TO OKLAHOMA
prepared by the editors of the
American Association for State and Local History
Introduction
The following pages offer the reader a guide to places in this state through which its history still lives.
This section lists and describes museums with collections of valuable artifacts, historic houses where prominent people once lived, and historic sites where events of importance took place. In addition, we have singled out for detailed description a few places that illustrate especially well major developments in this state’s history or major themes running through it, as identified in the text that follows. The reader can visit these places to experience what life was like in earlier times and learn more about the state’s rich and exciting heritage.
James B. Gardner and Timothy C. Jacobson, professional historians on the staff of the American Association for State and Local History, prepared this supplementary material, and the association’s editors take sole responsibility for the selection of sites and their descriptions. Nonetheless, thanks are owed to many individuals and historical organizations, including those listed, for graciously providing information and advice. Our thanks also go to the National Endowment for the Humanities, which granted support for the writing and editing of this supplement, as it did for the main text itself. —The Editors
Chickasaw Council House
Tishomingo
The Indian Territory of nineteenth-century Oklahoma was originally set aside for the Five Civilized Tribes: the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. Removed from their homelands in the southeastern United States in the 1830s and 1840s, these Native Americans preserved their distinctive heritages and cultures by establishing separate tribal nations within their new western home. Among these was the Chickasaw National Council, whose first and last council houses still stand on Court House Square in Tishomingo. These structures reflect the growth and development of the Chickasaw nation prior to statehood and commemorate the broader Native American experience in Oklahoma’s Indian Territory.
Original log Council House
The infamous Indian removal policy of Andrew Jackson’s presidency forced thousands of Native Americans to migrate to a newly established Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. From Mississippi came the Choctaws, from Alabama and East Georgia the Creeks, from northern Mississippi and western Tennessee the Chickasaws, from Georgia the Cherokees, and from Florida the Seminoles. Although some went peacefully and others resisted the white man’s coercion, all ended up following the “trail of tears” to the West. When the Chickasaws arrived in present-day Oklahoma, they found that they were to share the southeast part of the Indian Territory with the Choctaws. Although the tribes were related, co-occupation did not work out. For one thing, the Choctaws had arrived first and established farms and settlements in the eastern portion, forcing the Chickasaws to settle to the west, where they were more exposed to hostile Plains Indians. Furthermore, attempts at unified government proved unsuccessful, for each nation insisted on maintaining its separate identity and tribal organization. In 1848 the Chickasaws wrote their own constitution, and then in 1855 the two tribes officially parted ways, each setting up independent governments. The treaty also divided the lands, giving the Chickasaws control over 4,707,903 acres.
The elective council of the Chickasaw Nation first met at Post Oak Grove but in 1855 established its permanent capital at Good Spring on the Pennington Creek—the present site of Tishomingo, named for the last Chickasaw war chief in Mississippi. The first Council House or capital was a simple one-room log house, but in 1858 the council moved into a more substantial two-story brick building. That building burned down in 1890, however, and the Chickasaw National Council erected a third capital at Tishomingo. The council occupied the new Victorian stone structure in November 1898 and continued to meet there until 1907, when the independent Chickasaw nation came to an end with Oklahoma statehood.
Just as the Indian removal policy reflected the interests of white Americans, so statehood reflected the influence of white settlers in the Oklahoma region. In 1889 the federal government yielded to demands that the Indian Territory be opened to white settlement and allowed homesteaders to establish claims in an area known as the Unassigned Lands. Situated in the heart of the Indian Territory, this white enclave organized the Oklahoma Territory the following year. In the decades that followed, additional sections in the western part of the territory were opened up as part of an allotment process that eliminated lesser tribal nations. Then in 1898 Congress passed the Curtis Act, which authorized allotment of the remaining portion, the lands of the Five Civilized Tribes, and dissolution of the Indian Territory and the tribal nations. Native American leaden still hoped to avoid absorption by the white-led Oklahoma Territory and petitioned Congress for the Indian Territory’s admission to the union as the state of Sequoyah. Their appeal was ignored, however, and in 1907 the Oklahoma Territory and the Indian Territory were joined as the state of Oklahoma. Under the new state government, the former capital of the Chickasaw nation became the Johnston County courthouse.
The first Council House was moved in the late nineteenth century from its original site to the country home of R. M. Harris, then governor of the Chickasaws. In the 1930s it was moved back to Courthouse Square in Tishomingo and then in 1964 relocated to its present site, a few hundred yards east of its original location. The Oklahoma Historical Society acquired the historic structure in 1969 and subsequently erected a cover structure to protect the deteriorating building and provide space for exhibits on the tribal culture and the Chickasaw Nation. Nearby stands the three-story granite Victorian structure that served as the Chickasaws’ last capital. Although there has been some modernization to accommodate the county government, this edifice also remains much the same as in the period before statehood. Together these structures reflect the growth and development of the Chickasaw Nation and call to mind the larger Native American experience in the Indian Territory of nineteenth-century Oklahoma.
Historic Guthrie
Guthrie
The In 1889 the United States Congress yielded to pressure from both land-hungry white settlers and railroad and financial interests and authorized the first land run into Indian Territory. Thousands joined the race to claim homesteads on April 22, and by that afternoon a small stop on the Santa Fe Railroad had become the city of Guthrie, Oklahoma’s largest settlement. Although made up of only tents and temporary structures at first, Guthrie blossomed over the next two decades as territorial and then state capital. The Guthrie Historic District preserves the tum-of-the-century city and brings to life the Oklahoma experience in the critical transition from settlement to territory to statehood.
Gray Brothers Building
In the first Oklahoma land run on April 22, 1889, thousands of homesteaders rushed to claim farm land, but an equally impressive number headed for a townsite about eight miles south of the Kansas border. Named Guthrie in honor of a director of the Santa Fe Railroad, the townsite had only one complete structure when that day began: a small frame station that served as a watering stop and section house for the railroad. Construction had begun nearby on a federal land office, but the building was not complete by the time the first train rolled in packed with eager new residents. Others followed on subsequent trains; some came by wagon, horseback, and foot; and by sunset the town claimed a population of fifteen thousand. The federal government had restricted the new town to a half-section of land or 320 acres, but that area could not begin to satisfy the newcomers’ demand for town lots. The shortage was quickly eased by simply establishing four adjoining townships. Thus, until consolidated over a year later, the new city of Guthrie actually comprised four separate legal entities.
The new residents wasted little time. Construction of more permanent buildings began that first afternoon with lumber brought in by rail, and within the month the first brick edifice was occupied. Following the city’s most well-worn path, a central business district soon developed from the railroad station east to the land office. Oklahoma and Harrison avenues became the two principal commercial arteries, lined with a variety of stores, businesses, banks, hotels, boarding-houses, and saloons established by ambitious entrepreneurs catering to the needs of the booming territorial society. Among the most successful was Frank Greer. Greer arrived in Guthrie on the opening day, set up business in a tent, and that same afternoon published the territory’s first newspaper, the Oklahoma Daily State Capital. He also took on job printing and soon moved into a small frame building on Oklahoma. As business increased, Greer’s State Capital Company moved to a third and finally in 1902 to a fourth larger home on Harrison. By the early twentieth century he owned Oklahoma’s three most widely circulated newspapers and one of the largest printing and bookbinding operations in the Southwest.
When Congress authorized the land run in 1889, no provision was included for organizing and governing the territory. Consequently, for the first year the residents governed themselves. When the territory was finally established in May 1890, Guthrie was designated the capital. The first territorial legislature convened that fall, and one of the first bills to gain approval called for relocating the territorial government to Oklahoma City, a rival city also established in the 1889 land run. The territorial governor vetoed the proposal, but the controversy over the capital’s location continued for decades. When Oklahoma secured statehood in 1907, Congress temporarily sealed the issue by designating Guthrie as the capital until 1913, when a popular referendum would determine the permanent location. Oklahoma Democrats, whose power base was further south around Oklahoma City, viewed that clause in the enabling act as an attempt by Republicans in Washington to control the state’s politics. By 1910, the Democrats, led by Governor Charles N. Haskell, and the Republicans, led by Guthrie newspaperman Greer, were openly at odds over the issue. Haskell finally decided to take action and convinced the legislature to hold a referendum on the capital location in June 1910. Voters could choose among Guthrie, Shawnee, and Oklahoma City. Just after the polls closed, Haskell declared Oklahoma City the winner and had the state seal secretly transferred there. Greer and other Guthrie residents challenged the validity of the referendum, but the United States Supreme Court upheld Haskell’s action.
Guthrie’s growth and development ended with the capital’s relocation in 1910. As a result, few of the buildings were significantly altered, and the city today appears much as it did in the first decade of the twentieth century. In fact, the city was placed on the National Register of Historic Places as the only intact territorial and state capital remaining in the United States.
Of particular interest in the historic district are the Oklahoma Territorial Museum and the State Capital Publishing Museum, both administered by the Oklahoma Historical Society. The Oklahoma Territorial Museum occupies the old Carnegie Library and a modern adjoining building. The library, constructed in 1902 and 1903, was the site of the inauguration of the last territorial governor and the first state governor and of Statehood Day ceremonies on November 16, 1907. This last included the symbolic wedding of Mr. Oklahoma Territory and Miss Indian Territory. Visitors can now see portions of the historic library as well as exhibits on Oklahoma’s territorial period. The State Capital Publishing Museum occupies the last home of Greer’s famed printing business. Erected in 1902 according to a design by Joseph Foucart, the structure contains many original furnishings, vintage letterpress printing equipment, and exhibits on the company and expanded operations in the oil field, but full exploitation was hindered for a time by legal technicalities related to Indian land allotments. Determined entrepreneurs secured leases one way or another by 1901, and the oil boom spread from Bartlesville throughout Indian Territory. By 1905, 255 producing wells had been drilled in the territory, and by 1907 the new state of Oklahoma led the Southwest in the production of crude oil—a position it retained until 1928 and the Texas oil boom.
One of the early entrepreneurs in the Oklahoma petroleum industry was Frank A. Phillips. He was born in rural Nebraska in 1873 and grew up on his family’s farm in Creston, Iowa. His education ended at the age of 14, when he began working in a local barbershop. Ambitious and determined to make his way in the world, Phillips purchased that barbershop and the town’s other two as well by his early twenties. In 1897 he married Jane Gibson, daughter of Creston banker John Gibson. Phillips’ new father-in-law persuaded him to try his hand at bond sales, and he again demonstrated an amazing entrepreneurial talent in moving bond issues that had frustrated more experienced salesmen.
Just after the turn of the century, Phillips heard about the oil strikes around Bartlesville. He and his brother, L. E. Phillips, traveled to Oklahoma and investigated the investment possibilities in 1903 and 1904. Convinced of the potential for enormous profits, the Phillipses decided to join the oil boom. John Gibson and several associates provided capital for the organization of the Anchor Oil and Gas Company, and by early 1905 the young entrepreneurs had settled in Bartlesville, opened an office, and hired a driller. Oil drilling lacked the scientific exactitude of present-day operations, and the Phillips’ first three wells proved dry. With only enough money for one more try, the brothers drilled a fourth well near the Caney River on property leased from Anna Anderson, a young Delaware Indian girl whose grandfather had secured the land for her as her allotment in the division of tribal property. On September 6, 1905, the Anna Anderson No. 1 came in, yielding two hundred fifty barrels of crude oil a day. The Phillips brothers made eighty more consecutive strikes after that and soon had Anchor Oil and Gas on a sound competitive footing within the developing petroleum industry.
By 1915, the price of crude oil had dropped from $1.05 to $.35 per barrel. Phillips, still active in banking and finance, decided to sell the printing industry. In addition to the museums, visitors to the district can see a rich assortment of historic structures erected during the city’s heyday. These include the Gray Brothers Building, home of the Bank of the Indian Territory until 1905; the Logan County Court House, constructed in 1902 and used as the state capitol until 1911; and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company Station, built in 1902 on the site of the original Guthrie Station. These and the other historic buildings in the district effectively recall Guthrie’s pivotal role in Oklahoma’s transition from territory to statehood.
Frank Phillips Home
Bartlesville
The Oklahoma’s most famous resource is oil. First commercially tapped in 1897, the state’s oil reserves fueled the dramatic growth and development of the Oklahoma economy in the twentieth century. A leading figure in the establishment of the petroleum industry was Frank Phillips, founder of the Phillips Petroleum Company at Bartlesville. His home still stands there as a monument to him and the other oil entrepreneurs who played such pivotal roles in shaping the twentieth-century Oklahoma experience.
Frank Phillips Home
The town of Bartlesville was established toward the end of the nineteenth century in northeastern Oklahoma, between the Osage Hills and the Caney River. Its founder was Jacob Bartles, who purchased a grist mill there in 1875 and operated a trading post on the north bank of the river. The town remained a relatively insignificant rural settlement until 1897, when the Cudahy Oil Company drilled Oklahoma’s first commercial oil well, the Nellie Johnstone No. 1, on the banks of the Caney. The arrival of the Santa Fe Railroad two years later led to most of his oil holdings. Then with increased demand during World War I, the per-barrel price of crude oil shot up to $3.50. The remaining tag ends of the old oil leases became valuable again and the brothers resumed oil drilling operations. On June 13, 1917, they incorporated the Phillips Petroleum Company, using as assets $3,000,000 in oil leases. The company expanded dramatically over the next decade and in 1927 diversified with the purchase of a refinery in Texas. That in turn led to direct marketing, and in November 1927 the Phillips company opened its first service station in Wichita, Kansas. Marketed at first in the Midwest and West, Phillips 66 products were on sale in all fifty states by 1968. Frank Phillips died in 1950, but the company he founded remains an innovator and leader in the energy and chemical industries.
The Frank Phillips Home at 1107 Cherokee Avenue in Bartlesville was erected by the oil entrepreneur in 1909. The two-and-a-half-story Greek Revival building, designed by Walter Everman, is constructed of brick with sandstone trim and an imposing two-story portico supported by white columns. Its twenty-nine rooms include a gameroom, a library, a sunroom, and seven bedrooms decorated with the Phillips’ furniture, art, and other decorative objects. Opened to the public in 1973 and administered by the Oklahoma Historical Society, the home serves as a monument to Frank Phillips and his pivotal role in the development of the Oklahoma oil industry.
Visitors to Bartlesville can see several other sites related to the oil industry as well. On the banks of the Caney River in Johnstone Park stands a replica of the wooden oil derrick that once marked the Nellie Johnstone No. 1, the state’s first commercial oil well. Southwest of the city is the Woolaroc Museum and Ranch, a museum of Southwestern culture located on Frank Phillips’ four-thousand-acre ranch. And in downtown Bartlesville on the second floor of the Phillips Building is the Phillips Exhibit Hall, which depicts the company’s history, activities, and products. Still headquartered at Bartlesville, the present-day Phillips Petroleum Company testifies to the impact of the oil industry on twentieth-century Oklahoma.
Other Places of Interest
The following suggest other places of historical interest to visit. We recommend that you check hours of operation in advance.
BOGGY DEPOT SITE, fourteen miles southwest of Atoka. Faint outlines of streets with building foundations, abandoned wells and cisterns, and cemetery of 1838 settlement by Chickasaws; important in the days of the California gold rush and Butterfield Overland Mail.
CHEROKEE NATIONAL HISTORICAL MUSEUM, Cherokee Heritage Center, Tahlequah. Village museum with recreation of villages from the 1600s and late 1800s; Cherokee culture and history.
CHEROKEE STRIP HISTORICAL MUSEUM, one-fourth mile east of Fir Street exit off 1-34, Perry. Exhibits on the agriculture and culture of the Cherokee Strip.
CHISHOLM TRAIL MUSEUM, 605 Zellers Avenue, Kingfisher. General history museum with exhibits on agriculture and Indian life; information on the 1892 mansion of Gov. Abraham J. Seay.
CREEK NATIONAL CAPITOL, Old Creek Indian Council House, Okmulgee. Displays of Indian craftwork and weapons and the history of the Creeks since their removal from Georgia and Florida; in the 1878 Victorian capitol.
DAVIS GUN MUSEUM, Fifth and U.S. 66, Claremore. Besides guns, swords, and knives, includes saddles, steins, animal horns.
FERGUSON HOUSE, 521 N. Weigel Street, Watonga. Clapboard house built about 1902, and home of Thompson Benton Ferguson, newspaperman and governor of Oklahoma Territory; where Edna Ferber worked on novel Cimarron; state–owned.
FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES MUSEUM, Agency Hill on Honor Heights Drive, Muskogee. Art in traditional style by Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles; housed in 1875 Indian agency building.
FORT GIBSON, Fort Gibson. Reconstructed log buildings and stockade and restored original stone buildings from fort of 1837–1857 used in Indian conflicts and as a trade center.
FORT WASHITA, southwest of Nida on state 199. Restored buildings from an 1842 fort established by Zachary Taylor to protect Chickasaws; a stop on the Overland Trail.
GILCREASE INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN HISTORY AND ART, 1400 N. 25 West Avenue, Tulsa. Displays on the Five Civilized Tribes and other Indians from Alaska to Mexico, the American frontier, and American art.
MARLAND MANSION, Monument Road, Ponca City. Coursed stone house with Mission Style elements, built 1928–1941 for E. W. Marland, wealthy oil man; with a museum.
MURRAY-LINDSAY MANSION, south of Washita River, Erin Springs. Vernacular Neoclassical Revival house built in 1880 by a cattle king.
MURRELL HOME, Park Hill. Clapboard house built 1843–1844 that was social center and school for the community; with a museum.
MUSEUM OF THE CHISHOLM TRAIL, U.S. 81 and state 70, Waurika. Exhibits on pioneers and the famous cattle trail through the area.
MUSEUM OF THE WESTERN PRAIRIE, 1100 N. Hightower, Altus. General museum with early farming implements and cattle-ranching equipment.
NATIONAL COWBOY HALL OF FAME, 1700 N.E. 63rd Street, Oklahoma City. Collection of Russell and Remington art and displays on cowboys and historic trails.
NELLIE JOHNSTONE NO. 1, Johnstone Park, Bartlesville. Replica of the 1897 oil well that was the first commercial well in the state; first oil well on private land near Wapanuck, drilled 1885–1888.
NO MAN’S LAND HISTORICAL MUSEUM, Sewel Street, Goodwell. Collection of Indian artifacts and exhibits from anthropology, archeology, agriculture, and natural sciences.
OKLAHOMA STATE MUSEUM, Historical Building, Oklahoma City. Galleries on the Plains Indians, Five Civilized Tribes, pioneer, territorial, and statehood aspects of Oklahoma, transportation, military life, Indian art, and aviator Wiley Post.
OLD TOWN MUSEUM, Pioneer Road and U.S. 66, Elk City. General museum with restored first house in Elk City, early school, wagon yard, chapel, and rodeo setting.
OVERHOLSER HOUSE, 405 N.W. 15th Street, Oklahoma City. Built 1903 by rich pioneer and merchant.
PRICE TOWER, Dewey Avenue and Sixth Street, Bartlesville. Office building housing headquarters of the Phillips Petroleum Company; designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, built 1953–1956, showing adaptation of skyscraper for open-space setting.
SOD HOUSE, four miles north of Cleo Springs on state 8. Frame and sod house built by homesteader, the only existing homestead sod house in Oklahoma, with furnishings of the 1890s era.
THORPE HOUSE, 704 E. Boston Street, Yale. Clapboard house built 1916–1917 where Jim Thorpe, first competitor to win both pentathlon and decathlon in the Olympics (1912), lived; state–owned.
TOM MIX MUSEUM, Dewey. Memorabilia of the famous movie star, who was once a Dewey marshal; with a silver-studded black leather saddle on a life-size replica of Mix’s horse, “Tony.”
WESTERN TRAILS MUSEUM, 2229 Gary Freeway, Clinton. Exhibits from anthropology and archeology.
WILL ROGERS MEMORIAL, one mile west of Claremore on state 88. Grave and personal belongings of the famed humorist.