Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Visited Mar. 7-11, 2022

By Janell

Welcome to Oklahoma!

Before this, neither Marty nor I had been to Oklahoma; but now we can say, "we've been to Oklahoma"!

Does this remind you of a song?

By the way, we saw Three Dog Night when we passed through Las Vegas recently. Two of the original band members were there, and they still sound good!

This is outside the RV park office where we stayed in Choctaw, a suburb of Oklahoma City.

The first place we visited in Oklahoma City was the Oklahoma City National Memorial. It is a very moving tribute to the victims, survivors, rescuers, and all who were affected by the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on the morning of April 19, 1995. 

As you can imagine, inside the museum there was much to see and read. There were several videos where one could listen to survivor accounts of the day. There was a portion of a wall of the men's restroom - what was left of it - just as it stood at the time. There were many photos and stories about the victims who perished that day. 

168 people were killed by the explosion; nineteen of them were children who were in the daycare center on the second floor of the building. 

The museum is housed just north of the memorial in what was at the time, The Journal Record Building, a daily business and legal newspaper. 

Looking out at a portion of the memorial from within the museum

This American elm tree was likely planted around 1920. There are pictures of it in a family's backyard in 1947. Somehow the tree was the only one that made the cut when a parking lot replaced the neighborhood homes decades ago. In 1995 the parking lot was situated between the Federal Building and the Journal Record, and on April 19 of that year the "Survivor Tree", as it is now known, was surrounded by burning vehicles. It took a beating from the explosion and looked pretty sad. There was some talk of having it removed, but then it was recognized as a "survivor" as well.

Painted on the side of the Journal Record Building (now the museum)

We visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum in the morning, but then we wanted to come back in the evening to see the memorial illuminated. It was well worth the return trip.

What you're seeing here is 168 chairs; each one engraved for one of the 168 victims. They're arranged in nine rows because there were nine floors in the Federal Building, and each specific chair is placed in the row corresponding to the floor where each person was at the time of the explosion. 

If you look closely, I think you can tell that the second row (from the left), has mostly smaller/shorter chairs. The second row represents the second floor of the building, where the daycare center was located. 

The Gates of Times, at opposite ends of the reflecting pool, forever frame the moment of destruction at 9:02am. 

The 9:01 Gate symbolizes the last moment of innocence for our nation, before domestic terrorism. 

The 9:03 Gate represents the first moment of healing and hope for the future.

The Survivor Tree after dark

On a more upbeat note, we went to the American Banjo Museum. We had a little time to spare, so we thought, "why not"? It was incredible! The museum contains the largest collection of banjos in the world on public display - over 300. The collection spans every kind of banjo from replicas of primitive banjos developed by enslaved Africans to extremely ornate designs of later years. 

This is an original Double Scroll Peghead from the 1840's, something apparently very rare.

Some of the fancier ones

I'm sure many of you remember Hee Haw and Roy Clark

After finishing with the museum (or so we thought), we were talking with two employees at the front desk. After a bit, the man asked us if we'd seen the "Yellow Submarine" banjo upstairs. We had not. Honestly, there were so very many banjos, especially on the second floor, that it was somewhat overwhelming. I think we must've had our backs to this one as we perused the Hall of Fame wall. Anyway, we ran back upstairs to take a look. Glad we did!

They're happy to hand you a banjo if you play -- or even if you don't, you can just fiddle around with one.

This is the song the gentleman at the front desk played on a banjo for us. (However, this not the gentleman at the front desk.)

One last tidbit about banjos that we were very surprised to learn: Sherwood "Shakey" Johnson, co-founder of Shakey's Pizza in Sacramento is honored in the Oklahoma City American Banjo Museum! What?! Shakey's became known outside of Sacramento for the jazz program it sponsored on a regional radio network, and Shakey himself is honored for his longtime use of banjo music in his pizza parlors.

You've heard of the Oklahoma Sooners, yes? 

The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the first run into the unassigned lands of former Indian Territory. The land run started at high noon on April 22, 1889. There were 2 million acres up for grabs, and there were an estimated 50,000 people lined up ready to stake their claims. (Under the provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862, signed by President Abraham Lincoln 27 years earlier, a legal settler could claim 160 acres of public land, and those who lived on and improved the claim for five years could receive a title.) 

A number of the people who participated in the run entered the unoccupied land early and hid there until the legal time of entry. These people came to be known as the "Sooners", and hundreds of legal contests stemmed from the early entry of the Sooners.

I'm sure there's a lot more to the story of the Sooners than this, but I am puzzled as to why the University of Oklahoma would want to name their team after what were essentially "cheaters". But really this is minor compared with the removal of the Indians to reservations so that the homesteaders could claim this "unassigned" land.

The Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 quickly led to the creation of Oklahoma Territory and ultimately to the formation of the forty-sixth state of the Union, Oklahoma, in 1907.

Below are just a few photos of The Centennial Land Run Monument which commemorates the Land Run of 1889. The frenzied energy from one instant during the run is captured in bronze by artist Paul Moore. It's one of the world's largest bronze sculptures, featuring 45 figures frozen in motion as they race to claim new homesteads. It really was quite an impressive display, stretching out over a very large area.

As the sculpture above depicts, the land run was not without tragic consequences for some would-be homesteaders. The trunk spilled from a wagon just ahead, (not shown in this photo).

The Oklahoma National Stockyards claims to be the world's largest stocker and feeder cattle market. Our timing must've been off because there wasn't a cow to be seen! Nonetheless we wandered around Stockyards City a bit, had a cocktail in McClintock Saloon and a steak dinner in the Cattlemen's Cafe. (Seemed like the thing to do!)

We visited the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. It is over 200,000 square feet of everything western that you can imagine. They had what seemed like an endless number of galleries filled with western art; a gallery on men's and women's western apparel through the years, including several pieces worn by celebs; a gallery on film and television westerns - John Wayne was, of course a prominent figure in this section; plus several other galleries. We didn't make it to all of them, but we were there for about three hours and saw most of what the museum had to offer.

This is a portion of the art on the museum's exterior wall.

"The End of the Trail"

The End of the Trail was sculpted by James Earle Fraser (1876-1953), for display in the Court of Palms at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. It was one of the most photographed sites of the fair. Since then it has become one of the most recognizable images in the country. This is the original work by Fraser, and it is in the main hall of the museum, visible as soon as you enter the building. 

"Out of the Blue"

Out of the Blue, by Phil Epp (b. 1946), was one of my favorites in the museum. 

There's an outdoor section to the museum as well. We thought this was a clever depiction of a wagon heading off for the mountains. Looks as though "Mama's China" didn't make the cut. 

Just your head?!

The Henry & Anna Overholser Mansion is located in Oklahoma City's Heritage Hills neighborhood. The mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

I was fascinated by the mansion because it is almost exactly as it was when the Overholser family lived in the home. It is not filled with replicas of artifacts or period pieces taken from another location. It is filled with the Overholser's actual possessions. Their clothing is still in the closets!

Built in 1903 on the outskirts of town, the three-story, 12,000 square foot mansion was the city's first mansion and considered the social center of Oklahoma City (even though it was located a mile south of the city). Henry Overholser (1846-1915), who had made his wealth in mercantiles and real estate in Indiana and Ohio, came to Indian Territory in 1889 (soon to be Oklahoma). He built the Grand Avenue Hotel and the Overholser Opera House and was a major investor of Oklahoma's streetcar line. He became known as the "Father of Oklahoma City".

Anna Overholser (1870-1940), who was 24 years younger than Henry, arrived in Oklahoma with her family in 1889 also. Together, Anna & Henry became civic and social leaders in Oklahoma City. They had two children. A son, Henry Samuel, was born in 1891 but lived only eight months. In 1905, they had a daughter, who they named Henry Ione. 

Henry Ione married David Jay Perry, a pioneer aviator in 1926. They never had any children, and they lived in the mansion until Henry Ione's death in 1959. Mr. Perry sold the property and all of its contents to the Oklahoma Historical Society in 1972. He died in 1992.

The light fixtures (above) are made with Murano glass from Italy. They looked so unusual that they were the first thing I noticed in this room. The carpets were imported from England. The walls are canvas covered and have stenciling that was done by a London gentleman. (He spent three years completing the stenciling of the entire house.)

This billboard is at the entrance to our last activity in Oklahoma City: a brewery. 

Roughtail Brewing Co. was a very colorful place. Their beers had "colorful" names as well:

A Petite For Destruction

Amber Management

Dill Or No Deal

Hoptometrist

Everything Rhymes With Orange

The night/day before we left town we had a bit of a snowstorm, which brought about 2 inches of snow in the RV park. One couple in a large motorhome had an awful time trying to depart on this morning. It took them about a half hour, with wheels spinning in the snow on an incline, even with the assistance of a camp employee. They ended up backing up the length of the driveway and going out a different way.

We watched off and on as the situation unfolded - knowing that we were departing the very next day. Fortunately, we knew the snow was predicted to stop and the sun was supposed to come out. As an additional bonus, a snowplow came through and cleared the park roadways after the snow stopped, and the sun did make an appearance. We departed without incident.