The road begins at NE 23 Street between Bryant and Sooner Road and runs north, skipping a couple of section lines, nearly to Guthrie.

However, the street wasn’t originally named for the Oklahoma pioneer. It was named State Street.

According to an Oct. 5, 1944, story in The Oklahoman, the name change occurred because of a complication.

It seems there were two State streets in Oklahoma City — the northeast location and one in far northwest Oklahoma City, four blocks east of MacArthur Boulevard.

“It’s the folks along the west-side State Street who are raising the fuss. Their visitors go to the wrong street first, then have a long drive going to the right State Street.

“Besides,” says Mike Donnelly, County Commissioner District 2, site of the “west” State Street, “that other State Street never did rightfully exist. Originally it was named ‘Grant.’”

Mrs. Carl W. Skinner, one of several residents along the street and a niece of John Coltrane, said: “I was born about a mile from here and the street never has been called anything else (State Street) since it was opened several years ago.”

John J. Coltrane “originally owned three quarters of a section in that neighborhood. When the state capital was moved here from Guthrie, Coltrane offered land for the site.”

On July 5, 1911, The Oklahoman listed real estate transactions, and J.J. Coltrane transferred land to the State Capitol Building Co. for the sum of $1. In other early advertisements, Coltrane offered cattle for sale, and in the U.S. Census he is listed as a farmer.

The northwest corner of NE 36 and Coltrane was part of the land offered for the Capitol. The southeast corner was once the summer home of Gov. Robert S. Kerr and later the monks of the Holy Protection Orthodox Monastery of Forest Park. It is now privately owned.

R.L. Peebly (Peebly Road), county commissioner for the district, said he would entertain any suggestions for a new name, and Mrs. Skinner said she “would like for the name ‘Coltrane’ to be considered, honoring her uncle.”

While I found no official announcement, apparently there was no objection, and the east State Street became Coltrane Road.

Eighty one years ago, Oklahoma City enjoyed a Christmas parade that was attended by between 65,000 and 100,000 people.

The 1930 federal U.S. Census estimated the city’s population at 185,389.

This description, from the Oklahoma City Times, Dec. 5, 1930, sets the scene:

“Santa Claus was in town, and so was everybody else Friday afternoon to watch the gorgeous spectacle move south on Broadway. Cheers and shouts went up from the throngs on the sidewalks, and many a tiny child in the custody of his mother, waved a happy ‘Hello Santa’ as the parade passed.”

And from The Oklahoman, Dec. 6, 1930, it was reported: “Lindbergh day, Al Smith day, (Gov.) Walton inaugural day, all were eclipsed by the throng, which gathered to attest that Old Santa is Oklahoma City’s greatest hero.”

“What he had to offer in the way of a spectacle was by no mean’s disappointing.”

School was let out so the children could attend, and work came to nearly a standstill as state employees came from the Capitol, office workers watched from windows and even the federal court recessed so the jury could watch.

At a mile and a half long and starting at 10th and Broadway and winding through the downtown shopping district, the parade took more than an hour to pass.

WKY Radio was stationed atop The Oklahoman building at Fourth and Broadway describing the passing displays.

The parade numbered nearly 60 units, including floats, seven bands, three calliopes, city officials and, of course, Santa Claus.

Santa had come to town and brought with him his sleigh and 10 live reindeer.

As we all know, Santa usually travels with eight tiny reindeer, except when Rudolph joins the team.

In 1930, it was still nine years away before he would need Rudolph and his shiny nose, so Santa must have brought the two extra reindeer to help pull the sleigh along the streets.

Times have changed, but Oklahoma Citians now flock to the Holiday River Parade and enjoy the events of Downtown in December.

The Christmas lights are on at Automobile Alley, a part of Broadway that hosted the parade in 1930.

While downtown is nearly impassable with all the street closings because of reconstruction and repair, the Bricktown area offers the city Christmas tree, lights along the canal and snow tubing at the RedHawks Field at Bricktown. And, the newly renovated Myriad Gardens is decked out in style with lots of lights, ice skating and Santa, too.

So, visit downtown if you can. If not, close your eyes and picture the sight of Santa and his reindeer making their way downtown with excited children and delighted adults crowded along the streets.

Merry Christmas!

The three-story brick building at 215 NW 10 provided apartments for city visitors who wanted something homier than a hotel.

A new sign on the building recognizes Hadden Hall’s inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places and notes it is a circa 1910 building.

The circa 1910 was used probably because the applicants had no better luck than I did finding an exact date for when construction got started on the building.

The earliest listing I found was in The Oklahoman’s classified advertisements on Dec. 6, 1911:

“FOR RENT — Nicely furnished rooms with private bath, at Hadden Hall.”

Further research found notices from newlyweds in the newspaper’s society columns that they would be “at home” at Hadden Hall.

The research also introduced me to a remarkable woman who may have been the building’s longest resident, Miss Helen Ferris of Apartment 106.

Ferris, an English teacher from Illinois, joined the faculty of Central High School when it opened in 1910 and probably moved into Hadden Hall in 1912. The city directory for 1911-12 lists Ferris at 215 W 10th.

She was the first woman to be named vice principal of the high school in 1918, but continued to teach a fine literature class.

Ferris was respected and loved by the thousands of students she taught — her former students nominated her for Oklahoma City’s Most Useful Citizen of 1936, and she was selected for the honor.

In 1937, Edith Johnson, columnist for The Oklahoman, wrote of her: “Miss Ferris is not only one of the greatest women of Oklahoma City but one of the greatest women of this state. Nor does her greatness as a woman, as a teacher, as a friend and as a counselor depend upon either an era or an event. At any time or in any circumstance the contribution of Miss Ferris has made to the people of this city and state would be a priceless gift to humanity. Inspired teaching is the need of every generation, and inspired guidance likewise.

“She will live in the lives of her pupils who are what they are in no small measure because of what Miss Ferris taught them, because of the influence she had on their minds and their hearts, the direction she gave to their ambitions, the principles which they have followed in all accomplishment.

“Although Miss Ferris, together with so many women of her profession, has no children of her own body and blood, she is a mother to unnumbered sons and daughters.”

Ferris retired as vice principal in 1940, and in 1941 retired as an English teacher.

From 1941 until her death in 1951, she rarely left her apartment because of a medical condition, but with nearly 3,000 former students a year visiting her, and with her books, needlework, telephone and letters, she was never lonely.

She had another first — her funeral was the first one held in Central’s auditorium.

If you should pass Central High School or Hadden Hall, remember Helen Ferris and the teachers who have meant much to you.

“Hundreds of thousands of years ago Oklahoma had a semitropical climate. Back in those gladsome old days there were no men nor women; the inhabitants of what is now one of the greatest states in the union belonged to the reptilian family. Probably where the Colcord building now stands was the abiding place of Mr. and Mrs. Dinosaur and their interesting brood.

“Interest in the state’s earliest residents was aroused the other day when the leg bone of a prehistoric animal was dug up at the new waterworks site.”

The bone was found “imbedded in solid rock 25 feet under the river bed.”

L. Howell Lewis, a local scientist, upon examining the bone, determined it was 17 inches long, and the vertebra where it was attached was 4 inches wide. His conclusion: “These fossils once belonged to the bony structure of a great carnivorous dinosaur known as the allisoraus.”

He also concluded that this particular “allisoraus,” which is now spelled allosaurus, weighed about 20,000 pounds and was 30 feet long.

While searching for more evidence of dinosaurs in the city, an earlier item from The Oklahoman on March 7, 1917, reported these finds:

“While the contributions to science brought to light in the work at the new waterworks project have so far not startled the world, the foundation for a small museum has been laid.

“In a test hole 19 feet deep in the sand, workmen last week unearthed the sacrum bone of a buffalo. Trees which were uprooted above the spot were estimated to be over 100 years old, so the bone must have been buried under the sand layers for several centuries.

“The skull of a man was found at another spot buried several feet deep in red shale. The type was that of a primitive species. At another place a knife three feet long of crude workmanship was dug up. All the finds are being kept by John R. Boardman.”

What happened to the bones and knife, I do not know, but the waterworks plant, now known as Lake Overholser Dam, is nearing its century mark and is still a part of Oklahoma City’s water supply.

The Army Air Corps’ precision flying team began in late 1927, composed of Lt. J.J. Williams of Utah, Lt. William Lewers Cornelius of Antlers, and Lt. Irvin A. “Bert” Woodring of Enid. The three young aviators were at the top of their game, performing stunts and battle formations for the national air races.

On Sept. 11, 1928, Williams crashed while performing an inverted formation.

The races were to continue through Sept. 16. Famed aviator Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, who flew across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927 and had flown with the pilots of the Musketeers, filled in, so as not to disappoint the crowds.

On Sept. 25, 1928, while flying in a battle formation known as the Lufbery Circle with a new member, pilot Lt. Roger Williams, Cornelius, known as “Wick,” crashed when their planes collided. Both planes fell to the ground.

As Woodring was accompanying Cornelius’ remains to his hometown of Antlers and then on to the Fort Smith National Cemetery, he was interviewed by The Oklahoman.

He described the crash for the Sept. 26, 1927, edition:

“The planes dropped together like bullets, and Wick didn’t have a chance to jump from the wreckage. We found him lying the length of his parachute strings from his ship. The other end of the parachute was caught in the plane.

“Roger Williams escaped death by a narrow margin. We thought he was gone, too. He fell and his parachute didn’t open. They were 1,200 feet up. Just before Williams’ feet touched the ground his parachute opened: another second and it would have been too late. As it was he was deeply bruised and received a number of deep cuts.”

This was the end of The Three Musketeers, but Woodring continued to fly as an early-day test pilot.

On Saturday, Jan. 21, 1933, The Oklahoman reported:

“Dayton, Ohio — Death reached into the air lanes Friday for Lieut. Irvin A. Woodring — and thus passed the last of the army’s ‘three musketeers of aviation.’

“Like his fellow musketeers, Lieutenant Woodring died in harness trying to advance the standards of army aviation. He fell 2,000 feet from the sky near Wright field.

“The daring flier’s experimental attack-type ship flew to bits and his body was thrown clear. Apparently he had no chance to use his parachute, the device that twice before had saved his life, as it was found unopened.”

Enid, hometown of Woodring, on May 30, 1933, would name its airport for the pilot.

The Sept. 26 story ended with this paragraph:

“Flights by the “three musketeers” and by the “three sea hawks” naval aviators, were the points of highest interest at the aviation maneuvers. These trios vied with each other in bring gasps of admiration and wonderment from the thousands who gathered at the flying fields to witness their hazardous performances.”

While the Three Musketeers were no more, the Army Air Corps and then its successor the U.S. Air Force, continued to fly precision teams. So, when you look up in the air to see the Air Force’s Thunderbirds or the Navy’s Blue Angels fly in their amazing formations, think of the Three Musketeers and the two Oklahoma pilots who were there at the beginning.

“Nesting in the miniature valley that extends from Twentieth and Twenty-second streets, and along the line of North Broadway, a pretty little plat of ground that has come into the ownership of Oklahoma City …”

“It was on this ground that the ‘eighty-niners’ had their first picnic. In its rough state, with the streets yet projected, the grove (of oak trees) that is about to be transformed into a city park was the scene of an old fashioned picnic. A well of pure water was an attraction that would be even more appreciated in these days, if it had not dried up. That well was dug by the early boomers.”

This description was in The Oklahoman Feb. 19, 1911.

Today that “pretty little plat of ground” is an island of grass, a few trees and a fire station.

Capt. John F. Winans homesteaded, farmed, developed and donated the land for the park that carries his name.

From his obituary published in The Oklahoman Jan. 31, 1935, we get a colorful picture of Winans, who was 93 at the time of his death.

“Death ended a career which, in Oklahoma, began with Winans plowing and harvesting crops from a frontier farm located in what is now an exclusive residential district — Winans addition. The addition extends from Northwest Sixteenth to Twenty-Third street and from Santa Fe to Walker Avenue.

“The neighbors of Capt. John F. Winans, 115 Northwest Seventeenth Street, never got used to seeing the 93-year-old man run around the block every morning. He attributed his long life … to regular exercise. That and two vegetarian meals a day and abstinence from coffee, tea, milk, liquor and tobacco.”

“The lawn he mowed was once part of his farm — a frontier farm that he tilled at the same time George H. Harn was plowing an adjoining one in what is now the Harn tract, on the other side of the Santa Fe tracks.”

Winans’ plan was to plant a fruit farm on his property, but Oklahoma City was growing northward fast, and houses were taking the place of farmland.

He donated the park land in 1911 and was said to enjoy watching the children at play.

Since the 1920s and ’30s, there had been lighted tennis courts, a playground with swings and a wading pool with bathhouse.

There is a sign that proclaims the land as Winans Park to the river of traffic on Broadway flowing mindlessly around it.

The wading pool and the tennis courts have all disappeared and the city rounded the corners, taking some of the land, to make the street a little less treacherous for speeding automobiles.

The first fire station was built in the park in 1951, and in 1993, it was demolished and a new station was built on the same site.

There is nothing in the way of recreation, but if you venture across busy Broadway or speed around it, the little park still remains, a silent tribute to a generous Oklahoma pioneer and the rich history of Oklahoma City.

This observation appeared 75 years ago Sunday, Aug. 16, 1936, on Page 1 of The Oklahoman. It recaps the week of heat that included the record-setting 113.1 degree high temperature.

Fear is the papa and mama of invention. We have been very scared the last two weeks because the human body is 90 percent water and we have been evaporating at a rapid rate.

Harry Wahlgren, with the two hottest weeks on record, until a few days ago had us believing he was drying us like peaches on a smoke house roof. He had us wondering how long it would be until we dried up completely and blew into Arkansas, just so many irritants to hay fever victims.

It’s got to be admitted that Harry’s first few blows brought out our creative impulses. The humblest became scientific. We reasoned that if we were drying up at twice our weight a day we would have to drink three times our weight in water to hold our own.

That was elemental, but as soon as we were waterlogged it became clear that other modern means would have to adopted to cut down the evaporation. We quit all work to apply ourselves to this problem.

Primitive souls hauled in tubs of ice and sat opposite electric fans. Stone age men hung wet towels in the windows. Reactionaries tried gin highballs. The best minds among us evaporated a lot of rigging up air coolers. They sought boxes of wet excelsior, ran water through them and fanned the air on their heaving bosoms.

Some made gadgets out of fishing reels, bicycle pumps, flannel underwear and electric fans. Some lay under water sprinklers. Others floundered in tepid swimming pools.

It looked like it would all be in vain. We were losing ground. Wahlgren was pouring it on.

The worse day was the day we broke the record. Panting from inventing we learned that on August 10 we had been hotter than ever an Oklahoma Cityan had been before. That made us kinda proud. It set us out as hardy people.

Sleeping through that night under the cool off a mere 81 degrees that was long in coming we found we could take it for certain.

The next day we weren’t even impressed when Harry raised the ante to 113 degrees. Then when the temperature began to fall a two and three degrees at a clip we gave Wahlgren the horse laugh. We drove out Classen in the heat of the day to mock him.

We even went back to work. We forgot about our gadgets to keep cool. We forgot even to remember we were hot. We have proved that hearty Oklahomans can sweat and live. Not only sweat and live, but sweat and get the job done, sweat and even have fun. We have proved we’re tougher even than rag weeds.

Hang in there! In 1936 the rains and cooler temperatures finally came in September.

Note: Harry Walgren was the head of the U.S. Weather Bureau branch on Classen Boulevard in what are now law offices

It’s still too hot and August has just begun.

When I was growing up, back to school always meant summer was over and cooler temperatures were soon to come.

School didn’t start until after Labor Day (and Oklahoma City is starting Monday).

I don’t remember it ever being too hot  to learn or play at recess and I know we didn’t have air conditioning at my school, Traub Elementary School in Midwest City.

Now most mornings, I pass Emerson School on the corner of NW 7th and Walker.

I love to see the old school. It looks just like what a school should look like.

Emerson School at 714 NW 7th. - Oklahoman Archive Photo

One built to last the ages, while educating students and preparing them for the world.

I love the stone lion holding a tablet on the roof. It looks like he’s watching over his students while keeping an eye on Oklahoma City.

There has been an Emerson School on this corner since 1895. The building has changed.

The first one burned and in 1907 brick building was built. It has been extensively remodeled over the years and little, if any remains of the original buildings.

The students have changed too, from elementary to high school students, but the location and mission to teach has remained the same.

1905 photograph looking towards downtown Oklahoma City, taken from Emerson School roof. - Oklahoman Archive Photo

In 1905, Emerson was one of the highest points in Oklahoma City (it sits on a hill and is three stories high). An unknown photographer turned his camera southeast towards downtown and took a picture of history.

It shows mostly houses, a downtown business district of buildings that look to be no higher than five or six stories, churches and industrial buildings with smoke stacks sharing their dark smoke.

In 1997, one hundred and one years later, Oklahoman photographer Jim Argo, took a photo from the roof of Emerson looking south towards downtown.

Looking southeast towards downtown, this photograph was taken in 1997 from the roof of Emerson school. - Oklahoman Archive Photo

Side by side they show the progress of Oklahoma City over the years and now with the ongoing construction of the Devon Tower, downtown’s skyline is changing once again.

Emerson, named for poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, has been there all these years sitting on its hill, preparing students to go out into the world and we hope it will continue for another hundred years.

Imagine what the skyline might look like then!



The named streets running north and south were Santa Fe, Broadway, Robinson, Harvey, Hudson and Division, and those running east and west, north of Reno, were Main, Grand and California. South of Reno, the streets were Washington, Noble, Chickasaw, Pottawatomie, Frisco and Choctaw. These would become S 2 through S 7, respectively. North 1 through N 7 made up the rest.

Of these, Grand, now named Sheridan, was first named Clarke after Sidney Clarke, pioneer and civic leader; Washington for President George Washington; Noble for John W. Noble, who was secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior when Oklahoma Territory was opened for settlement; and Frisco for the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad. Indian tribes made up the others.

Many of the later streets named during the early days in Oklahoma City got their names from pioneers associated with the land run, original landowners and developers of housing additions.

On Nov. 21, 1915, The Oklahoman interviewed the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, Elmer E. Brown, on his recollections about the names of city streets.

Here are a few names I was able to verify:

Durland Avenue — “In honor of Otto Clay ‘O.C.’ Durland, who in a contest, won a quarter section of land in what is now the Oak Park addition.” When Brown says contest, what he meant was Durland’s land claim was disputed all the way to the state Supreme Court.

Laird Avenue — “For S.E. Laird, prominent early day settler.” He was a landowner, and Laird Avenue is the entry to the Oklahoma History Center.

Everest Avenue  — “For J.H. Everest, a lawyer.” A pioneer Oklahoma City attorney, at his death, he had been the last surviving charter member of the First Christian Church.

McKinley Avenue  — Named not for the president but for “Miss Margaret McKinley, prominent woman real estate speculator in early days.”

Douglas Avenue  — “For McGregor Douglas, prominent businessman, now dead.” At the time of his death in 1908, he was secretary of the Central Title and Investment Co. and the Oklahoma Loan and Building Co. and a member of the Real Estate Exchange.

Brauer Avenue  — “For George Brauer, half-brother of Douglas.” This one is wrong. George Brauer is listed as the stepbrother of Anton Classen in Classen’s obituary, and in Brauer’s obituary several surviving Classens were listed as brothers. He was one of the founders and secretary-treasurer of the Oklahoma Railway Co., the trolley car business.

Dewey Avenue  — Named “in honor of Admiral George Dewey.” Hero of the Battle of Manila in the Spanish-American War in 1898, Dewey was named an admiral in 1903.

I was not able to verify this, but Brown said California Avenue got its name from the number of Californians who settled there after the land run.

I hope this sheds some light on where the names came from for those streets we drive on every day.

Read “The Archivist” online at blog.newsok.com/archivist.

The original newspaper article about the gypsy's death.

It was just a small item on Page 5 of The Oklahoman, on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 1908, with a headline almost as big as the story.

Ellen Young, 69, was camping in Colcord Park near the river with her “band of nomadic Egyptians” when she died in a tent Friday, Jan. 31, 1908. Her funeral services were conducted the following Monday by the Rev. T.H. Harper of Pilgrim Congregational Church, and she was buried at Fairlawn. Fifty grief-stricken Gypsies attended her service.

The Oklahoman’s story read: “Mrs. Young had spent all her life travelling in covered wagons through Europe and America, telling fortunes, creating rugs, painting pictures, doing what she could to secure a living from a nomadic wandering life. Unlike her countrymen, she became a Christian, and she is of the strain of family which includes the renowned Congregational preacher, “Gypsy,” Smith, one of the greatest preachers of England.”

Can you imagine how cold it was living in a tent in January in Oklahoma?

From my research, I learned Gypsies more likely came from India, than Egypt, and many more of them were, and are, of the Christian faith than most people think.

Also, Rodney “Gypsy” Smith, born in 1860 in England and raised in a gypsy wagon, never attended school and was converted at the age of 16. He started preaching at 17, and during his evangelistic career that ended in 1947 with his death, he was as widely traveled and admired as Billy Graham is today.

Colcord Park, later renamed Delmar Gardens, was owned by Charles Colcord and consisted of 160 acres near Reno Avenue and Western close to the North Canadian River. Baseball was played in that area until the flood of 1923.

A trip to Fairlawn Cemetery and a check of the records located Young’s resting place, 103 years after her death.

Emma's grave marker showing the wrong date. - Photo by Mary Phillips, The Oklahoman

The original entry in the cemetery ledger read Mrs. Emma Young (gypsy) camped near the ballpark, died Jan. 31 and was buried Feb. 3, 1908. The ledger also disclosed the location of her burial place in the cemetery and the funeral home handling the arrangements. Her first name was different, but the rest of the facts fit the newspaper’s story.

Turns out, her final resting place is just a few steps north of the cemetery office.

The last curious fact about Ellen/Emma is that her grave stone bears the wrong year for her death.