Oklahoma

Discover the defining moments of Oklahoma history. It’s 1893 and the Cherokee Strip land rush is on. It’s 1969 and Merle Haggard is pushing the city of Muskogee up the music charts. Take in the sights and sounds of Tulsa: the gleaming Art Deco facades and the raucous cadence of Golden Hurricane basketball. Cruise down Route 66 to the capital to grab a bite at Beverly's Chicken-in-the-Rough. From a tribal history of Tahlequah to Main Street memories across the state, explore the essential stories of our Oklahoma history book catalogue. [View all Oklahoma books]

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Woodward

$24.99

Bartlesville, Oklahoma

$24.99

Haunted Guthrie, Oklahoma

$21.99

Oklahoma City's African American Education

$24.99

Tulsa Movie Theaters

$23.99

Oklahoma Cherokee Baskets

$21.99

American Choral Directors Association

$21.99

Pontotoc County

$24.99

Haunted Canadian County

$21.99

A Culinary History of Pittsburg County

$21.99

The Main Streets of Oklahoma: Okie Stories from Every County

The Oklahoma Cowboy Band

$24.99

Early Woods County

$24.99

Kay County's Historic Architecture

$24.99

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Bartlesville, Oklahoma

9780738503103

$24.99

From the 1890s through the 1920s, the postcard was an extraordinarily popular means of communication, and many of the postcards produced during this "golden age" can today be considered works of art. Postcard photographers traveled the length and breadth of the nation snapping photographs of busy street scenes, documenting local landmarks, and assembling crowds of local children only too happy to pose for a picture. These images, printed as postcards and sold in general stores across the country, survive as telling reminders of an important era in America's history. This fascinating new history of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, showcases more than two hundred of the best vintage postcards available.

Haunted Guthrie, Oklahoma

9781467118064

$21.99

A Victorian district frozen in time, Guthrie was the first territorial and state capital of Oklahoma, and many of its former residents still wander some of its majestic brick buildings. Outlaws and cultists haunt the infamous Black Jail, the state's first territorial prison. Once a bustling neighborhood, the houses of the overgrown Elbow now stand in ruins. Secrets remain at the famous Masonic Temple shrouded in mystery, and a lonely girl wanders the railroad in search of her beau who never returned home from the Great War. Oklahoma Paranormal Association co-founder Tanya McCoy and Oklahoma historian Jeff Provine invite you to explore these and many more spine-chilling accounts from one of America's most haunted cities.

Oklahoma City's African American Education

9781467127400

$24.99

Oklahoma City's African American community, from the beginning of the settlement of the Oklahoma Territory in 1891, placed a high priority on education. Established on January 5, 1891, Frederick A. Douglass High School became an Oklahoma City institution that produced scholars, educators, military heroes, musicians, athletes, attorneys, firefighting experts, doctors, national and international leaders in medicine, civil rights pioneers, and even cowboys. At the center of this substantial pool of achievers stood one man, Frederick Douglass Moon, the longest-serving principal at the school. His vision established the winning model that produced students who could compete anywhere in the world with their talents, skills, and knowledge. Countless legends and icons attended the school, including Charlie Christian, Ralph Ellison, Jimmy Rushing, Anthony Watson, Zora Brown, Dr. Roger Countee, and others. This book showcases former students of Oklahoma City whose contributions still matter today.

Tulsa Movie Theaters

9781467106856

$23.99

Going to the movies has always been special. Tulsa's first theater opened in 1906 with a lineup of silent reels and live vaudeville entertainment. During the next two decades, dozens of movie houses opened downtown, including the "Big Four:" the Ritz, Orpheum, Majestic, and Rialto. As Tulsa grew, neighborhood theaters, including the Brook, Delman, and Will Rogers, became favorites. Drive-in theaters soon followed around the city boundaries. In 1965, Tulsa's first multiplex--the Boman Twin--opened. Tulsans experienced blockbuster films at these theaters with multiple screens and increasingly smaller auditoriums. Tulsa also hosted star-studded movie premieres. Among them were The Outsiders and the 1949 premiere of Tulsa, featuring the biggest parade and crowd in Tulsa's history. Perhaps the most well-known theater--the Dreamland on Black Wall Street--was destroyed during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Although it was rebuilt, images of the Dreamland in ruins are iconic.

Oklahoma Cherokee Baskets

9781467119825

$21.99

The forced relocation of fifteen thousand Cherokee to Oklahoma nearly two centuries ago left them in a foreign landscape. Coping with loss and new economic challenges, the Cherokee united under a new constitution and exploited the Victorian affinity for decorative crafts. Cherokee women had always created patterned baskets for everyday use and trade, and soon their practical work became lucrative items of beauty. Adapting the tradition to the new land, the industrious weavers transformed Oklahoma's vast natural resources into art that aided their survival. The Civil War found the Cherokee again in jeopardy, but resilient, they persevered and still thrive today. Author and Cherokee citizen Karen Coody Cooper presents the story of this beautiful legacy.

American Choral Directors Association

9780738560724

$21.99

American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) was formed in Kansas City, Missouri, on February 24, 1959, by 35 choral directors from around the United States. They aimed to create an organization that would meet the professional needs of all choir directors. To achieve this goal, they made the promotion of excellence in choral music through performance, composition, publication, research, and teaching their central purpose. In addition, ACDA strives through arts advocacy to elevate choral music's position in American society. From the original steering committee to today's leaders, this central purpose continues to drive ACDA's development. Among the ways that ACDA has promoted excellence in choral music are national and division conventions featuring the best choirs in the world, awards given to individuals who have in some way contributed to the art of choral music, state workshops and clinics, and honor choirs and commissioned works. Each generation that has passed through ACDA has left its indelible mark. The first generation built the foundation and gave ACDA its purpose. The second generation gave ACDA its independence and voice. The third generation leads the organization into a new and more globally connected world. And through it all, ACDA remains true to promoting choral music excellence.

Pontotoc County

9780738590547

$24.99

Pontotoc County, located in South Central Oklahoma, is one of the smaller counties in the state. The word pontotoc roughly translates to a Native American phrase meaning "cattails growing on the prairie." Dotted with many communities, some booming and others slowly disappearing, Pontotoc County is rich with history. This county was the epitome of the Old West at its most raw and dangerous. Pontotoc's lowest moment came on April 19, 1909, when a band of unknown Ada citizens made one of the most infamous decisions in American history and hanged four men without a trial. The modern consensus is that Ada, the county seat, became the horizon on which the sunset of the Old West was witnessed. Today, Pontotoc County is home to the Robert S. Kerr Environmental Research Center, the corporate headquarters of Pre-Paid Legal Services, Holcim Inc., Tornado Alley Turbo, and the Chickasaw Nation Headquarters. This thriving county has much to offer--not only to the United States, but also to the world.

Haunted Canadian County

9781467141543

$21.99

Keeping time with the river for which it was named, Canadian County courses with haunted history. The heritage of persecuted tribes, outlawed fugitives and struggling pioneers runs through the region with the strength of desperation. Apparitions walk the shore of Lake Overholser, and disembodied voices echo around Yukon's Stage Door Theatre. Strange presences peer through the broken windows of the abandoned Concho Indian School. From Deadman's Curve to the Chisholm Trail, Tanya McCoy and Whitney Wilson trace the story of Canadian County's spectral past.

A Culinary History of Pittsburg County

9781626191624

$21.99

Long before the era of the foodie, the little coal-mining town of Krebs set the standard for celebrating food in Oklahoma. Its reputation as the Sooner State's Little Italy began in the mid-1870s when Italian immigrants chased the coal boom to Pittsburg County, deep in the heart of the Choctaw Nation. After 150 years, Italians and Choctaw neighbors are now bound by pasta, homemade cheeses and sausages and native beer once brewed illegally in basement bathtubs and delivered by children from door to door. Stop by for a steak at GiaComo's, a Choc at Pete's Place, lamb fries at the Isle of Capri, gnocchi at Roseanna's or a gourd of caciocavallo at Lovera's--venues that have proven impervious to time and hardship. Join Food Dude Dave Cathey on a tour through this colorful and delicious history.

The Main Streets of Oklahoma: Okie Stories from Every County

9781626196490

$23.99

It's the heart of every community in the Sooner State. It's where people go to eat, shop and socialize. It's where Woods County reenacts the Freedom Bank Robbery and Shootout and where Grant County displays Twister" memorabilia. Oklahoma residents are embracing Main Street, celebrating and revitalizing local history. Author Kristi Eaton crisscrosses the state, exploring each of the seventy-seven counties to find quirky stories like Elmore City's ties to "Footloose" and hidden tales like the real reason Wetumka celebrates Sucker Day. It's a celebration of the unique events, landmarks, people and heritage of this aptly named thoroughfare."

Beaver County

9780738583501

$24.99

Beaver County's unique history is reflected in the five flags that once flew as claim to the area, as well as in the fact that for 70 years the land between the 100th and 103rd meridians and between 36?30' and the 37th parallels belonged to no territory, state, or nation--hence the name "No Man's Land." Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado traveled through the west central part of the area on his return to Mexico from his hunt for the Seven Cities of Cibola. Later ranchers, cattle, and freight trails brought permanent settlements. In 1903, homesteaders, sometimes called "punkin rollers," began to stake claims, build sod houses, and become permanent residents long before there was any law and order, since no government existed.

Claremore

9780738550565

$24.99

Throughout the years, a city's history has a way of disappearing along with a way of life that will most likely never be seen again. The reader will be offered a rare glimpse into the very heart of Claremore's vibrant past. Claremore is truly brimming with history, from the radium baths to the Frisco Railroad to the town's famous residents, including Clem Rogers, father of the widely loved entertainer and advocate for Oklahoma statehood in 1907. This collection of vintage postcards contains views from the town beginning at prestatehood, when Claremore was considered part of Indian Territory. Each postcard sends the reader on a journey through time from an era full of freedom and spirit to "getting your kicks on Route 66."

Sapulpa

9781467125598

$24.99

Sapulpa is named after a young Creek Indian who came to the area around 1840 and opened a trading post near Pole Cat Creek. Sapulpa's arrival in Indian Territory was independent of the famed "Trail of Tears," a term used for the federal government's forced removal of Creek (Muskogee) and other tribes from their southern homelands in the 1830s. The area that would become the Creek Nation is a small part of the land acquired by the United States after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. At one time, Spain, England, and France each laid claim to Oklahoma. Trails, rails, and oil; bricks, clay, and glass; and streetcars, highways, and automobiles are all parts of the historic community of Sapulpa. The diverse people who came to the area--Indians, cowboys, railroaders, settlers, loggers, farmers, wildcatters, oilmen, businessmen, manufacturers, workers, and dreamers--recorded the town's story, as captured in photographs, beginning more than a century ago. Sapulpa was and remains a crossroads in more ways than one.

The Oklahoma Cowboy Band

9780738552453

$24.99

The Oklahoma Cowboy Band was the first western string band in the nation to broadcast over the radio and appear on vaudeville, drawing large audiences throughout the Midwest and Northeast. The band began in Ripley as Billy McGinty's Cowboy Band and first played over radio station KFRU in Bristow in May 1925. Billy McGinty was a Rough Rider with Theodore Roosevelt and performed in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. The public responded to the broadcast of his band with a steady stream of telegrams, telephone calls, and letters asking for more of that old-time cowboy music. Soon Otto Gray and his wife, Mommie, of Stillwater joined the band, with both performing rope tricks, Mommie singing sad songs, and their son, Owen, performing comedy routines as "the Uke Buster." Renamed Otto Gray and His Oklahoma Cowboys, the band traveled for a decade to such cities as St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse. Its custom-built Cadillacs drew crowds wherever the band went. By the early 1930s, other acts were copying the band's cowboy themes and songs, and Otto Gray's lawyers threatened legal action. The lawyers met with only limited success, though, and today the cowboy image is firmly established in country music, thanks in large part to the early success of Billy McGinty, Otto Gray, and the Oklahoma Cowboy Band.

Early Woods County

9780738583105

$24.99

Woods County, Oklahoma, is showcased in images dating from 1894 to statehood in 1907. This time span covers the period of early settlement and the hardships of pioneers in a new territory. It includes the growth from a wide-open prairie to the beginnings of small towns and school districts, from mostly one-room schoolhouses to the Normal School for higher education, known today as Northwestern Oklahoma State University. People from all walks of life came to the Cherokee Outlet before the land run of 1893 and after. Those frontier inhabitants suddenly found themselves nearly alone on the wide expanse of prairie unbroken by a single building and with almost no trees. Early settlers came from across the country and even from across the ocean, many with nothing but the clothes on their backs and hope. These new residents carved out a living and made Woods County what it is today.

Kay County's Historic Architecture

9780738551241

$24.99

The architecture of Kay County reflects the rich history of the communities of the county, from the early sustenance days of the land run to the mid1950s era of stability. The architecture of each era displays the economic climate of the times as well as showing how residents viewed themselves. The buildings included in this volume, beginning with a sampling of those at Chilocco Indian School and ending with those of the mid1950s, are tangible reminders of the lives of the people who built them, used them, and lived in them. The images were carefully selected from museums and personal collections across the county as well as from Bret A. Carter's extensive personal collection.