Oklahoma Trivia & Tidbits - Page 17

Looking for Oklahoma trivia? Try our list Oklahoma little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Medicine Park (pop. 373) started as a resort community on the banks of Medicine Creek, which was believed by American Indians to have healing powers. The town was founded in 1908 by Elmer Thomas, later a U.S. senator.

first appeared: 9/8/2002

A large granite monument in Freedom (pop. 271) pays tribute to the cowhands who rode the range and tended the herds. The Cimarron Cowboy Monument, a granite block 10 feet long and 4 feet high, features a map of early ranches in the area, their brands, and the names of the cowboys who kept the livestock.

first appeared: 9/1/2002

Murals by the celebrated Kiowa Five, a group of American Indian artists from Anadarko (pop. 6,645), can still be seen on the walls of the Anadarko Post Office. Three of the five—Steven Mopope as the lead artist, assisted by James Auchiah and Spencer Asah—painted 16 murals in the post office in 1936 and 1937 portraying life among the Kiowa before settlers arrived.

first appeared: 8/25/2002

The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum, which opened in 1983 in Oklahoma City, features the works of such pioneering photographers as Ansel Adams, along with antique photo equipment and a 360-degree photographic mural of the Grand Canyon.

first appeared: 8/18/2002

A 77-foot waterfall in Natural Falls State Park in northeastern Oklahoma has completely different environments at the top and bottom of the falls. At the top, vegetation is sparse because of the thin soil. But at the bottom, a lush forest of maple and white oak trees, ferns, mosses, and other plants thrive in the humid environment.

first appeared: 8/18/2002

The band that defined Western swing music got its big break in a Tulsa ballroom when Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in 1934 started a daily radio music program broadcast from inside Cain’s Ballroom. The program aired six days a week for almost nine years.

first appeared: 8/11/2002

A complete skeleton of one of the rarest dinosaur fossils in the world was unearthed in southeastern Oklahoma in McCurtain County. The skeleton of the Acrocanthosaurus atokensis—a predator similar to the Tyrannosaurus rex—was found in 1983 by Cephis Hall and Sid Love and excavated over the next three years. It is now on display in South Dakota.

first appeared: 8/4/2002

One of Tulsa’s most visible landmarks is the 200-foot prayer tower at Oral Roberts University. The tower, built in 1967, serves as the university’s visitor center. The tower represents a modern-day cross with an observation deck designed to resemble the crown of thorns worn by Jesus at the crucifixion. The tower is topped with an eternal flame.

first appeared: 7/28/2002

A rodeo cowboy who wanted to look different created a popular brand of Western shirt. Maury Tate of Apache (pop. 1,616) was tired of looking like other cowboys. So about 10 years ago, he bought fabric and asked a seamstress to sew shirts to his specifications—bright colors and bold, eye-catching combinations of fabric designs. Tate says another cowboy bought his first eye-catching shirt right off his back—and since then, business has been brisk. Tate’s Mo’Betta Clothing Co. now supplies shirts for cowboys and western music stars such as Garth Brooks.

first appeared: 7/21/2002

The bullfrog was declared the state amphibian in 1997 after the Legislature approved a resolution sought by seventh-graders at Brushy Creek School in Sallisaw, Okla. The resolution noted that the “versatile and prolific bullfrog is an integral part of the ecology of Oklahoma.”

first appeared: 7/14/2002

Maria Tallchief, a prima ballerina for the New York City Ballet for 13 years, was born in 1925 on an American Indian reservation in Fairfax (pop. 1,555) to an Osage father and a mother of Scot-Irish descent. Her most famous role was in Firebird, as choreographed by George Balanchine.

first appeared: 7/14/2002

Ray and Mollie Bivin in 1981 began work on a six-acre garden featuring flowerbeds and hundreds of shrubs and trees near Shidler (pop. 520). They now have a six-acre English garden where peacocks and exotic pheasants stroll.

first appeared: 7/7/2002

Oil baron E.W. Marland’s 48,000 square-foot home, built in Ponca City (pop. 25,919) in the 1920s, was modeled after a palace in Florence, Italy, complete with Waterford crystal chandeliers and a gold-leaf ceiling in the ballroom. The mansion is now open for tours.

first appeared: 7/7/2002

A museum dedicated to the frontier druggists who dispensed medicinal help to settlers and cowboys is housed in the building that was Oklahoma’s first pharmacy. The Oklahoma Frontier Drug Store Museum in Guthrie (pop. 9,925) includes bottles from the medicine dispensed in the frontier days, the tools of pharmacists from over the years, and a soda fountain.

first appeared: 6/30/2002

Mangum (pop. 2,924) honors the pioneers who settled the community with their own hall of fame. The Old Pioneer Hall of Fame—on the grounds of the Old Greer County Museum—features pink granite stone memorials carved with the pictures, names, and stories of more than 160 people who lived in or were born in the county before 1907.

first appeared: 6/23/2002

Tulsa was a wealthy town when art deco was the rage in the 1920s, so many of the city’s buildings are in that style. Boston Avenue Methodist Church, for example, is considered by some to be one of the most significant examples of art deco architecture in the world. The church, built in 1929 and featuring a 255-foot steeple, is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

first appeared: 6/16/2002

Lake Eufaula, near Eufaula (pop. 2,639), is Oklahoma’s largest lake. It covers 102,000 acres and has more than 600 miles of shoreline.

first appeared: 6/9/2002

Legendary humorist Will Rogers was born two miles northeast of Oologah (pop. 883) but always claimed nearby Claremore (pop. 15,873) as his hometown. Rogers said he was afraid no one would ever be able to pronounce Oologah. For the record, that’s OOH-la-ga.

first appeared: 6/2/2002

The American Homing Pigeon Institute runs the World of Wings Pigeon Center in Oklahoma City. The 10-acre site, filled with pigeons, literature on pigeons, and other pigeon memorabilia, also hosts pigeon races.

first appeared: 5/26/2002

The strip of land between Kansas and Texas that forms the Oklahoma Panhandle was once known as “No Man’s Land” because it was part of no state. The 34-mile wide strip was attached to Oklahoma when the Oklahoma Territory was organized in 1890.

first appeared: 5/19/2002

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