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This is preserving Oklahoma history, a collection of historical vignettes from the OETA Archive. Oklahoma's earliest settlers knew the land was the key to their future. More than 100 years ago, the Pyraman family established a ranch near Janks that survived to this day, a place where past and present come together. A giant statue of a white buffalo welcomes visitors to the Pyraman Ranch Homestead. The white buffalo is a sacred symbol for Native Americans. A real white buffalo lives on the ranch, along with a herd of longhorn cattle. The cattle trace their ancestry back to a herd, the Pyramans brought with them when they settled the area. It was either the very late 1820s or the very early 1830s when they moved their herd of long horns out here from southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. In the late 1830s, Lewis Pyraman set up his first trading post over here at Tulsa.

In the 1800s, several members of the family served as Muscogee Creek tribal leaders when this land was part of Indian territory. The Pyraman ranch is owned today by Manetta Trap. Her grandparents Lulu and Moe's Pyraman established it on their creek Indian allotment. I grew up in Oklahoma City and we'd come over here on holidays. Trap says she loved trimming the Christmas tree in the Ranch House parlor and spending lazy summers roaming its woods. So I'd go eat a book and climb a tree and read my book. Robert Trap is her son but these are some of the oldest buildings that are still standing in Tulsa County. The Ranch House is one of the newer buildings on the property. It was built in 1910 after lightning burned down the original Pyraman homestead. In this the centennial year of the new house, the Ranch is taking on a new life. I'd like to be it to be just kept as a historical place. A place where visitors can get a sense of what it was like to live on a working ranch in Tulsa

County a century ago. The house is being refurbished to look like it did in 1910. A piano again sits in the parlor, silver hair brushes are set out in the bedroom, wood burning stoves provide heat, and a checkerboard is set up in the sitting room. The Pyraman family history unfolds and framed photos on the walls and its Native American customs are celebrated. In the kitchen you'll find a massive wooden mortar and pestle used to crack corn for soft key, a traditional creek food. The Ranch is seen the birth of the state and the best and worst of times in Oklahoma from the oil boom to the dust bowl. There was once a small commuter rail line that actually ran across the backside of the property to the west of us here that would take oil field workers from Tulsa and jinx into the Glenpool back home. During the dust bowl days this well out here was one of the few freshwater wells that stayed available in families from the area of all over

around here would come in and draw water from that well. All over Tulsa you'll find references to the Pyramans. The family cemetery which dates back to the 1840s sits in Midtown. A few blocks away in what is now a small park on the corner of 41st and truest. The city's first postmaster, Josiah Pyraman, set up the area's original post office. He set his post office up in a lean to shack on the side of Rachel Pyraman and George Pyraman's home. Most people in the area don't know that Joe Creek is actually has its name because that was the way that you would take if you needed to find the trail to Josiah Pyraman's house. Josiah Pyraman's original post boxes are now on display at the Ranch and by the way way back when he operated the post office, Tulsa was known as Tulsi Town, Indian Territory. The former farm town of Perkins is now a fast-growing suburb of still water. Wanting to preserve its history the community built the Oklahoma Territorial Plaza

to feature the home of legendary Oklahoma law man and OSU mascot Frank Pistol Pete Eaton. What began with a federal grant to build a statue of Pistol Pete, Perkins' most famous resident quickly became a springboard to preserve the community's past. About five years ago West Watkins was working as a consultant for the city of Perkins and the city manager came and said, West is trying to get us some money for a statue of Pistol Pete from Congress. Why don't you write a proposal for the Oklahoma Territorial Plaza? And I thought there's no way in hell Congress is going to give us $200,000 for a statue of Pistol Pete, but low and behold we did get it. Pistol Pete, aka Frank Eaton, was a cross-eyed blacksmith, deputy and US martial who lived in and served the Perkins area. When his statue was erected in what had been a peanut patch, folks around here said, why not create a site dedicated to saving Eaton's home and some

of the other historic structures in the area? So now surrounding Eaton statue, you'll find the Oklahoma Territorial Plaza. David Sasser is its chairman. As people in the community began talking, they said, well, hey, you know, we've got the old church we haven't done anything with. Why don't we move it there and restore it? And somebody said, well, there's also, I know where there's a log cabin. We could move it and do something and so it really began to take shape. Dennis Biel is in charge of gently picking up and moving each structure. The IXL schoolhouse came from west of Perkins. The filling station was Bud's DX at sixth and west and still water. And the loghouse came from west of Perkins. Pistol Pete's house came just about five blocks down the road. And the barn came from Lincoln County. The Plaza's newest addition, the Methodist Episcopal Church of Perkins built in 1892 was one of the

most difficult structures to move. We made about eight blocks and it took about four hours. Now that the church is on site, a stem wall will be built to support it and restoration work will get underway. The one room IXL Territorial Schoolhouse built in 1896 has already been restored. It now looks the way it did in the 1920s. Next to the school is another fully restored building, a porcelain enamel late fifties early sixties vintage filling station. We have a local car club, Simran Valley Starlight Cruisers, and it's their clubhouse. They have meetings there once a week on Thursdays and have organized car shows and it's a really neat kind of nostalgic venue. Inside are treasures like Perkins for Stoplight and one of its vintage fire trucks. On the other side of the Plaza, you'll see Pistol Pete's longtime home. The tiny structure has been restored to the way it looked in 1953 when Eaton wrote his autobiography,

Pistol Pete, Veteran of the Old West. To one side of Eaton's home is an outhouse, Sasser says was part of a WPA project to improve the area's sanitation practices. While on the other is a two-room cabin. The Davis Longing Cabin was built in 1901 by James Login as a wedding present for his daughter. It's a little unusual because the logs are milled on both sides. Every item in the house was used in the homes around Perkins at the time of statehood. Behind the cabin is a slightly rusty but still working windmill and an old barn. It was built in 1919. Sasser says future plans for the Plaza call for having a few farm animals at the barn to show visitors a larger slice of Perkins farming heritage. He has mentioned in the book True Grit, a legendary Oklahoma law man who lived in southeastern Oklahoma when it was overrun with criminals of all types.

His is another historic Oklahoma home. The Peter Concert home was built in 1894. It's located just off the Talamine scenic drive near Heavner, Oklahoma. Brandon Reed is the tour guide here. He's also the groundskeeper and historian of the Concert home. The clothing he wears is very stereotypical of what you would have seen any lawnmowering during that time. This is very similar to what you would have seen during the time period. The pants with the the braces or suspenders on them, the vest you were considered to be underdressed and in some cases it would have been like walking around in your underwear if you weren't wearing your waistcoat over the top of it. Mr. Concert was a renowned lawman in Indian territory and inside his historic home it looks very much up must have looked when Peter Concert and his family lived here in the late 1800s. The beds are made in the kitchen

table as set and ready for dinner. The house itself being a very example specific of the time period was kind of special because it was owned by Peter Concert. Now Mr. Concert was a lawman. He was a member of the Choctaw Light Horse. The Light Horsemen were really the law in this part of Indian territory at the time. They were the judge, jury and sometimes unfortunately even had to be the executioner of evil doers here in the Indian territories. I like to tell the story that it didn't make it into the movie but in the book True Grit. John Wayne's character of Rooster Cogburn talked about how he needed to come to Indian territory because he had to meet with the Light Horsemen Mr. Concert. There was only ever one Light Horseman named Concert. It was our Peter Concert and so I imagine that Sheriff Cogburn, if he was considered the Light Horsemen important enough to deal with, that it was probably a reason for that and so they were kind of,

you hear about the Mount, he's always get their man. The Light Horsemen were much the same and they were a force to be reckoned with. The two story structure was not only home to large Concert family of nine but it would sometimes house prisoners in a room upstairs on the outside balcony. He was however kind of first and foremost a law man and so you will note there's a lock on both of these inside doors. On occasion he had some kind of rough people that had to stay with him as well. I am told on occasion he actually used this room as a holding cell when they were transporting prisoners in particular up to Fort Smith to see Judge Isaac Parker. Everybody's heard of him as the hanging judge. You're going to see hanging judge Parker this might have been the nicest room you got to stay in for the rest of your life. And even inside this unusual guest room there are unique and one of a kind antiques that any collector would covet. You often see these little dressers that have either the mirror or a tower rack on them.

It's very, very common to see either one. This is the only one here on this side that I have ever seen that has both a mirror and a tower rack together. So it's kind of an interesting combination of the two and it always struck me as kind of odd to have one without the other especially if you're just going to have a tower rack you don't have a mirror. So this was kind of an interesting way to combine the two. Reed says the most important thing he wants visitors to leave here with is the idea that Indian territory was not the lawless land you see in Old Westerns but in fact there were light horsemen like Peter Conzer who took their jobs very seriously. In the early 1900s there was some fine baseball played in Oklahoma by members of what was then known as the Oklahoma Negro League. Players whose names most folks never heard of but they were some

of the best athletes to ever play the great American pastime. Gibson is the only player black more white who has hit a whole run over the third tier of Yankee Stadium beating even the great Bay Booth. Though white fans don't often see these teams play they should spend an afternoon watching these amazing athletes who often show bow and clown but never fail to play great baseball. In December of 1867 two and a half years after the Civil War the National Association for Baseball Players held its annual convention in Philadelphia. At that meeting the color line and baseball was drawn, boring blacks and the black ball clubs for membership. Being denied participation blacks organized their own league. By the late 1860s these teams were so well-run that a color championship series was held in Brooklyn. Guthrie, Jasmine Field. This was the

home playing field for the Guthrie black spiders, a black minor league baseball team that started 1938 and ended in 1952. Oklahoma never had a branch of the Negro National League but it had a lot of minor league teams. One team that was Oklahoma's finest minor league ball club was the Guthrie black spiders, home by Sammy Sims. Sam Holman had a team and he would go different town and get players but go to Wichita and conquer city and Arkansas and Oklahoma's city. Oh, Clinton, he had played him every way he could find a good player, Sammy go get him. The team was paid from the gate collections but they played mainly for the fun of the sport. Sam had one of a fellow, one of a fellow that name is a catcher called Curry Hopper.

And Curry, everybody thought he couldn't run. He acted like he crippled you know and he would hit the ball. He figured on base. Well, while the catcher is throwing the ball back to the picture he gets it kind of like he's like he could on the walk and all of a sudden he breaks the second base and went look around. He'd be set up on the second base you know with it and give him ducted pictures old. Use what you got till you get what you need was the philosophy of owner Sammy Sims. This changed the spiders from a sand lot team to minor league status. What condition was the ball club and you picked it up? For others in bad shape and they were all right for wetters playing because they were playing on the country. So the bram was a town and the first place to play it at then stayed them they'd draw people they had to have soups. Beautiful. The uniform so and the time I knew the lady was just things to do. So I told them I said well what

I do. My sound bad but it's better than no soups. I get the yards that cotton. I mean that cotton sack. Cotton sack. Cotton sack, that's what you can make of it. Be cotton and sack. And I get out to make some soups. It's a major to make up soups out of that. And then we all die on black. And that's and then we then the name our name y'all got to black spiders. So the next time you hear of teams like the Kansas City Monarchs, New York Cubans, or the Newark Eagles just remember teams like the Guthrie Black Spiders and the Tulsa T. Clowns played a minor role in the old e-grown national league. In the shadow of the state capital building there is a place that is a step back in time to an era before statehood. A homestead that once covered about half of the current state

capital complex is a place fixed in time. The Harn Homestead is dedicated to capturing and preserving a slice of Oklahoma territorial history that lies between the land run of 1889 and statehood in 1907. Melissa Gregg is its interim executive director. The Harn Homestead came about because William Fremont Harn was appointed a federal agent by President Harrison and came here to settle land run disputes. He fell in love with Oklahoma, Oklahoma territory as it was at the time. And when he was able to purchase this piece of land he sent for his wife to come and live with him. Alice Harn wasn't happy living in a log cabin so for Christmas 1903 her husband bought a kid house from a catalogue and six weeks later he and the misses moved in. A niece inherited the homestead after the Harns passed away and when Florence Wilson died in 1967 she deeded it to Oklahoma City as a park with a purpose. She wanted it to be used as a place to educate children. Oklahoma City soon found

the site which is on the national register of historic places needed another operator so for years it bounced between historical societies. Since 1986 it's been run by a private non-profit so school children can take a field trip back in time. They have classes in a one-room schoolhouse complete with a pot-bellied stove and portrait of George Washington. We don't have much like it in Oklahoma anymore you can see a few schoolhouses on back roads some have been restored and some not so much but our schoolhouse we use almost every day in the fall and spring to actually instruct kids in what it was like to attend a one-room schoolhouse they come in they sit in the desks they ride on slates and it not only shows them what the history was but it helps them to experience the history as it was a class photo from way back when hangs on the wall and copies of McGuffee schoolbooks are on the teacher's desk. Some buildings like the school were moved here to preserve them others belong to the Harns. In 1909 they brought the pink farmhouse

here for Mr. Harns niece and nephew and their children to live as caretakers on the grounds. The rest of the buildings came quite a bit later in the 1970s they built a replica of Mr. Harns barn kids love the antique red barn in the red barn we do chores with them they rake out the stables they grind corn they um they work in the garden again not only can they see the barn as it was in 1904 they can actually go in and experience it but the gem of the homestead is the 1904 Harn home this photo was taken shortly after it was built on to the original cabin that space became the kitchen and informal dining area no photos survive of the cabin it's suspected Mrs. Harn didn't want reminders of living in such a small space the new homes formal dining room in front parlor were more her style those rooms are furnished with items reminiscent of how the Harns lived in the parlor on the back wall you're seeing four original oil paintings that were

done by Mrs. Alice Harn she was an artist and just below them there are two blue vases and those blue vases came to Oklahoma territory packed in flower barrels um in someone's wagon when William Harn came to Oklahoma he wasn't always the most popular guy because it was his job to prosecute sooners he was a lawyer so he needed a big desk where he could spread out his cases this is his desk it's one of the few pieces here that actually belonged to the Harns and when they built this house they knew that electricity was coming they had lived in Ohio where it was now the new thing so when they had the lamps installed they worked on both gas and electricity the wall phone was another pioneer era modern amenity as was the indoor bathroom somewhere upstairs it was strictly off limits to guests then and still kept hidden from visitors today Oklahoma oilfields helped build the state into an energy powerhouse something you can learn a lot about at the century of oil exhibit at Oklahoma's Willa Rock museum oil man Frank Phillips

legacy to Oklahoma the Willa Rock museum lodge and 37 acre nature preserve has been enjoyed by visitors for some eight years what made his gift to Oklahoma possible is now explained in a new eye catching exhibit called century of oil 1850 to 1950 we picked the year that the century of 1850 to 1950 for a specific reason because that really spanned the period of time of the oil industry that would have impacted Mr. Phillips's life Bob Frazier who's the chief executive officer for Willa Rock along with the museum director created and developed the new addition if it wasn't for oil Willa Rock wouldn't be here it was Mr. Phillips's success in the oil business that brought him out here to build the lodge charm and then a few years later to start building this museum so we have a direct connection and always will have a direct connection with oil and we felt like we

needed to do a better job of helping share the story and share the history of the oil industry with our guests that we have here every year Frank and his brother Ellie drilled three unsuccessful wells before hitting on number four with the last of their money they went on to hit 81 consecutive producing wells and Phillips petroleum company was on its way oil's a big part you know vocal homie and Bartlesville and I want my kids to have this so they can you know learn about all that and the ranches and the Frank Phillips and their family I wanted to be there so they'll know about the history of it here children and adults can see an 1897 rope tool rig which shows the rudimentary technology that wildcatters like Frank Phillips had to deal with in the search to strike a whale a resource that would later become known as black gold oil back in the mid to late 1800s was almost more of a nuisance than it was a good thing then then they started using it as a

lubricant you know it wasn't really powering anything for quite some time once the the turn of the century came and we were into the early 1900s it started all of a sudden being a bit more intriguing as to what the value was of it then with the help of Henry Ford and the Model T World War I and the need for petroleum really became big well that's when the when the industry really really exploded and took off. Frazier says in just four years from 1900 to 1904 the amount of oil pumped in this region increased from 6000 to more than 11 million barrels of oil a day keeping the wells pumping back then was hard work and sometimes very dangerous at this exhibit tourists can see a fully furnished home typically used by oil field employees back in the early 1900s in 1932 this is what a gasoline

delivery truck look like Phillips pump stations of yesterday have also been recreated here visitors like Dennis Gill on a history buff are amazed to think of the risk Frank Phillips took to be a trailblazer not only on the ground but in the air as a pilot of this single engineer plane think about that this airplane flew from California to Hawaii it's got one engine over 3000 miles of water you got to be awfully brave to dare that kind of thing because there's no backup plan with this. This exhibit is just one of many here at Willa Rock that keeps people coming back time and again. This is preserving history the never-ending process of keeping what once was to remind tomorrow's Oklahoma's of those that came before and the legacy we all share.