The traveling elixir peddlers sold their medicines with the promise of cures for practically everything that ails you.

Seventy-five years ago on April 3, 1938, The Oklahoman reported the story of rattlesnake hunter Herb Pinack of Medicine Park.

“He seeks out the dens of the rattlesnakes, kills them and collects the fat from the sides of the rattlesnakes. From this fat he renders an oil which has been known for years for its medical qualities.”

“From the time of the medicine shows when the wandering doctors went through the country selling their remedies, snake oil has been known as a healer of rheumatism, toothache, earache and other aches for which penetrating oil will give relief. Rattlesnake oil, according to Pinack, is one of the most penetrating oils that have ever been found and a small amount rubbed into a joint sore with rheumatism or dropped into an ear will give quick relief. He sells the oil for $20 an ounce, but a small amount will last the winter for an average family.”

On a sunny Sunday, reporter Helen Gilbert met Pinack and his wife in the Wichita Mountains to hunt rattlesnakes.

“I saw two people wandering among the rocks on a ledge above me and calling up to them I asked if they were hunting rabbits. They yelled back. “No we are looking for rattlesnake.” I had seen a posted sign on a fence that I had just crossed and when Pinack answered that he was looking for rattlesnake I thought he was trying to scare me.”

“Soon, I came closer to Pinack and his wife and they invited me to join them. Still thinking the snakes were a joke, I trailed along and fell into conversation. Pinack told me how he had killed thousands of rattlesnakes in the 36 years that he had lived in the mountains and how he decided to make a hobby of killing them and collecting their oil.”

Herb Pinack located a den and killed six rattlesnakes. 

“With his penknife, Pinack slit their skins, his knife making a slight raking sound as it cut through the scales. With deft fingers he pulled the fat from their sides and dropped it into a fruit jar which he brought along.”

Rattlesnake oil may truly just be snake oil, but as media continues to bring stories of the next great cure, and who knows, but real snake oil might be worth another look from scientists.

If you want to get out there and hunt your own, consider attending the Waurika Rattlesnake Hunt, April 12-14; the Apache Rattlesnake Festival, April 18-21; and the 48th Annual Mangum Rattlesnake Derby, April 26-28.

“You can never tell what a tremendous bearing a sweet smile and a gentle disposition may have on your entire career.

“Consider for example, the case of Rex, the little brown guinea pig in the city chemist’s office, named after Rex Cleveland, city pure food inspector.

“Several weeks ago when ten little guinea pigs, the world’s most helpless animals, arrived at the chemist’s office Rex immediately showed signs of being friendly. While the other little pigs would scurry away in high terror when anyone approached their box, Rex plainly showed he was not afraid. He would walk boldly up and eat lettuce out of your hand, and he let it be known if you wanted to rub him behind the ears, it was alright with him. In fact he liked it.

“As a result, no diphtheria tests have been made upon Rex. While his little playmates suffer with sore throats and have high fevers, as result of inoculations, Rex just scampers about as happy as he can be, doing nothing all day but stuffing his little stomach with nice fresh lettuce and getting his ears rubbed.

“And that isn’t all. Employees of the chemist’s office have interceded for Rex, and he is soon to be taken to the city zoo where he will have a comfortable home for the rest of his life.

“Now, the moral is, if you’re a guinea pig, be a sweet little guinea pig.”

There was a follow-up on Dec. 17, 1927, reporting the arrival of Rex and two fellow guinea pigs at the zoo, with the note that they would soon be on display in a cage made especially for them.

Guinea pigs normally live four to eight years. There was no further mention of Rex, but we can guess he spent the rest of his life with fresh lettuce and a scratch behind the ears. Not a bad life at all.

Bragg said, “Girl attendants will dress as Daisy Mae, while fountain boys will appear as Li’l Abner.”

With World War II ongoing, Gragg decided female patrons must show their ration books to prove they were of legal drinking age.

With the police chief’s blessing, Gragg instituted a rule that men must show their draft cards to show they were 21, but he would serve the military regardless of age. ” … if he is big enough and old enough to carry a gun, he’s big enough and old enough to carry a glass of beer.”

On April 5, 1942, veteran Oklahoman writer Tom Rucker reported the Daisy Mae’s most memorable event.

The battle of Mrs. Mabel Bassett v. the Daisy Mae’s bare tummies closed its second round Tuesday night with no decision and the tummies still bare.

The complaining commissioner of charities and corrections was sidestepped in the first round, when the very male city council pointed out that city ordinances cover such things as bare tummies in a legal sort of way and referred her to the police department.

The second round opened with verbal sparring with L.J. Hilbert, police chief, and with Mrs. Bassett failing to land any telling body blows, but was brought to a sudden halt when Billy Gragg, owner of the honky-tonk, said in effect: “Bare they are, bare they stay.” His actual words were: “If anyone complains that the bare midriffs are vulgar, we’ll cover them up.” When it was pointed out that Mrs. Bassett already had complained, he gave out verbosely, but which boiled down in paraphrase to: “Anyone else.”

Mrs. Bassett claimed that up to six inches of anatomy of the Daisy Mae’s waitresses showed between halter and skirts.

A detailed examination of the midriff of one tall waitress made Tuesday afternoon (purely in the interest of facts, Lou Verna, my dear) revealed:

Two and one-half inches of slightly tanned, smooth skin between the upper and lower garments. If she breathed deeply the bare would have built up to four inches.

If the bare built up to six inches the inspection no longer would have been scientific.

This particular waitress, a charming 18-year-old blond, wore a polka-dot halter with a full back in it. It was tied in front with one of the ends drooping down, thus hiding at least one square inch of skin.

Her jagged skirt, a la Daisy Mae fashion, ended just below her knees, in a much less intriguing manner than the scanties worn in the comic strips by the real Daisy Mae.

Thus the score stood Tuesday night: Two rounds, no decision, eight tummies still bare.

Gragg has had several brushes with officials. An old hand in the entertainment business, he usually adopts a conciliatory attitude. But Tuesday he just wanted to ask more questions of Mrs. Bassett.

What, he asked, is Mrs. Bassett going to do with housewives who wear midriffs downtown this summer? And how about girls at swimming pools and women who wear two-piece evening dresses?”

This wasn’t the end of the story. On May 22, 1944, The Oklahoman reported a Chicago trade magazine, “Institutional,” had picked up the story of the bare midriffs and ran the photo of a Daisy Mae waitress in her “uniform.” The only problem was they identified the waitress as “Mabel Bassett of the Daisy Mae tavern in Oklahoma City fashions the very latest in Dogpatch style.”

Bassett was out of town and apparently chose not to make a public comment when she returned.

“Why the idea,” giggled Elsie D. Hand, assistant commissioner, “of Mabel Bassett going around showing half of her stomach. That’s the funniest thing I ever heard of.”

Mabel Bassett was elected and served as the state commissioner of charities and corrections for 24 years. She oversaw the operations of the state schools for boys and girls, orphanages and the state penitentiary. If a child was orphaned or abandoned, she would often pick up the child herself, or if a prisoner had a complaint, he or she would come to her. She was also recognized early in her career for being the first woman patrolman in the state at Sapulpa. The state correctional facility in McLoud is named for her.

The Daisy Mae lasted until late 1947 when Chuck’s Billiards took over the location and arrests began to rise for illegal gambling and bookies.

Captain W.W. Mayne, a survivor of the Civil War, died April 15, 1912, in Claremore, and a public auction of his possessions was held later that year in November on the streets of Claremore.

The story began: “At a public auction sale on the streets of this city recently one of the most famous violins in America was sold and one of the saddest stories of human life — full of romance and disappointments — was brought to light.”

Mayne, impoverished after searching unsuccessfully nearly 18 years for the wife who had deserted him in 1894 and taken their children, left an estate of only a few trinkets and four violins.

He had arrived in Claremore six years before in poor health resulting from war injuries aggravated by his search.

Claremore’s famous artesian water known as Radium water worked its cure and Mayne regained his health for a time.

Of the four violins, three sold for less than $20 each. But the fourth was a special one and sold for $145.50 to local attorney John T. Ezzard.

After the Civil War, Mayne became “a famous violinist and a noted orchestra leader, standing at the head of his profession in Chicago for a number of years. While there, a friend who had secured one of the Maggini violins was about to lose the instrument by foreclosure of a mortgage when Mayne secured the instrument on the payment of $760, the original mortgage being $1,760. The instrument, owing to the death of the mortgagee, was never redeemed and remained in the possession of Captain Mayne for over thirty years.”

Giovani Paolo Maggini lived in 17th century Italy and crafted violins. While not as well-known as Stradivarius or Guarneri, his violins are still quite respected in violin circles.

Mayne’s Maggini violin resurfaced in The Oklahoman on Jan. 27, 1936, in a story about a man who had spent 20 years trying to prove he had a 300-year-old violin.

According to the story, shortly after buying the violin in the 1912 auction, attorney Ezzard sold it to Carl Nuccols (Nuckolls) also of Claremore.

“‘I could tell the first time I played it. I had something,’ said Nuccols, employed in the aviation trade at 325 Northwest Second Street.”

“‘But I wanted to find the man whose name was inscribed on the bow which came with the violin and see what he knew.’ ”

“Encased with the instrument was a bow bearing this inscription: ‘Presented to Capt. W.W. Mayne by Roy Young, Violin Virtuoso.’ ”

Nuccols would move to Oklahoma City in 1933 in search of a job, and a chance meeting would lead him to Young’s brother, Fred.

After owning the violin for nearly 24 years, Nuccols was able to track down Roy Young, professor of violin, who had formerly taught at the University of Oklahoma.

Young wrote, “Yes, it is a genuine Italian-made violin, made by the son of Paolo Maggini in 1640. The instrument has a value of $3,000 or more. The bow isn’t so valuable.”

“The Maggini instrument’s untold ‘past’ is almost as obscure as it is far-reaching. In 1880, Captain Mayne bought the violin from a man then living in Chicago, now unknown. Beyond that, who can tell but the old violin, itself?”

Carl Nuckolls died in 1968.

The violin’s whereabouts is unknown.

But imagine traveling in a time machine back to 1924. That same stretch of highway would be only a two-lane road, and where the YWCA sits now, there might have been only a grand opening sign with a family park for a backdrop.

The formal opening of Log Cabin Park was announced in an advertisement in The Oklahoman on April 19, 1924, touting the park as “a paradise for tourists.”

Another ad encouraged readers to come out to “this close-in Tourist Park” and listed the availability of gasoline, oil and tires from the station and touted the “Log Cabin Inn — We’re going to make it worth your while.”

An image that accompanied the ad shows a two-story log building with an awning that extends over gas pumps.

The park featured a free baseball game on Sunday, political speaking Tuesday evening by Democratic candidates and offered free ice cold lemonade all day every Sunday.

By September, the ads were featuring a cafe and a promotion that read, “You can eat our wholesome meals or cook yourself. The kids can romp and play and yell their heads off.”

For more than a decade, Log Cabin Park was a destination for Sunday drives and a popular spot for company picnics. In the 1930s, boxers trained in the Log Cabin ring. If you didn’t have a car, the street cars would take you there.

Times changed, and the Log Cabin Inn gave way to the Log Cabin Theater in 1941. It was Oklahoma City’s movie theater of choice for artsy movies, although it showed regular fare, too.

In April 1950, the theater name was changed to the Frontier, and it continued showing movies until it burned in 1954.

The land changed hands, and the Rio Motel was built on the site in 1957.

In 1988, the YWCA bought the old motel and remodeled it for their battered women’s shelter.

The site at 2640 NW 39 has had many names: Log Cabin Tire Co., Log Cabin Inn, Log Cabin Park, Log Cabin Club, Log Cabin Theater, Frontier Theater, Rio Hotel and now the YWCA Gaylord Service Complex.

The next time you pass this location, imagine a slower, simpler time with citizens enjoying an outing at the park or young people seeing a movie.

The Iten Building as it looked in 1912. – PHOTO FROM THE OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES

The old Iten Biscuit Co., now the U-Haul building, sits in the center of this Jan. 30, 2009 photograph. – PHOTO BY PAUL B. SOUTHERLAND, THE OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES

Jan. 1, 1913, was a time of celebration for Oklahoma City.

The new year had arrived with hope of great things, but Oklahoma City was also looking back at the successes of 1912 and hoping that new and more businesses were on the horizon.

Much new business had come to the city in 1912 along with much construction.

A building that met the dawning of 1913 was also here for the Opening Night celebration of 2013.

A story from The Oklahoman for Oct. 13, 1912, stated that: “The first two weeks’ operation of the new $250,000 Oklahoma City plant of the Iten Biscuit company finds orders piling up so fast that the packing force is hardly able to keep up with them, notwithstanding the daily additions to the force that are being made.”

“…In this 150×140-foot (building), carrying, in its five stories and basement 126,000 square feet of storage capacity, everything entering into the production and distribution of crackers and cakes is manufactured.”

“Even the packing boxes are made at the plant. There is a loading dock of six doors, all under cover and lighted with electricity. The furnaces are on the top floor and the processes are all downward, the very laws of gravitation being utilized to effect speed and economy in the producing and distributing agencies.”

Iten Biscuit Company icing room depositing machine. – PHOTO FROM THE OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES

One concept that was unusual for 1912, but was incorporated into the building, was that each floor had its own breakroom and bathrooms.

It’s hard to imagine that being considered “cutting edge,” but those of us who work in multi-storied buildings are grateful the idea caught on.

The biscuit company served Oklahoma City well for nearly 30 years.

Iten Biscuit Company bake shop ovens and cracker machines. – PHOTO FROM THE OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES

Then it was acquired by Nabisco, next the Folding Carrier Company and, finally, its current owner, U-Haul Storage.

The 6,000 windows have been covered, but the building still stands and remains a solid part of downtown Oklahoma City

Today we recognize it best by the U-Haul truck that sits on the roof, and while the Crosstown Bridge no longer passes next to the building, it is still visible to citizens and visitors.

May the Devon Energy building and other buildings built in 2012, and the businesses they generate, endure as well as the Iten/U-Haul building.

This ghost story from Oklahoma’s past appeared in The Oklahoman on Nov. 1, 1908:

“In the darkness of a canyon cave, near old Fort Arbuckle, there resides an oracle. What it is no living person knows. Certain it is that some natural formation of earth, stone or timber stands suspended in such a manner that the circulation of winds within the cave creates an uncanny sound that drives one, if he suspects the supernatural or is a believer in ghost dances or spirit walks, to think that an imp of the nether region is playing a funeral dirge while his fellows dance in glee during the cremation of a lost soul. So vivid is the noise on occasions the superstitious folk of that neighborhood lock their doors tight at night and even in summer wrap themselves in bed covers to keep out the sound. A few have been driven to other lands, and it is said that for years during the early days of Indian Territory, even horse thieves, murderers and outlaws shied from the place, suspecting they heard omens of ill luck, or the song of an oracle betokening the approach of the posse.

The mysterious cave is only a half mile from the site of Fort Arbuckle (six miles west and one mile north of Davis) where 40 years ago United States soldiers were stationed to guard the frontier against marauding Indians. History relates that a battle was fought in the canyon and the bodies of dead soldiers were thrown into the cave. Unfortunately for superstitious clans, the date of the battle was October 31, the day of ghosts, hobgoblins, walking spirits and other supernatural phenomena that are, prehistorically speaking, in spectacular evidence when darkness falls upon the valleys and hills.

On the night of that battle day either some of the dead came to life, or persons not dead had been pitched into the cave, or else disturbing spooks walked over the bodies with mysterious weepings, for out of the inkiness came inhuman sounds, shrill shrieking, screaming or again doleful dreary, delirious — now groans of a maniac sinking into oblivion, now the shrieks of an expiring lost soul, now the music of Hades harped for the fantastic dance of the demons.

A pioneer heard it that night. He slew Indians all day and was tired at sundown. He lay upon a patch of grass in the valley of the canyon and tried to sleep. Repose deserted him. Rest was frightened away. He lay all night with his eyes open, staring at a heaven full of pretty stars. He tried to peer beyond the stars, strained his ears for a heavenly music, sought to forget the awful night of spookdom. But he couldn’t. Neither could he move his prostrate body when he tried. Not a muscle was active. The noises would not cease. All night he heard them and until the sun rose in the morning. That day in a cabin of the Arbuckle mountains the man told his story. That day the family in the cabin moved out. And from that day afterwards never was this man seen…”

Have a happy and safe halloween!

On June 7, 1929, as the Oklahoma Press Association was meeting in Guthrie, The Oklahoman reported:

“Friday the editors of Oklahoma and high state officials will gather at Summit View cemetery here to unveil a monument and pay tribute to the memory of John Golobie, one of the most romantic figures in the pioneer history of this commonwealth.

“Golobie came to the United States a poor immigrant boy, sent by his mother in what is now far away Czecho-Slovakia, alone across the sea to America the land of opportunity.

“He acquired an education, mostly by reading good books, came to Kansas and worked on the Wichita Eagle and when Oklahoma was opened to settlement on April 22, 1889, made the run to Guthrie where he was connected with various newspaper enterprises, finally helping to found the Oklahoma State Register which he edited here until his health failed. He served eight years in the state senate and became a power in the Republican politics of the state.”

The granite monument was quarried in Golobie’s native land and shipped to Oklahoma by his friend Lew Wentz.

“The base, appropriately, is of Oklahoma granite, combining symbols of the land of his birth and the land of his achievements.

“On the stone has been engraved the simple inscription:

‘John Golobie

A True American

Died May 30, 1927.’

“There is no date of birth, for Golobie did not know his exact age. Even John Golobie was his name only because he had worn it so long. His real name, long and foreign, only one other man in America knew. “John Golobie” the boy invented for himself when he started to an American school.

When the United States entered the World war Golobie threw all the force of his oratory into the cause of his adopted country. He inspired thousands by his speeches. It was a sad blow to him when following the war he failed in his race for governor of his state because people who did not know him voted against him because of his foreign birth.

Then he set his heart on being appointed minister to Czecho-Slovakia and would probably have succeeded, but for a ruling that no naturalized citizen might be sent as ambassador to the land of his birth.

Of his work in the state senate the achievement of which he was most proud was his bill establishing the state circulating library, making it possible for people in rural sections to enjoy good books.

Golobie never married. He had no known relatives in his adopted land. When his funeral was held, as he requested in the open air pavilion at Mineral Wells park here June 1, 1927, (more than 1500) friends from all walks of life and from all parts of the state gathered to say farewell. His grave is on the highest knoll in the heart of Summit View.”

Perhaps along with “A True American” the inscription should read “A True Oklahoman.”

Dr. F.K. Camp, founder of Wesley Hospital, pioneered the use of display advertising for hospitals.

In the August 1911 edition of The Oklahoman, a display advertisement shows the building and announces the opening of Wesley Hospital in the Herskowitz Building on Broadway and Grand.

Camp and his wife had established Wesley Hospital on two floors of the Herskowitz Building. But by December 1911, he had purchased an apartment house at 12th and Harvey and remodeled it into a hospital “second to none in the state. Operating room equipment the best money can buy. Beds, from $10 to $35 per week. Excellent nursing. An ambulance will meet trains when requested.”

The ads for the new Wesley Hospital location would show a photograph of the hospital and provide information about the hospital improvements and amenities.

The doctor and his wife owned and managed the hospital until 1919 when it was bought by a group led by Dr. A.L. Blesh and renamed the Hospital of the Oklahoma City Clinic.

On Aug. 10, 1919, The Oklahoman published an announcement about the hospital’s sale and Dr. Camp’s retirement. It also mentioned Camp’s advertising success:

“Dr. Camp’s advertising campaign, which was launched several years ago to popularize Wesley Hospital, was so successful that he became known nationally as the man who had made a success with advertising in a field where the ethics of the profession had long held against the use of display space in connection with the business. Dr. Camp was a pioneer in advertising a hospital. His methods were discussed by members of the profession throughout the country. Many hospitals in the large cities of the nation followed Dr. Camp’s lead.”

Camp was not through initiating innovations, however.

When he and his wife retired to California, they bought the already historic Brookdale Lodge, built in 1870 near Santa Cruz.

While searching the Internet trying to discover what Dr. Camp’s initials stood for, I discovered he was responsible for creating a landmark in the lodge that still exists.

The lodge, now known as the Brookdale Inn & Spa with the slogan, A River Runs Through It, has been closed due to financial problems since January 2011.

Its restaurant, called the Brookroom, was built so the natural brook on the property would run through the 200-seat dining room, complete with trees and boulders amid the tables and chairs.

The Brookroom was Dr. Camp’s creation, and for some 60 years after his death, the Brookroom was still a popular California destination, even featured in Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Camp’s Oklahoma City legacy still stands, too.

Old Wesley Hospital became Presbyterian Hospital, now a part of the OU Medical Center. And the old hospital building on 12th and Harvey is now the Wesley Village Retirement Community.

She must have been important, because the unnamed reporter checked with several prominent Oklahoma City citizens trying to find out where she was. It turns out the reporter came up with a clever story.

“Where’s Sally?

“From bank presidents down to messenger boys, they’re hunting for her through dark alleys, up the main highways, to directors’ meetings and on the schoolground, comes the pitiful wail, ‘Please bring her back to me.’

“Among city business men, it isn’t a question of who she is, They know. And they want to find her. So they dream, and hunt, and memory brings back the pleasant times they spent planning the future — with Sally — if only Sally hadn’t deserted them.

“But Sally is gone. So John Fields, vice president of the Farmers’ National bank, removes his stogie and whistles, ‘I wonder what’s become of Sally,’ while his eye moves a picture of how she would look all dressed up in Washington.

“Politicians muse on what a glorious figure she would make on top of the capitol dome they would have given the state.

“Ed Overholser believes she’d make a great chamber of commerce president.

“T.P. Martin would give her a place as pilot on the air mail route.

“Fred Suits seeks for her in the union station; Governor Trapp believes she is in the Darlington narcotic house; W.F. Vahlberg thinks she took his plans for a new city hall with her; Alva McDonald has a hunch that she has joined John Wilkes Booth, and hopes she led the seekers after his job with her.

“But the garbage man is the only one who has seen her since she left the city, for he’s stopped whistling, ‘Yes we have no bananas,’ and assures the world that Sally is headed for the dump heap.”

It took me a search on Google to find out who Sally was.

She was Sally Long, a Ziegfield Follies dancer who was the inspiration for the popular 1924 song titled ‘I Wonder What’s Become of Sally?’

“I wonder what’s become of Sally,

“That old gal of mine.

“The sunshine’s missing from our alley,

“Ever since the day Sally went away.

“No matter where she is,

“Whatever she may be,

“If no one wants her now,

“Please send her back to me.

“I’ll always welcome back my Sally,

“That old gal of mine.”

Alva McDonald was a U.S. marshal, W.F. Vahlberg was a member of the city board of commissioners, T.P. Martin was on the chamber of commerce’s aviation committee and Fred Suits was an attorney representing supporters for a railroad union station.

I guess I’m still wondering why they were wondering where Sally was.