Plowing behind a Mule?

My neighbor grew up in Pennsylvania.  We were talking the other day and he bet that he was the last person in Muskogee who knew how to harness a mule for plowing.  I doubted the fact, but thought I would check to see if anyone else in the area knew how to hitch a mule to a plow.

The last mule I saw pulling a plow was south of Magnolia Arkansas about 1966.  Has anyone seen a farmer plowing behind a mule since then?

Picnicking at Spring Creek

Pictured here are picnickers who have just gotten out of the passenger cars for a day of relaxation.  They are employees of the Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf railroad, a short-line transportation company based in Muskogee.

The occasion was the summer picnic at Spring Creek, a train stop about twenty-five miles north of the home office on the way to Miami.  In the early 1920’s, the KO&G ran excursion trains twice a day around July 4th to Miami and back so that individuals and families could have a break from the summer heat.  The fare to Spring Creek cost between a dollar and $1.13 per person.

At the Spring Creek stop, there was no depot.  The shed on the left provided some relief from the elements.  For the railroad, there was a wooden water tank and trestle across the creek that offered cool spring water brimming with fish.

One of the railroad employees was Mary Beulah Hannah who took her camera along for capturing for posterity the gaiety of the occasion.  She eventually became the Administrative Assistant to the railroad president.  In that capacity, she oversaw the payroll, often signing the paychecks in her own name.

Mary was Kevin Hannah’s aunt.  He has loaned his aunt’s photos to the Three Rivers Museum for digital preservation.

WPA School Construction

By Marjorie Barton

and Wally Waits

From 1935 until 1943 a work-relief program known as Work Projects Administration (WPA) changed the face of Muskogee County and put hundreds to work in what became known as the Great Depression.  Only if you have been nationwide or researched the topic can you realize that Muskogee County had a similar number of projects as other like-sized populations in the United States.  That such a variety of jobs secured national approval and was completed is “mind-boggling.”

Building schools was only one type of WPA project, but Oklahoma excelled in that category.  Schools were built in all sizes, including one-room schoolhouses, and many are a part of the WPA accomplishments.  Throughout the WPA era, there was a focus on stopping the drop in school attendance.  The Great Depression was a time when some families were sending their children to dilapidated schoolhouses.

In the 1930s, there were about 100 school districts in Muskogee County.  Each district had its own schoolhouse.  During the decade of financial stress, the county had little money for school maintenance.

This is where the WPA helped.  One “make work” project in the county was the construction of sixteen one-room schools to be built in rural Muskogee County.  In these cases, it appears that the schoolhouse were being replaced.  In other cases, the school building was structurally sound, but was fast approaching the point of needing major repairs unless action was quickly taken.

Many of the surviving WPA school buildings are made of stone, or was encased in a stone exterior.   Local material, when available, was used because it was more “labor intensive.”

Here are the schools in Muskogee County where WPA work occurred:

Banks

Boynton

Braggs

Briartown

Brushy Mountain

Buck Horn

Council Hill

Dubois

Elm Grove

Fort Gibson High School

Haskell

Heff School

Hickory Ridge

Keefton

Lone Star

McClain

New Hope

Oak Grove

Popes Chapel

Pumpkin Center

Sally Brown

Sequoyah

Sims

Sunny Slope

Valley

Wainwright

Warner

Webbers Falls Junior/Senior High School

Zore

Although the WPA was “reorganized” in 1939 into the Federal Works Agency.  the new governmental structure continued to function pretty much as the WPA had.  Inside the entrance at the Alice Robertson school in Muskogee is a plaque indicating the presence of the Federal Works Agency.   As the Indian Bowl stadium was a WPA project in Muskogee, likewise, many of the schools listed had Gym/Auditorium or a stadium built.

Some schools were also upgraded with better “outhouses” or sometimes, indoor plumbing.  Another frequent aid to school districts was that of building a “teacher cottage” to provide housing.  A few schools saw the construction of houses for administrators and teachers.  Rural schools had a difficult time attracting teachers, unless there was a place to live.

Many of the listed school buildings are still in use, though not always as schools.  Homes, community or senior centers, and churches have taken advantage of the soundly constructed buildings.

It is significant to note that Oklahoma built 825 schools, far outnumbering other states.  Another 175 additions were WPA projects for schools already in acceptable condition.  No other state came close to building the number of schools that Oklahoma WPA produced, and Muskogee County received its fair share.

Frozen Rock Notes

During the Civil War, Confederate troops fled across the ford at Frozen Rock in an effort to flee Union forces then making a drive to retake Fort Gibson.  Two dozen bodies of Rebel soldiers were found dotting the ridge at the end of hostilities.

A year after the end of the war, a Saint Louis book[1] reported that Frozen Rock was six times as likely to be a steamboat destination as was heading for Fort Gibson.  Merchants were advised that Frozen Rock was located 714 miles above the mouth of the Arkansas River on the Mississippi.

---

[1] Annual Statement of the Trade and Commerce of Saint Louis for the Year 1865.  By Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis, p. 17.

Local Dentist Was War Hero

The US Congress declared war on Germany and their allies on 6 Apr 1917.  Ten days later, Dr. Otto L. H. Hine volunteered for military service.  This was almost exactly two years since he passed the Oklahoma licensing examination and began practicing dentistry in Muskogee.

His volunteering effort sent him to Oklahoma City where he took an oral exam and passed.  Shortly afterwards, he was sworn in as a First Lieutenant in the US Army’s Dental Corps Reserves.

In the middle of July he was drafted into active duty.  He spent the rest of 1917 in uniform awaiting orders for debarkation for the European Theater.  He served in the Second Battalion, 139th Infantry.

This is Lt. Hine in a more peaceful moment.  However, the war in France was a brutal one of attrition as each side tried to wear its opponent down to the point that they gave up.  Trench warfare caused horrendous losses on both side.  The infusion of American soldiers shifted the balance of power to the British-French-American side.

No Man’s Land existed between the trenches.  When the whistle blew to send GI’s out of their trenches, and “over the top” into No Man’s Land, they entered a zone that was raked by machine gun fire and exploding artillery shells. 

Naturally, chaos regularly ensued as soldiers tried to avoid being killed while advancing forward.  One time, Lt. Hine became lost.  Another time he found himself in the vanguard of the attack and he captured 32 German soldiers.

On September 29th, this Muskogee dentist followed the advancing 139th Infantry into No Man’s Land.   He was assigned supervision of a field first aid station located at Chaudron Farm.  There wounded soldiers received basic treatment before being sent to hospitals behind the front line.

Finding German resistance to be too great, American troops were withdrawn in this area leaving only 25 American infantrymen to protect the aid station. This aid station with 94 wounded soldiers happened to be very far forward and soon became the focus of German gunners.

At great personal risk, Lt. Hine returned through No Man’s Land to American trenches about 2:00 in the morning of the second day.  Reporting the danger wounded American soldiers faced, he requested artillery fire from the 129th Field Artillery to prevent the Germans from overrunning the aid station.  Otto returned to the forward aid station, again having traversed the deadly terrain called “No Man’s Land.”

The American artillery barrage to suppress the Germans lasted nine hours.  It took that long to carry those wounded soldiers back to the American trenches.

Lt. Otto Hine’s account of these events became a footnote in Jay McIlvaine Lee’s 1920 history of his service during the war.  But to the men whose lives he saved, Lt. Hine was their hero who deserved more than a reference at the bottom of a page.

In July, 1919, the US Army agreed with these wounded men and awarded Capt. Otto Hine the Distinguished Service Cross.  The DSC is given to soldiers who at great personal risk in combat, performed gallantly.  It is ranked next under the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Dr. Otto Hine returned to Muskogee.  Two and a half years after volunteering for service, he restarted his dental practice.  He was Dr. Ted Hine’s father.

Muskogee's Auto Tourist Camp

     

 by Glenn Smith, Muskogee, OK

Muskogee's Auto Tourist Camp

  In the earliest days of long distance travel by automobile, motorists who ventured very far from home faced a problem at the end of the day: where to spend the night? Hotels were expensive and inconveniently located in downtown business districts, and after a hard day's drive few motorists were comfortable traipsing across stuffy hotel lobbies in their road-worn touring clothes. Pitching a tent out along the road was soon perceived by many to be a better alternative.
     As autocamping rapidly increased in favor after 1915, many communities along the major highways, hoping to lure motorists and their dollars, built municipal camps and made them available at no, or for a modest charge. Road associations also touted the many public tourist camps on their favored routes. In 1923, for instance, the Jefferson Highway Association published a "tourist camp manual" describing the features of over one hundred municipal camp sites that had been especially built for the accommodation of travelers on the Jefferson Highway.
   
 One of the largest and best appointed tourist camps listed in the JHA manual was the camp at Muskogee, Oklahoma. Built in 1921 by the Muskogee Kiwanis Club in Spaulding Park at the then-hefty cost of $3,000, the Muskogee camp could accommodate 200 cars and provided a screened building containg electric lights, twelve gas plates for cooking, and four large tables and benches for dining.  Other crucial amenities provided for campers included sinks with running water and bathrooms containing toilets and showers. A pond was available for swimming during the summer months, and band concerts held in the park provided free entertainment.
     Muskogee's tourist camp was an immediate big hit with motorists, one of whom--Frank M. Smith of Dallas, Texas--described his favorable impressions in a 1921 letter: "When we reached the park we hesitated to go in as the lawn and everything about it was so well-kept we thought we must have made a mistake. In a few minutes, however, an officer approached us and invited us in.  We were directed to a large building where we found bathrooms, reading and rest rooms, and also a place to cook meals. A registration fee of 25 cents is charged for each car utilizing the camp. There were probably 50 cars in the park the night we spent there. We found Muskogee highly praised during our trip and every tourist had a good word for the city on account of the excellent arrangements made for their comfort."


View of the Camp from across the 'pond' in 2013.

      According to a Muskogee Times-Democrat article, as of July 15, 1922, over 1,400 tourists had already stayed at the Spaulding Park camp during that season, a big increase over the previous year's total.  Noting that the camp's users came from all over the U.S., the article concluded that "the univeral lure of the open road and purring motor is best attested by the diversity of the people who make this outdoor camp their temporary haven." Within only a few more years, however, most of those fetched by the "open road and purring motor" no longer cared to put up a tent at the end of a day, preferring instead the convenience of a tourist cabin.  In Muskogee and elsewhere in the U.S., most travelers very quickly abandoned municipal camps in favor of private cabin camps and, subsequently, tourist courts and motels.  By the mid-1930's, no fewer than eight private camps, all offering cabins, were in business in Muskogee.
     In the early 1930's, the Kiwanis Club gave the camp building to the Girl Scouts, who remodeled it and for many years used it as a meeting place and camping house.  Known as the "Little House," the building was recently remodeled again and, now in the care of the city's Park Department, can be rented for meetings and family gatherings. Although several historic buildings in Muskogee have been torn down, the "Little House" in Spaulding Park remains as a memento of the earliest days of motoring on the Jefferson Highway.

Muskogee and the Jefferson Highway

Muskogee, Oklahoma is proud to have played a founding role in the establishment of the Jefferson Highway across the state of Oklahoma. The many active boosters and promoters of the city included a large number who gave their total support to new road-and bridge-building programs.

When the first organizational meeting of the Jefferson Highway Association was held in New Orleans on November 15 and 16, 1915, organizers had expected to attract about fifty delegates, but over six times that number attended! In fact, more than fifty delegates showed up from Oklahoma, many of them from Muskogee.  All delegates wanted the new highway to run through their states and cities.  Route selection yielded the most contentious issue of all: would the new highway run through Arkansas or, less directly but on better roads, through Texas and Oklahoma?

David N. Fink, president of the Commercial Bank of Muskogee, quickly emerged as the leader of the Oklahoma delegation, which succeeded in getting the highway routed through Texas into Durant, Oklahoma, then north through McAlester, Muskogee and Vinita to the Missouri state line. At this
meeting Fink was also elected JHA vice-president. further reflecting the great enthusiasm for the new highway coursing through the state, several months later Fink and approximately two hundred other delegates from seven Oklahoma counties met in McAlester to organize the Oklahoma Jefferson Highway Association.

In late November, 1916, the JHA held a meeting of the board of directors at the Severs Hotel in Muskogee, on which occasion Fink was unanimously elected as JHA president for the following year.  At a concurrent meeting of the Oklahoma Jefferson Highway Association, Fink proposed a plan to build a new bridge of concrete and steel over the Canadian River near Eufaula, in order to prevent the JHA from altering the highway's route in Oklahoma.  A non-profit company was organized and authorized to issue bonds to finance the $125,000 cost of the bridge, which was completed in April 1920.


This is the original road where the Jefferson Highway
came into Muskogee from the south side.
It is now South 24th street and only used by local traffic.
Photo taken by Glenn Smith September 2012.

The highway through Muskogee County was completed and opened in the summer of 1918. the public's interest in automobile travel continued to grow by leaps and bounds as the Jefferson Highway and other improved roads were built.  Not only did car ownership increase rapidly in the Muskogee area, but as the largest city on the Jefferson Highway between Kansas City and Dallas, Muskogee benefited from lots of tourist traffic, an outcome that city fathers and business groups had eagerly anticipated from the start.  To foster and accommodate that ever-growing automobile traffic, the local Kiwanis Club in 1921 built in a Muskogee park a well-equipped state-of-the-art tourist camp able to accommodate 200 automobiles.

Muskogee had led the way to get the Jefferson Highway built in Oklahoma, and the leadership of David N. Fink (1868-1927) was an important part of the highway's successful completion.

This article by Glenn Smith was originally published in the Jefferson Highway Declaration Newsletter of the Jefferson Highway Association Vol 2, No. 1, Winter 2013