RonnieAdventure #0719 - Tulsa, Oklahoma

The World's Largest Praying Hands are located at Oral Roberts University (ORU) in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Oral Roberts University was founded in 1963 on 385 acres of land. The university offers about 70 undergraduate programs and 20 graduate programs in engineering, business, nursing, theology & ministry, and many others. Current enrollment is about 5,000 students. 

The famous 200-foot-tall Prayer Tower, with its futuristic architecture, is located in the center of campus near the Student Union and surrounded by other buildings. It is designed as a place dedicated to continuous prayer and symbolizes the university's goal of combining faith and learning. 

The Praying Hands are about 60 feet tall, weigh 30 tons, and are among the largest bronze sculptures in the world. They represent prayer, faith, and devotion, which reflect the spiritual foundation and the university's mission to integrate "Education with Christian Faith."

 

Following Route 66 (aka East 11th Street) through Tulsa, there are a number of historic icons that still exist. I started my tour at a mural on the side of a building near the Meadow Gold Milk sign.

The Meadow Gold Milk sign was built in 1934 to advertise Meadow Gold dairy products for the Beatrice Creamery Company. In the 1970s, the sign fell into disrepair, and the neon quit working. Then, in 2004, it was scheduled for demolition when a preservation group saved the sign. Each of the sign's 30-by-30-foot faces was restored, and the sign was relit in 2009. 

"Meadow Gold Mack" is a 20-foot-tall fiberglass lumberjack figure located next to the Meadow Gold Milk sign. He depicts a friendly lumberjack named "Mack."  

"Cowboy Bob" is part of the giant figures located along Route 66. According to his creator, Bob is a honky-tonk musician who played at Tulsa's historic Cain's Ballroom back in its heydays and fell in love with the city, ultimately choosing to stay along Route 66. Holding a guitar and dressed in Western attire, Bob also serves as a promotional figure for a nearby business. 

"Stella Atom," Space Cowgirl, and "Buck Atom," Space Cowboy, are part of the "Land of Giants" along Route 66. Stella is dressed as a cowgirl with a ray gun, jet pack, boots, lasso, and other space-themed details, while her companion, Buck, is dressed as a space cowboy holding a rocket. I don't know what space cowgirls and cowboys have to do with Route 66, but they are standing near a quirky cosmic curios souvenir shop that occupies a 1950s PEMCO gas station. The shop features an eclectic mix of T-shirts, mugs, postcards, magnets, pins, vintage-style curios, and sci-fi and steampunk-inspired items.

Standing next to the building are two robots and a doughboy figure.

"Rosie the Riveter" stands in front of the Pearl Shops, representing American women workers in World War II who supported the war effort in factories and shipyards. 

Although not located in Tulsa's Meadow Gold District, "Golden Driller" stands in front of the Tulsa Expo Center and is one of Tulsa's most iconic landmarks. He was built to honor the city's deep connection to the oil industry.

"Golden Driller" is the tallest free-standing statue in the United States. At 75 feet tall and weighing about 22 tons, with his right hand resting on an oil derrick, he can withstand a 200 mph tornado. He is covered with a state-of-the-art mustard paint, which the suppliers claim will last 100 years. 

Circle Cinema was built in 1928 and is Tulsa's oldest surviving theater. The theater focuses on film culture and education, showcasing independent, foreign, classic, documentary, and unique films not available elsewhere in Tulsa. 

In front of the theater is the "Oklahoma Walk of Fame" embedded in the sidewalk with a series of concrete medallions honoring Oklahoma actors, writers, directors, and musicians. Some recognizable names include Will Rogers, Brad Pitt, Ron Howard, James Garner, Chuck Norris, Blake Shelton, and many others.  

The theater is unique in that it uses a mix of modern digital movie technology and some classic film equipment. Some classic 35 mm film prints with physical reels are shown on older projectors. A historic projector is located in the lobby for guests to see. When showing silent films, there is a Robert Morton pipe organ located near the movie screen to add background music 

The lobby walls are used for more than just displaying movie posters; they also serve as an art gallery for Tucson artists. There is no permanent collection, and the artwork is changed frequently.   

When I learned that the" Sonic Center of the Universe" was located in downtown Tulsa, I decided that I had to find it. Directions to the Center were vague, and the streets had changed since my tour book was published, so I just parked my car and started walking around the area. I finally found the street my tour book described that crossed the railroad tracks, but it was now a pedestrian bridge, not a street. Once over the tracks, I could see a tall marker, but figuring out how to take a photograph was a real challenge since it was dark and I did not have a tripod to hold my camera steady for a long exposure. I finally found a ledge on the side of a building that served as a makeshift tripod, but I had to get my body into some really weird positions in order to hold onto my camera and the building without falling off. Some guy was sitting on a bench watching me, and I was certain he thought that I was a little crazy. After a lot of pictures, I finally got one that I thought I could use for my blog. As I was leaving, the man sitting on the bench asked me if I got any good pictures, and I told him I got one picture of the Sonic Center of the Universe. That's when he told me that I was taking pictures of an art sculpture titled "Artificial Cloud," not of the Sonic Center. "Artificial Cloud" is 72.5 feet tall, and the cloud at the top symbolizes a "threatened hope" for the future. The structure is not painted, and the rusting metal "reflects pollution and environmental impact over time."

The man offered to show me the Sonic Center, which was about 50 feet away. The City was redoing the pedestrian bridge and had removed all of the bricks surrounding the spot, but it was still accessible. It turned out that the "Sonic Center of the Universe" was a small spot in the concrete, surrounded by a semicircle. When a person stands in the semicircle and speaks, their voice becomes mysteriously amplified, distorted, and time-delayed. Everyone has their own theory, but no one really knows why the sound is distorted and delayed when standing at that spot in the universe. 

RonnieAdventure #0718 - Shroud to Tulsa Part II, Oklahoma

After I arrived back in Stroud, Oklahoma, on Route 66, I decided to take a counterclockwise route back to Tulsa by following some additional back roads.

First stop was Shawnee (population 31,377). I was surprised to learn that Shawnee is only 112 miles from the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, which provides shipping barge access to the Gulf of America. I had always assumed that all commercial goods in the area had to be shipped by rail or truck.

There are a number of notable people from Shawnee, such as Actors Brad Pitt and Joe Frank Cobb, Astronaut Gordon Cooper, Martha Lillard (the last person living in the iron lung), football star Darrien Gordon, and many others. 

The Ritz Theater in downtown Shawnee was originally built in 1897 as a dry goods store and later used as a boarding house. Then, in 1913, the building was converted into a theater, and the name was changed to "The Ritz" in 1926. It is considered to be one of the oldest operating theaters in Oklahoma.

When the building was converted into a theater, it became the major form of entertainment in Shawnee,  showing silent films and later "talking pictures." The theater now functions as a live performance venue, rather than a movie theater. 

Many people claim the theater is haunted and have reported flickering lights, strange voices, and unexplained activity. The most well-known spirits are Leo Montgomery, a historic movie projectionist, and "Amelia," a spirit from the boarding house days. 

Near the County Courthouse is a blue horse and the Woodland Veterans Park, which is designed in a five-point star layout. The park includes a granite wall listing Oklahomans who died in action since the Spanish-American War, a Huey helicopter, and other military displays.  

With its Romanesque Revival-style architecture and 60-foot turret, the historic Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Depot is one of the most distinctive and unusual depots in Oklahoma. The depot was built in 1902 with limestone block walls that are two to three feet thick. The depot is closed to the public but can be viewed from the street. 

The main museum building is located just north of the depot, along with a log building and a caboose. In front of the depot, the original street, made of locally produced brick pavers, is still in use. 

I did not tour the Jasmine Moran Children's Museum in Seminole (population 7,146), but I was told that this is one of the most popular hands-on attractions in the area. Apparently, it is designed like an interactive mini-town where kids can role-play jobs, explore science and health exhibits, and enjoy an outdoor train ride and play area. 

The Grisso Mansion, just down the street from the Children's Museum, is one of the best representations of the wealth during the oil boom era in Seminole. 

Grisso started as a pharmacist and leveraged land and mineral rights during the oil boom, eventually becoming extremely wealthy and building the mansion as a showpiece for his success. The massive 26-room mansion features hand-crafted tiles from Italy, a basement ballroom, eight fireplaces, a courtyard, fountains, a greenhouse, a carriage house, underground service tunnels, and additional buildings. Literature states, "It was built with no expense spared, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars at the time, a huge sum in the 1920s."

Before closing in 2019, the mansion was used for weddings and special events. The mansion is now closed to the public, but the day I drove by, a crew was working on the outside of the building.  

Wewoka (population 3,133) is the capital of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and has a violent history, with over 75 documented lynching victims killed in Oklahoma between 1865 and 1950. 

During the oil boom from 1925-1930, the town of Wewoka grew from a population of 1,520 to over 10,000, and then to over 20,000 in 1927. In the boom days, there were sixteen drug stores, eight beauty shops, seven pool rooms, six bus lines, twelve doctors, six dentists, forty lawyers, twelve blacksmiths, ten furniture dealers, eleven dry goods stores, and eight lumber companies. Millionaires were plentiful, and some people had incomes of over $150,000 per month. 

The Seminole Nation Museum, originally built in 1934 as part of a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, offers a good overview of the Seminole Nation's history.  

In the downtown area, a beautiful butterfly was painted on the side of a building next to the courthouse. In front of the courthouse was a Statue of Liberty dedicated by the Boy Scouts of America as a pledge of "everlasting fidelity and loyalty to strengthen the Arm of Liberty." Next to the Statue of Liberty was a small veterans' memorial and a 50-year time capsule buried in 2016, to be opened on June 26, 2066. 

Also in front of the courthouse is the Whipping Tree, which dates back to the 1800s, when the Seminole Nation enforced its own laws in the Indian Territory. People convicted of crimes were tied to the tree and publicly whipped. Punishment was carried out by tribal law, known as "Lighthorsement." Sentences varied depending on the offense. Also located in front of the courthouse was an Execution Tree used for hangings, but it was cut down in the 1920s.

Wetumka (population 1,135) was named by the Muscogee Creek Indians in the 1830s for their ancestral town of Wetumpka in Alabama. "Wetumka" is a Muskogee language word meaning "rumbling waters."

The town is known for two things: on the last Saturday in September, it celebrates "Sucker Day," and it hosts the "Crappie Festival" annually, celebrating fishing culture with events, food, and community activities. Because of the large number of Crappie caught at nearby Lake Wetumka, the town of Wetumka is known as the "Crappie Capital of the World."

When I entered Wetumka, I was intrigued by the interesting mural on the side of a building. There were no customers in the grocery store, so I had an interesting visit with the clerk. When he told me about "Sucker Day," I asked him why there wasn't a large lollipop statue located on Main Street to advertise the event. He explained that "sucker" was not a candy, but rather a reference to 1950, when the town was conned into believing a circus was coming. They had prepared food and spruced up the town for the special occasion. When they discovered they had been conned, instead of being mad, the town, since all the food and activities were already prepared, turned the event into an annual festive party called "Sucker Day."  

Weleetka (population 806) was founded by three newspapermen who were struggling to survive in the newspaper business. They knew that two railroads were going to cross in Oklahoma, so they surmised that if they built a town at the junction site, they could make a lot of money. They were able to purchase land at the proposed junction site, and on February 10, 1902, they began selling lots for $40 each, paying off the land purchase on the first day. The following day, First Bank of Weleetka opened, and by evening, it had $3,000 in deposits. On March 14, a post office was established. The town had a population of 1,020 by 1907, and by 1930, it was 2,042, with two hotels, three cotton gins, a cotton compress, three drug stores, an opera house, and a mercantile company. However, beginning in 1930, cotton production and railroad service started to decline, followed by a steady loss of population throughout the 20th Century. In 1939, the railroad ceased operations, and Weleetka lost its major employer. Weleetka's current population is about 800, and the town is known as "Home of the Outlaws." In this case, "outlaws" is not about criminals or Wild West bandits; it's actually the town's school mascot. 

Henryetta (population  5,640) is often called the "Rodeo Cowboy Capital of the World" because this is where rodeo legend Jim Shoulders is from. This is also where Troy Aikman, Dallas Cowboys NFL Hall of Fame quarterback, attended high school. 

The Henryetta Historical Museum is located in the town's original one-room schoolhouse. At one time, the school also served as a church, public library, Boy Scout house, courtroom, and  Red Cross headquarters during WWI. Currently, the museum contains exhibits on Jim Shoulders and Troy Aikman.

Located downtown is a Doughboy statue bearing the names of fallen heroes who gave their lives in the defense of our country from WWI to the present.