth century saw a decimation of Indigenous people across the country and the creation of Indian boarding schools, reservations, agencies, and the Indian Bureau. As a result, the Buffalo

› sill-www.army.mil/vcc

Fort Gibson Historic Site

› 907 North Garrison Avenue in Fort Gibson

› (918) 478-4088

› okhistory.org/sites/fortgibson

The Oklahoma National Stockyards in Oklahoma City hosts live cattle auctions on Monday and Tuesday mornings.

YARD THE YARD THE

One of the state’s oldest destination districts, Stockyards City in Oklahoma City is home to famous restaurants, unbeatable shopping, wild history and, yes, one of the world’s highest-volume livestock auctions. If Oklahoma City is a cow town, this is city hall.

BY CAROL MOWDY BOND PHOTOGRAPHY BY LORI DUCKWORTH

THE CATWALK SWAYS in the wind as visitors mosey across its more than 937-foot reach about two stories off the ground, the vantage giving them a bird’s-eye view of cowboys on foot and horseback moving among hundreds of cattle in pens. Horses nicker, the beeves snort and moo, the cowhands call to each other. Dust catches the sunlight. The cowpunchers push livestock into the arena. Inside, a voice calls out in a rapid-fire staccato. It’s auction day, and the bidding crowd is arrayed in blue jeans, boots, and pearl-snap shirts—a ranchers’ uniform going back generations. But in this odd enclave just a couple miles downriver from downtown Oklahoma City, perhaps time is standing still. For more than a century, its businesses and faces have changed and weathered, but the neighborhood’s integrity, its rugged, rough-around-the-edges Western charm, has remained intact. This is Stockyards City.

Savvy shoppers know to visit Little Joe’s Boots for a pair of authentic cowboy boots.

Cattlemen’s Steakhouse has been a local institution since it opened in 1910.

Todd and Michelle Miller own Grain & Grange furniture and design store, which sells a variety of one-of-a-kind pieces made from reclaimed wood and other materials.

Bar manager Matt Ramesh works on a new cocktail at McClintock Saloon & Chop House.

AVILLAGE SOMEWHAT UNTO itself surrounded by urban sprawl, Stockyards City revolves around its own economic engine—the Oklahoma National Stockyards, known ’round these parts as simply the Yards. Here, forty-two acres of cattle pens stand among a labyrinth of passageways paved with the original bricks that first comprised the place. Still the world’s largest stocker and feeder market, the Yards holds auctions every Monday and Tuesday in its open-to-the-public arena.

Since 1910, more than a hundred million head of livestock have passed through these gates, fueling a major economic force in Oklahoma since before statehood. Originally known as Packingtown due to its high number of meatpacking plants, the area now officially is called the Stockyards City Historic District and appears on the National Register of Historic Places. Located spitting distance from Interstates 40 and 44, it’s a destination unto itself, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors annually from all over the world.

Though the tourist-to-cowboy ratio has changed over the years, this has always been a high-traffic area. The Yards’ origins reach back to Oklahoma City’s formative years, when the city created a public livestock market in 1910 in tandem with the nearby opening of several major meat processing and packing plants. A jumbled junction of a half-dozen railroads and a large livestock market spurred this master plan the same year the State Capitol moved from Guthrie to Oklahoma City.

Some stockmen moved their herds in by railroads, but for years, cowboys

spurred their horses through swirling dust, driving sauntering cattle toward the livestock pens. At the time, Oklahoma City’s population stood at around 60,000, and the Yards and packing plants became the city’s first major industry, giving rise to 2,400 new jobs and remaining the area’s largest employer for years. Some housing sprung up nearby; other workers commuted via the city’s early streetcar system. With so many coming from far and near, a commercial district grew up with products and services to accommodate the constant stream of people.

But with increased human habitation came increased chances for misbehaving. From the outset, the Yards were a rambunctious place, the old rough-and-tumble lifestyle of the fading Wild West still very much alive here. Slaughterhouse employees and cowboys endured grueling work that wasn’t for the squeamish, and after long trips bringing cattle to market, everyone was tired and ready to blow off some steam. Of the innumerable two-story hotels, many were legitimate, with honorable customers and well-behaved patrons. Others rented rooms by the hour and were known as places to access disreputable services. But no matter their reputations, these buildings soon became landmarks.

iconic sights and experiences. Here, for example, visitors find Oklahoma’s oldest continually operating restaurant, the famous Cattlemen’s Steakhouse, founded in 1910, the same year as the district. If by chance the neon sign out front doesn’t provide enough of a guiding star, visitors simply can follow the aroma of grilling steaks Cattlemen’s emits throughout the neighborhood.

Here, diners pack into vintage red booths to enjoy a famous menu of lamb fries, choice-grade steaks grilled to perfection, salads with that famous garlicky house dressing, and coconut cream pie with mile-high meringue.

But the place is as much a museum and living history venue as a gastronomic delight. Visitors gravitate here to see a slice of the West where people still live and work every day in cowboy hats, boots, and great big belt buckles.

“On any given day, it’s like running a restaurant in a museum,” says David Egan, the steakhouse’s director of operations. “Our walls are covered with tons of old photos and memorabilia that hark back to the day. People come here to see what the West was like.”

MANY OF THOSE landmarks remain more than a century later, some of Stockyards City’s buildings and businesses among the state’s most

Also founded with the neighborhood’s beginning, Exchange Pharmacy is the city’s oldest continually operated drugstore. Though the classic soda fountain is gone, the walls are peppered with historic mementos, and the window still reads “Soda Pop and Water 75¢.” Eric Coker’s parents bought the business in 1951, and he remembers what weekends were like in the district.

“On Friday nights, there were family-friendly events at the Yards,” he says. “Our soda fountain served ham-

SINCE 1910, more than a hundred million head of livestock have passed through these gates, fueling a major economic force in Oklahoma since before statehood.

burgers. The lines of people waiting to order spilled out the door. There was a bar down the street, and the owner had a bear in a cage and a chimpanzee for entertainment.”

There aren’t any primates at Stockyards Sarsaparilla, but the sense of history manages to come through just fine anyway. Here, visitors can belly up to an eighteen-foot 1895 bar for a sip from more than two hundred varieties of ice-cold soda, forty kinds of root beer, and the famous Stockyards Sarsaparilla. All that glugging needs some solid bites, and Stockyards Sarsaparilla delivers with a smorgasbord of nostalgic candies and more than thirty-five varieties of handmade fudge. Assistant Manager Patty Buchholz says the Orange Cream fudge tastes like a Dreamsicle and pairs perfectly with an Orange Crush or Virgil’s Vanilla Cream Soda.

“It’s a lot of fun here,” she says. “I get to talk to people from all over the place—we get a lot of visitors, and tour

buses come in. Just this week, we had visitors from Brazil, Italy, South Africa, various U.S. states, and places around the world. One time, the ambassador from Bangladesh came in.”

ers’ tail, they were warned off by a local preacher and the sheriff.

STOCKYARDS CITY’S COLORFUL present comes from a colorful history, one that aligns with America’s. Its location caused U.S. highways to pop up nearby. And during the Prohibition era, the district offered everything a prosperous bootlegging operation might need.

Take, for example, P.C. and W.A. Camp, who owned Capitol City Barrel Company on Agnew Avenue. These enterprising gentlemen would leave the keys in a truck loaded with wooden barrels at a certain location. When they returned, they always found the truck empty and money on the seat. Their operation was so well known that, once when the authorities were on the broth-

During Prohibition, Hank Frey owned Cattlemen’s, and he and his wife lived upstairs from the restaurant with another couple—the four were bootleggers and gamblers. Savvy visitors knew they could buy “liquid delights” by going inside Cattlemen’s and heading discreetly up the stairs. For more than a decade after the end of Prohibition, Hank continued to run the restaurant—until he lost it in a game of craps in 1945.

Shenanigans aside, by the 1930s, cars, pickups, and big trucks idled and snaked through the streets as the livestock industry modernized. By 1961, the operation had grown big enough that it transitioned into a cattle auction. By the 1980s, it had become the largest cattle market in the nation and, in 1996, the largest in the world, feeding not only the state’s essential ranching industry but a wide range of

WALK THE YARDS

EXPLORE

OKLAHOMA NATIONAL STOCKYARDS

› Sales take place every Monday and Tuesday and are open to the public.

› 2501 Exchange Avenue

› (405) 235-8675

› onsy.com

EXCHANGE PHARMACY

› 2300 Exchange Avenue

› (405) 235-4242

MUSEUM OF HORSESHOEING

› 2200 Southwest 13th Street

› (405) 724-8861

› horseshoeingmuseum.com

EAT

CATTLEMEN’S STEAKHOUSE

› 1309 South Agnew Avenue

› (405) 236-0416

› cattlemensrestaurant.com

LOS COMALES

› 1504 South Agnew Avenue

› (405) 272-4739

MCCLINTOCK SALOON & CHOP HOUSE

› 2227 Exchange Avenue

› (405) 232-0151

› mcclintocksaloon.com

STOCKYARDS SARSAPARILLA

› 1307 South Agnew Avenue

› (405) 601-4438

› stockyards-sarsaparilla.com

SHOP

BENTLEY-GAFFORD CO.

› 1320 South Agnew Avenue

› (405) 658-5738

GELLCO CLOTHING & SHOES

› 1200 South Agnew Avenue

› (405) 232-4445

› gellco.com

GRAIN & GRANGE

› 1312 South Agnew Avenue

› (405) 208-8301

› grainandgrange.com

LANGSTON’S WESTERN WEAR

› 2224 Exchange Avenue

› (405) 235-9536

› langstons.com

LITTLE JOE’S BOOTS

› 2219 Exchange Avenue

› (405) 236-2650

› littlejoesboots.net

NATIONAL SADDLERY

› 1320 South Agnew Avenue

› (405) 239-2104

› nationalsaddlery.com

OKLAHOMA NATIVE

ART & JEWELRY

› 2204 Exchange Avenue

› (405) 604-9800

› oknativeart.com

Old-fashioned sodas and candy are plentiful at Stockyards Sarsaparilla.

The

sells a variety of gear for riding, roping, and living the Western life.

THERE’S SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE IN STOCKYARDS CITY.

SHORTY’S CABOY HATTERY

› 1007 South Agnew Avenue

› (405) 232-4287

› shortyshattery.com

SOLE BROTHERS

SHINE PARLOR

› 1122 South Agnew Avenue

› (405) 919-8579

› okcsolebrothers.com

WILD FILLY BOUTIQUE

› 1014 South Agnew Avenue

› (405) 415-1980

› shopwildfilly.com

Every fall, the annual Stockyards Stampede features a parade of longhorns through the district.

A former rodeo contestant, Lavonna “Shorty” Koger has owned Shorty’s Caboy Hattery since 1990.

National Saddlery

Founded in 1910, the Oklahoma City National Stockyards is the largest stocker and feeder cattle market in the world. More than a hundred million cattle have passed through over the course of its history.

adjacent businesses run by some nighunforgettable characters.

ONE OF THE area’s must-meet proprietors is Lavonna “Shorty” Koger, who owns the world-famous Shorty’s Caboy Hattery, where everyone from workaday cowpokes and rodeoers to stars of Western films and TV shows like Yellowstone have found cowboy crowns to adorn their heads.

“Anybody who wears a Shorty’s is famous,” Koger is known to say with a wry smile.

Koger is a 2021 National Cowgirl Hall of Fame inductee, and she creates her hats from beaver and other furs, hanging them neatly across a log cabinstyle wall in her rustic showroom. As a steamer pools water onto the concrete floor, one of Koger’s employees uses it to custom-shape a hat under a cowboy customer’s watchful eyes.

Pair Koger’s grit and independent spirit with a modern, minimalist twist, and you get Michelle and Todd Miller. They own the Grain & Grange furniture and design firm inside a former feed and seed building that later became a meat market and café where, back in the day, boarders got a heckuva surprise when they didn’t pay their rent and found the manager had thrown their belongings out the windows.

No defenestrations—of objects or people—occur here today. The Millers work on the building’s second floor, where the old brick walls and upstairs windows allow their creations to bask in natural light, their unique design projects combining repurposed metal and wood for one-of-a-kind furniture with a WildWest-meets-industrial-chic flair.

“The building had been completely gutted, and new infrastructure, includ-

ing a new roof system, were installed,” says Michelle. “When we moved in, it was just the shell. We finished renovating, put in an office, storage, and restrooms, and then we decorated.”

Modern takes on the Wild West are everywhere in Stockyards City. At McClintock Saloon & Chop House— named for the famous 1963 John Wayne film McLintock! —a periodstyle painting of a scantily clad woman hangs behind the fifty-foot bar where patrons sip more than 180 varieties of whiskey. From here, diners pass through a red-velvet curtain into the dining room, where ornate chandeliers shower guests with opulence. The menu is a collection of upscale old favorites like Grandma’s Meatloaf and fried chicken with white gravy. But since they’re in cattle country, most diners order from the extensive menu of steaks. Next door in a space once shared with the Oklahoma Opry, Rodeo Cinema offers a rotating lineup of classic and independent films, adding a bit of high-culture flair to the area.

gear, so Stockyards City long has been a suiting-up hot spot.

Founded in 1926, National Saddlery’s tack shop is the area’s largest stocker of rodeo gear, carrying a full line of bull riding and roughstock equipment any rodeoer—or anyone who wants to go to a rodeo and not look like a city slicker—could ever need. Not far away is the headquarters of the International Professional Rodeo Association.

For those looking for a Westerninspired style change, there’s no shortage of shopping here. In addition to Shorty’s, National Saddlery, and the famous Langston’s, travelers can stop in at Little Joe’s Boots, which is stuffed with cowboy and cowgirl duds and gifts—and features a long church pew where shoppers can sit to try on their boots. In fact, there are so many shops here that no matter what flavor they’re seeking, those engaging in a bit of retail therapy will be sure to find something perfect.

BUT VISITORS, ESPECIALLY those from out of town or out of state, come to experience the West—many in a shopping kind of way. After all, buckaroos—whether they’re roping steers or wrasslin’ spreadsheets—need

Stockyards City is the rare destination district that has no story of decline. Unlike some urban enclaves that were created from the detritus of falling-down or burnt-out warehouses and old storefronts, Stockyards City always has been vibrant, active, filled with people—after all, cattle ranching’s importance to Oklahoma’s culture and economy has only grown every year since statehood, and in this district, it finds its cultural and financial locus. And though now, classic cowboy fashion and iconic Oklahoma foods sidle up to upscale shops, independent films, and high-end restaurants, the area’s flavor remains unchanged. In that way, it’s a microcosm of Oklahoma. Like cowboys themselves, Stockyards City remains true, honest, and essentially itself.

WHETHER THEY’RE roping steers or wrasslin’ spreadsheets, buckaroos need gear, so Stockyards City long has been a suiting-up hot spot.

“Keep on rockin’ in the free world.”

Color Guard

A full day of hot dogs, watermelon, and sparklers await, but there is no better way to kick off Independence Day than at Edmond’s annual LIBERTYFEST PARADE. The patriotic procession through downtown actually starts at 9 a.m., but arrive early with a lawn chair to snag a good spot. And don’t forget the fireworks display at 9:30 p.m. July 4. Admission, free. (405) 820-9667. libertyfest.org

—NEIL YOUNG

July/August 2023

BY JEREMY MARTIN

FEED ME, SEYMOUR

Perhaps the second-most-often-told man-eating-plant story, Little Shop of Horrors , presented at The Pollard Theatre Company in Guthrie, is a stage adaptation of B-movie mogul Roger Corman’s 1960 film about a Venus flytrap that craves human blood. Somehow, romantic pathos—and several songs that are better than they have any right to be—ensue. (As you probably suspected, the most-oftentold man-eating-plant story is the one about the time Grandpa tried bok choy at the church potluck).

» Through July 1 + Tickets, $10-$35 (405) 282-2801 + thepollard.org

Oklahomans will become cheerfully airborne at the FireLake Fireflight Balloon Festival in Shawnee on August 11 and 12. (page 93)

FOR PATRIOT FANS

The exact details surrounding Paul Revere’s midnight ride often are contested by historians, but his legendary warning that those British jocks were coming to get their kidnapped mascot back from the pranksters at America High has forever linked the War for Independence to the tradition of Friday night lights.

Chelsea’s 4th of July Spectacular at the Chelsea High School football field continues the tradition with games, food trucks, and fireworks in celebration of the time the Eagles pushed the Bulldogs back, way back. » July 3 + Admission, free (918) 789-2220 chelseaareachamber.com/events

IN

A GROOVE

Shop for music merch, cassettes, CDs, and, of course, stacks and stacks of “wax”

at the Vinyl Record Show at Stoney Creek Hotel & Conference Center in Broken Arrow. Collectors can browse 45s, LPs, and even 78s ranging from $1 to whatever the market will allow. Conveniently, and possibly dangerously, an ATM will be available onsite.

» July 8 + Admission, $8 (210) 415-2972 + vinylrecordshow.com

MAKE A SPLASH

July is Park and Recreation Month, recognizing the special role public parks play in connecting neighbors and building communities. But let’s skip the city council-speech platitudes and dive right into a cannonball. Recreation Celebration at Ardmore Community Water Park offers an immersive introduction to the magic of shared civic spaces at a 300,000-gallon pool party with water slides, bucket drops, and aquatic basketball. There also will be games, prizes, and go-kart rides.

» July 15 + Admission, free-$5

(580) 223-4844 + ardmorecity.org

CITIZEN POTAWATOMI NATION

YEARLY YEE-HAW

The frequently challenging and lonely life of a vaquero (or buckaroo) was not for everyone, but National Day of the Cowboy at Chisholm Trail Heritage Center in Duncan promises fun for all age groups and foot-tenderness levels with its theme of Three States, One Trail. Ranch-style recreations will include ropin’ and ridin’ activities, storytelling, art, and live music. See, hear, smell, and feel a day in the life of a cowboy in the center’s 4-D Experience Theater—an experience that would probably make even the baddest of back-in-the-day hombres exclaim, “Well, what in tarnation?”

» July 22 + Admission, free-$17

(580) 252-6692 + onthechisholmtrail.com/events

BOTTLE IT UP

Passing time turns one shopper’s trash into another shopper’s treasure at the Tulsa Antique Advertising & Bottle Show at SageNet Center in Tulsa. In addition to the advertised advertising (and bottles!), collectors can snatch up tin containers, jars, goods from old gas stations, and goodness knows what else Before Times detritus like they’re archaeologists studying the twentieth century Coca-Cola Dynasty at an extremely low-effort dig site.

» July 22 + Entry, free (918) 341-5475

tulsaantiquesandbottleclub.com/annual-show

CURIOSITY SHOPPING

One problem with big-box stores is those big boxes are filled with smaller boxes filled with a bunch of the same stuff. If you prefer shopping where the wares are strewn across card tables and stacked in milk crates, you might try Wanderlust Market at Payne County Expo Center in Stillwater. Vendors will have handmade and vintage items you won’t see at your local supercenter— and probably a few things you’d even have a hard time finding online because you wouldn’t know what to type into the search bar.

» July 22 + Admission, free

(405) 810-6977

revolve-productions.com/upcoming-events

Five Summer Concerts to Rock Out At

Whether you want to hear world music-informed punk, pop royalty, an idiosyncratic singer-songwriter, a Nashville Star, or the Starchild, you can hear them all here in Oklahoma this summer.

GOGOL BORDELLO

Start wearing purple now. Eugene Hütz’s singular international folk-punk band will hit The Jones Assembly in Oklahoma City following the release of their eighth studio album, 2022’s Solidaritine, which features guest vocals from Bad Brains’ H.R. and a cover of Fugazi’s “Blueprint.”

» July 12 + Tickets, $35-$50

(405) 212-2378 + thejonesassembly.com

MADONNA

While she probably won’t have time to perform all thirty-eight of her top 10 Billboard hits when she brings The Celebration Tour to BOK Center in Tulsa, her mononymous majesty will most likely not be debuting a new avant-garde opera, either. Expect plenty you can sing along to in a set list spanning four decades.

» July 27 + Tickets, $70-$170

(918) 894-4200 + bokcenter.com

CHRIS YOUNG

The Nashville Star season-four winner and CMT Music Award recipient’s appearance at Enid Stride Bank Center will mark the venue’s tenth anniversary. Perhaps Young will bring his “Famous Friends” to the party.

» July 28 + Tickets, $59-$139

(580) 616-7380 + stridebankcenter.com

THE MOUNTAIN GOATS

They may not be the best-ever death metal band out of Denton, Texas, but John Darnielle’s shapeshifting musical project has to be one of the best ever former one-man-bands to record concept albums about professional wrestling, Dungeons & Dragons, and French historian

PARLIAMENT-FUNKADELIC

Got funk in the trunk? Good, because George Clinton’s mothership of intergalactic grooves is cleared for landing at The Criterion in Oklahoma City. Watch out when they take off, because they might just tear the roof off the sucker.

» August 4 + Tickets, $49.50-$89.50

(405) 840-5500 + criterionokc.com

Pierre Chuvin, to name a few recent examples from their twenty-one-album discography. Hear them at The Vanguard in Tulsa following the release of 2022’s action flick-inspired Bleed Out

» July 13 + Tickets, $40-$45

thevanguardtulsa.com

SANJAY SUCHAK

RICARDO

STIR IT UP

An annual celebration of the miraculous fact that protest music born in 1960s Jamaica can still move crowds in twenty-first-century central Oklahoma, Bricktown Reggae Fest in downtown Oklahoma City pairs live music with Caribbean food and craft beer. Morgan Heritage said, “Reggae Bring Back Love,”

Bring your appetite and your antacids to the Salsa Festival at the Oklahoma Aquarium in Jenks, where the beloved condiment will be celebrated all afternoon. (page 94)

but Bricktown Reggae Fest says bring your own blanket or lawn chair if you’d rather not “Get Up, Stand Up” the whole time.

» July 28 + Admission, free (405) 236-4143 + bricktownokc.com

SQUARE DANCE

Take some time to appreciate the fact that fabric patches of all shapes, styles, and sizes can come together to keep you comfy-cozy at Footloose, A Celebration of Quilts at Cole Community Center in Oklahoma City. Marvel at the handiworks on display, shop for materials

for a masterpiece of your own, or buy a raffle to win a quilt and warm yourself the easy way.

» July 28-29 + Admission, $10-15 (405) 722-3693 + centralokquilters.org

MOVING PICTURES

Honoring the days when the area was known as Black Wall Street, before the affluent district was destroyed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Greenwood Film Festival at OSU-Tulsa showcases the works of local and international black filmmakers, seeking out “fresh films that expose the ills of society, challenge us, force us to grow, speak truth to power, make us laugh and empower.” Because none of our problems have ever been solved by looking away.

» August 2-6 + Tickets, $20-$175 (323) 736-2470 + greenwoodfilmfestival.com

FREE BARKING

It’ll be a regular Dog Day Afternoon in the evening at Downtown Dogfest on the Courthouse Lawn in Enid. The fur babyfriendly event features games, giveaways, vendors, and other pooch-pourri, but after a quick look at IMDB, we realize that Dogfest is not at all like Dog Day Afternoon, which, despite the delightful name, is a gritty crime film starring Al Pacino. While you probably won’t be leaving with a bank bag full of money à la Pacino, the first 150 dogs will receive doggie bags. BYOBaggie, too, in case your best friend leaves a gritty crime of their own on the courthouse lawn.

» August 4 + Admission, free (580) 234-1052 + visitenid.org

WHY I OTTAWA

What do you get when you go to the fair? Do you get a turkey leg or a corn dog or a blue ribbon for the livestock you raised? Or do you just get a little dizzy on the rides? As the name suggests, whatever you get if you go to the Ottawa County Free Fair at Miami Fairgrounds in Miami, you will get in for free—as people have for more than a century now—and that’s something we can probably all get behind.

» August 5-12 + Admission, free (918) 542-1688

KACY HULME/PIXABAY

Float Your Boat

A few safety tips if you’re planning on spending an evening under the night sky at Full Moon Kayaking at Ardmore City Lake: Always wear a snug-fitting personal flotation device and dress expecting to get wet; practice how you’ll handle falling out and re-entering in the water; and if anyone turns into a werewolf, worry about the silver bullets first and save the dog-paddling jokes for later.

» July 30 + Registration, $15 (580) 223-4844 + ardmorecity.org

DIFFERENT DRUMS

Long before the latest TikTok trend or even the Twist, First Americans were dancing the night away. The beat goes on at Wichita Annual Dance at Wichita Tribal Park in Anadarko, where gourd and war dancers dressed in traditional regalia will compete for top honors. Competition is open to Wichita Tribe members and their descendants, so no matter what the judges decide, they’re all First.

» August 10-13 + Admission, free (405) 247-9677 + wichitatribe.com

FULL OF HOT AIR

Whether you’re looking for a cool photo op or seeking a means of winning an illadvised wager against a dirigible-piloting coal baron, FireLake Fireflight Balloon Festival at Citizen Potawatomi Nation Festival Grounds in Shawnee probably will offer more than a few options. Book a ride yourself if you want to test the basic principles of buoyancy while suspended several stories in the air in an extra-large laundry hamper—or hang out on the ground with the food trucks, mini-golf, and acrophobia-prone events roundup writers.

» August 11-12 + Admission, free (405) 275-3121 + firelakeballoonfest.com

JJ RITCHEY

TRACKING MUD

Participants in Brave the Mud Run—a particularly squishy-sounding 5K obstacle course beginning at the LeFlore County Fairgrounds in Poteau—can choose between four engagement levels ranging from a competitive race to an untimed fun run. A team run also is an option, and finishers receive a shirt and medal. Costumes are encouraged, but you might want to avoid anything that’s dry-clean only, because it sounds like everyone will finish looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator

» August 19 + Registration, $40-$60 (800) 349-7026

facebook.com/bravethemudrun

CULTURAL IMMERSION

Appreciators of fine cuisine and culture will love the music, merchants, fashion show, and food trucks at Asian Night Market Festival at Military Park in Oklahoma City. Meanwhile, fans of Hot Ones—the YouTube talk show where celebrities scorch their mouths on spicy chicken wings—won’t want to miss the pho-eating contest, which should be a similarly hilarious endurance test.

» August 19 + Admission, free asiandistrictok.com/anmf

CHIPS AHOY

Do spicy dips taste better when you eat them in the company of aquatic animals? You’ll have the chance to find out at the Salsa Festival at the Oklahoma Aquarium in Jenks. Sample salsas and quesos, submit your own concoctions, and see if you

Watch colorfully attired participants whirl and twirl at Anadarko’s Wichita Annual Dance August 10 through 13. (page 93)

can hang in the jalapeño-eating contest (make sure any water you guzzle isn’t housing any fish). If you haven’t entered any competitions and still feel judged, that may just be the hard stare of a sea turtle, nature’s harshest critic.

» August 26 + Tickets, $15.95-$19.95 (918) 296-3474 + okaquarium.org

BREWS GONE WILD

Eating local food and drinking craft beer is for the birds at Wild Brew at Cox Business Convention Center in Tulsa. This annual fundraising event features live music and art demonstrations; cuisine from area restaurants; and wine, beer, and spirits from Oklahoma and elsewhere. Proceeds benefit the George Miksch Sutton Avian Research Center, a nonprofit organization working to reintroduce southern bald eagles and other endangered grassland birds to Oklahoma. » August 26 + Tickets, $75 (918) 336-7778 + wildbrew.org

LORI DUCKWORTH

Mystery Manor

This awe-striking abode is home to an abundance of art and historic intrigue.

BY ZOE TRAVERS

IN A NORTHERN Oklahoma town, a grand mansion tells the story of more than a century of history. Built in 1928, this fifty-fiveroom architectural wonder once belonged to a notable—and controversial—oil baron and Oklahoma governor.

The magnate sought to live in a “palace on the prairie” fashioned after Old World Florentine architecture. He worked with Tulsa architect John Duncan Forsyth to craft one of Oklahoma’s most lavish homes.

Every inch of the 43,561-square-foot home remains vibrant a century later. No expense was spared with details like crushed marble floors, silver sconces, Italian stucco, terraced gardens, Waterford chandeliers, and original paintings from legends of the time like Dutch artist Bernard de Hoog. Even the walls were crafted using wood from the royal forest of England.

JJ RITCHEY

The story of Lydie’s white marble statue— including its removal, partial destruction, and restoration—is nearly as fascinating as that of its real-life socialite model.

Inspired by Renaissance styles, the oil baron hired iconic artists like Italian painter Vincent Maragliotti to paint intricate twenty-four-carat gold-leaf ceiling trim masterpieces. One painting, located in the inner lounge that covers the entire ceiling, tells the history of the plains—starting with the founding of the oil baron’s company. There also are intricate carvings of the fleur-de-lis, the Scottish thistle, and the English rose by an unknown artist.

Every statue, painting, and even strip of wood tells a story, some of them more scandalous than others. Today, the mansion is open for visitors to discover its secrets, like the marriage between the oil baron and his adopted daughter Lydie and her mysterious disappearance, and the fascinating journey of the mansion’s ownership by monks and nuns.

In tours, guests are transported to a time of flapper dresses and speakeasies, standing in the same room where notable celebrities like Will Rogers once stood. Unsurprisingly, the mansion’s regal style and manicured grounds make it a popular site for weddings and other events.

Despite its extreme opulence, an element of approachability remains as the mansion doors open for community events and holiday gatherings. The guests of today enter the home with the same feeling of awe as those who entered this mansion a century ago.

What is the name of this elegant mansion, and where is it located?

Mail entries with your name and address to “Off the Map,” P.O. Box 248937, Oklahoma City, OK 73124 or email them to Letters@TravelOK.com. The answer to last issue’s question is the Creek Council Oak Tree in Tulsa.

LACI SCHWOEGLER/RETROSPEC FILMS

The mansion’s design is partially inspired by the Palazzo Davanzati in Florence, Italy, with vaulted ceilings and smooth, rounded archways.

THE PEOPLE, PLACES, HISTORY, AND CULTURE OF OKLAHOMA SINCE 1956