Okemah, OK

More than 30 years after his death and some 70 years after Woodrow “Woody” Wilson Guthrie left his birthplace in the midst of the Great Depression, the folksinger’s spirit still lives in Okemah, Okla. Signs of Okfuskee County’s most famous—and perhaps most controversial—native son are literally everywhere in the town he once referred to as “the singingest, square dancingest” of Oklahoma’s ranch and farm towns.

Most residents of Okemah (pop. 3,038)—an American Indian word meaning “high place”—are proud to point out landmarks commemorating “those Oklahoma hills” where America’s premier folksinger was born. Take the monumental slogan stamped in indelible black lettering on an onion bulb-shaped water tower that proclaims Okemah as the “Home of Woody Guthrie.”

“Did you see Woody’s name carved in the sidewalk across the street?” asks Don Moore, as he points from the front door of Okemah Supply Co.—his hardware and variety store—to Pamela’s Pioneer Mall.

The mall’s proprietor, Pamela Thompson, says the singer’s signature (dated 1928) was discovered in the foundation of the old five-and-dime building her antique and flower shop now occupies. When the city paved West Broadway—the main street—a few years ago, Thompson got some of the street’s original bricks to “frame” her autograph of Guthrie. “Have you seen the other signature?” she asks.

Up the street, a 1927 version of the singer’s signature graces the approach to a dress shop called C.K. Designs. Its larger and more legible sidewalk engraving bears the flamboyant handiwork of the town’s beloved bard. Only 15 at the time, Guthrie seems to have known even then that his name was bound for glory.

“Woody wrote more than 1,000 songs,” Moore notes with pride. Those include This Land is Your Land; Roll on, Columbia; Talking Dust Bowl Blues; Tom Joad; and So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You.

One of Guthrie’s guitars, a gift from his sister in nearby Seminole, shines under glass in the Okfuskee County Historical Society Museum. Lois Williams, a museum board member who attended Okemah High School with Guthrie, recalls him as a loner.

“We didn’t know he was musical,” she muses. “I just thought he was a poor boy down on his luck who used whatever talents he had to get through Depression times.”

Guthrie’s passion against fascism drew him to serve in both the Merchant Marine and Army during World War II. Afterward he wrote songs and performed with musicians who eventually formed the Weavers, the most commercially successful folk group of that era.

It was Guthrie who propelled the folk ballad into a vehicle for social protest—and his socialist ideas were radical for his time—but more and more Okemah residents in recent years have come to embrace the man they refer to simply as Woody.

Okemah is a pilgrimage site, with people from all over the world discovering Guthrie’s hometown through an annual festival honoring the folksinger’s music the week of July 14—his birthday.

In 1998, a group of townspeople organized the first of these—a free, four-day folk festival featuring such musical heavyweights as Pete Seeger, Billy Bragg, and Guthrie’s son, Arlo. Festival organizers chiseled out a park between two West Broadway buildings and erected a bronze statue of a guitar-toting Woody Guthrie to reign over the pocket-sized domain. They added a mural of the singer and persuaded the city council to rename the street that heads toward the interstate “Woody Guthrie.”

Then there’s Guthrie’s tombstone. It stands next to the Highland Cemetery graves of his parents, his brother, and his sister, Clara. “But Woody’s not buried there,” Moore is quick to add. “His ashes were scattered back East.”

No matter. These days, Woody Guthrie’s spirit is alive and kicking all around Okemah.

Margaret Dornaus is a frequent contributor to American Profile.

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