Duchess of Weaselskin

Bayfield, Colorado - Howdy All! It is really warming up here in the mountains of Southwest Colorado! The photos on the left and right are some closeup pictures of NW Okie's Early Girl Tomatoes that have finally started producing their fruit. That is not to say that Tomatoes are fruits, though! BUT . . . Maybe they are!

We heard from a Mike Loffland of Norman, Oklahoma that was searching for who actually owns the land for the Cooprider-Livingston Cemetery located in Alfalfa county, Oklahoma. Also . . . Mike says, "There is an unmarked grave in front of my great-great grandfather's gravestone. I am trying to figure out if it might be my great-great grandmother's grave."

The Cooprider-Livingston Cemetery is located at the Jct. of Hwy 8 and Hwy 45, South of Cherokee, Oklahoma, on the Southeast corner. Over at the Oklahoma Cemeteries website we found this transcription of those buried in the Cooprider Cemetery (aka Solf Cemetery).

We heard today from Perry, Oklahoma that some parts of Oklahoma hit the one hundred degree mark today. Sounds like June! We also read in the local Northwest Oklahoma newspaper that what wheat harvest there was this year is /has finished. We also heard from some Northwest Oklahomans that it is awfully dry in that area and Cattle ranchers are having to haul in hay and water for their cattle. We hope you get some much need rain sometime soon!

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This Day In History (June 6)

America - On Jan. 6, 1882, Sam Rayburn, who served for more than 48 years in the U.S. House of Representatives (1913-61), was born. Following Rayburns death on November 16, 1961, his obituary appeared in The Times. Go to obituary. [Photo on the left was taken back in the early 1960's and was scanned and placed on NWOkie's Picasa Albums back in 2006. We can identify at least two: Gene McGill (frontrow, 2nd from left) and Sam Rayburn (frontrow, 3rd from left, standing to Gene's left.]

Sam Rayburn's Boyhood Ambitions -- The Article states this about Rayburn's Boyhood Ambitions, "As a boy, working in the fields of his father's forty-acre cotton farm in North Texas, Sam Rayburn made up his mind to enter politics when he grew up and eventually to become Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Then, perhaps even more than now, the Speakership was widely regarded as second only to the Presidency among the country's elective offices. Mr. Rayburn achieved his goal on Sept. 16, 1940, when the House elected him to succeed William B. Bankhead of Alabama, who had died the previous day. From then until his death, he served as Speaker in every Congress except the Republican-controlled Eightieth (1947 to 1949) and the Eighty-third (1953 to 1955)."

On this day, June 6, 1919, the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, died in Oyster Bay, N.Y., at age 60. READ Times Article. The headlines read: "Theodore Roosevelt Dies Suddenly at Oyster Bay Home; Nation Shocked, pays Tribute to Former President; Out Flag on All Seas and in All Lands at Half Mast."

"Oyster Bay, L.I., Jan. 6. -- Theodore Roosevelt, former President of the United States, died this morning between 4 and 4:15 o'clock while asleep in his bed at his home on Sagamore Hill, in this place. His physicians said that the immediate cause of death was a clot of blood which detached itself from a vein and entered the lungs."

On This Date (January 6)

• 1412 - According to tradition, Joan of Arc was born in Domremy, France.
• 1540 - England's King Henry VIII married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.
• 1759 - George Washington and Martha Dandridge Custis were married.
• 1838 - Samuel Morse first publicly demonstrated his telegraph, in Morristown, N.J.
• 1912 - New Mexico became the 47th state.
• 1919 - Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, died in Oyster Bay, N.Y., at age 60.
• 1945 - George H.W. Bush married Barbara Pierce in Rye, N.Y.
• 1993 - Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie died at age 75.
• 1994 - Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the right leg in an assault planned by the ex-husband of her rival, Tonya Harding.
• 2001 - With the vanquished Vice President Al Gore presiding, Congress certified Republican George W. Bush the winner of the close and bitterly contested 2000 presidential election.
• 2005 - Former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen was arrested 41 years after three civil rights workers were slain in Mississippi. (Killen was later convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 60 years in prison.)

NW Okie's Corner & Illegal July, 1948 Alva Bull Fights

Alva, Oklahoma - Jim Barker sent me an email this week with a copy of the 1948 2-Day July 4th Celebration Alva Bull Fights story. I know we talked about this Alva Bullfights of July 1948 in Vol. 10, Iss. 12 & 13, but I am going to go ahead and reprint the story in this week's OkieLegacy Ezine, because I love reading and re-reading this old, illegal Alva Bull Fights story of 1948.

1948 - 2 Day July 4th Alva Bull Fights- by Jim Barker

"A man came to town one day and wanted some civics club to put on an exhibition bull fight. But no civics club would take it on. Finally they came to the ABC (American Business Club). I was out of town, so some of the boys said to wait until Bert gets back the next day. When they told me, I said 'OK, Let's do it.'

"The first thing they asked was 'where will we get $500.' I said if I can't get 500 people to see a bull fight, I'd put up the rest. So we started, signed the contract for $500. and $300 if we killed a bull. We got started advertising and getting the Roundup Club to let us borrow their rodeo grounds one mile west of Alva, which is now PanEastern. (Author's Note: This is where Moser Repair and Towing is today.)

"When the Mexican men saw the rodeo arena, they said 'Too big,' so we put a fence across the middle. The bull fight started on a Sunday which was the fourth of July and ran over to Monday, which was a holiday.

"In the meantime Harry Coffman was an ABC member and wanted to sell pop and beer. But we had to have a license. So Cecil Wilhite was a lawyer and a member of the ABC. He said he would see Judge Glazier tomorrow, which was Saturday. So Cecil went over to the judge's office. The first thing the judge said was, 'Do you know, to get a license you have to apply three days before you start your bullfight show?' The judge did say, 'When you were over here the other day and I was busy, did you want the license then?' Of course you know what Cecil said - - - yes!

"So the next day we all got started. Those days everybody worked six days a week. We got our pop, hamburgers, buns, beer and candy bars. We were to start the bullfight at 1:30 p.m. We had everybody in place ready to go. I had five or six men on the gate and one asked: 'If the law comes out shall we charge them?' 'Yes, if they haven't been called.' I had not more than got it out of my mouth, that all three drove in.

"Ken Greer was the sheriff and his two deputies were Nels Nelson and Dewey Randalls. The first thing they wanted to know was, 'Who was in charge?' They did not have to ask that question, because they all looked at me.

"The first thing Ken said was 'What are your boys having?' and I said 'A bullfight.' And that was the wrong thing to say. Ken said 'If you draw a drop of blood, I will lock every one of you boys up.'

"So I changed my story quickly. 'A bull exhibition.' Then I said 'You think more of these bulls than you do of us boys.' Ken jumped out of his car. Dewey and me was sitting in the back seat and the window was down about three inches. Where I was sitting next to Dewey and talking and laughing, I did not pay any attention to what Ken was trying to do or say.

"I finally figured out that he was trying to hit me. So I told him I would give him a chance for a sandwich. Then he said, 'You draw any blood and I will fine you and lock you up.'

"They all left, but said 'Send all the Mexican boys down to the sheriff's office.' Thirty minutes went by and no bullfighters. So I sent Arty Ware, Gene Lamley (Chamber of Commerce manager) and two more boys to ask what was the sheriff trying to do to us.

"Because only one of the bullfighters could speak a little English, all the rest could only say 'si,si.' I don't know what that means.'

"We finally got started. The man on the microphone was J. G. Gillen, who had just returned from the army and was running for sheriff and was furnishing us boys the loud speaker system. Ken Greer was present and had been sheriff for 17 years. As Ken was talking to us, Mr. Gillen was telling the crowd they should vote for him. The election was in the next two days. I don't think the sheriff (Ken) liked it.

"When we signed the contract, they did not tell us what kind of bull to get. When they saw what Bill Arganbright got for them, they said that kind of bulls don't play fair. They only jump three times and then stop to see where your feet is. Bill told them they did not tell us to get a lot of milk cows for them. They finally said O. K.

"Just about then the boys turned out the first bull from the pen. The bull looked a couple of times and he must not have liked what he saw, because he never stopped running and tried to jump over the middle fence that I had just put in. We had used a three foot roll of hog wire, one on top of the other, but had put the first roll on the ground, the second on top of the other, which made a six foot fence.

"I had a big pair of bobwire pinchers in my hip pocket. They had turned over and was hanging down and I had to climb over another wooden fence. I looked through the fence and there stood Nels Nelson, the deputy sheriff. The first thing I said was, 'What will Ken do if he broke his leg?' Nels said, 'You did not tell the bull to jump the fence.'

"We left that bull in the back pen. Then they turned out another bull. He looked around and he must have seen the same thing. He was luckier than the other bull. He made the fence out the west side, but landed between two cars. He brushed the front fender of one car. Mr. Hubbard wanted $125 to fix his fender. But we got Del Brunsteter to fix it for nothing. He ran a body shop.

"The second bull went down in a canyon back of the rodeo pen. So Bill Arganbright and Charley Shalloup both had jeeps and lariat ropes. They both went after the bull. After that they had caught the bull.

"On the way back out of the canyon, when the bull got to the top, he did not like the look of the people and jumped over into the canyon and broke his neck. There went 300 dollars. But Charley ran the Shalloup Packing Co. and saved us $200.

"By that time we had used what was left of the bulls, and the bulls had caught most of the bullfighters and they were pretty well all banged up. So I took what money we had and went home. I had not been home five minutes and Mrs. Wilma Coffman came by and said 'Your bulls are out.' 'Somebody had left the gate open and three bulls were out and going south. When they came to a fence they would jump over it or just walk through it. I don't think they knew where the wire fence was.'

"I rounded up that evening six cowboys and horses that was helping us at the ABC. By two o'clock that night, we had rounded up two bulls by rope and drug them back 'one four miles and the other six miles. The third bull got in a pen of Mr. Myers' milk cows, so he put all of them in the barn until the next morning.

"Then is when I told Ollie Brewer and his brother Forrest to be sure and put a wire over the top of this truck because I knew the bull would try to jump out. Sure enough the next morning the first thing the bull tried to do was jump out of the truck. -- (NOTE: Evidently the wire held, for Bert made no further mention of it in his writing.)

"The Sunday was the 4th of July -- Monday was the holiday for the 4th of July. Therefore we had a two-day show. On account of all the bullfighters was so bad beat-up, we all figured we should give the public a good show. A young man that used to live here was a rodeo clown. Buddy Heaton. He guaranteed us he would put on a good show.

"So the next day we started with a bang. Two salesmen crawled over the fence and they wanted to be toreadors and they had their coats off, like a bull fighter. The bulls did not pay any attention to the coats and just ran over them. That was enough for the two salesmen. We got them out of the arena and going on down the road before they got hurt any more.

"By that time it was ready for Buddy Heaton to come on. He had a red suit and red shawl. He went out in the middle of the arena waving his red shawl at the bull. The bull did not pay any attention to the red shawl -- just Buddy Heaton. Buddy could tell the bull was coming after him. He tried to throw the red shawl over the bull's head.

"Buddy did not have time to get over the middle fence (the one I had just put in). The bull knocked him down with his head three times, and every time Buddy would pull himself down to the ground and all that time Bud Hill from Kiowa was hitting the bull in the forehead as hard as he could with a hammer. (After the ordeal was over, Buddy told me he was sure he would kill the bull.)

"By then, they all got Buddy out from under the hogwire fence. He was pretty well banged up so we took him to the Alva Hospital for overnight. That got him a bath and a good night's sleep.

"The next day his father Loyd Heaton came from Kansas and took him home. He was not hurt and we paid him anyway after putting us on a good show. After all the good and bad experience we all made $500 for the ABC.

"The next day Betty and myself were having dinner at the Larison Cafe and we were both having hammered steak. I looked up and said, 'Momma, that was the last of ol' dinner.'

"If you don't think we all did not have a lot of fun, you are mistaken!'

____________________________
EDITOR'S NOTE by Jim Barker: For any of you who doubt the authenticity of Bert Reed's bullfight story, I want you to know that I checked it out. Back in 1996 the copies of the Alva Review Courier were still in the stacks of the Alva Public Library, so I got down the July, 1948 issues and looked for myself. Sure enough, a full-page ad appeared there ballyhooing the upcoming extravaganza. The bullfighters were listed as Alberto Contreras of Mexico City and Jose Lara and Gregorio Ontiveros of Chihuahua. Also listed was 'Oklahoma's only authentic bullfighter' (and I'll bet he was, too!), Manuel Flores Sanchez of Poteau.

The 1948 two-day Independence Day celebration featured two dances, two days of bull fighting, two baseball games, a diving contest at the pool, a '$500 Fireworks Display,' and the Rockwell Carnival was in town all week. They knew how to celebrate the Fourth back then! The small mountain community of Victor, Colorado claims to be the only city in the United States to ever stage a bull fight. Now you know better!

NW Okie says, "Thanks, Jim, for resubmitting the 1948 Alva Bull Fights story! I love it each time I read it and know of most of those Old Alvans involved in the story via my Dad, Gene McGill!

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Bent Canyon North of Woodward, OK

Benton Canyon, Woodward, Oklahoma - Jack Rutledge is searching for the origin of "Bent Canyon" near Woodward, Oklahoma. In an OkieLegacy Ezine Comment concerning Oklahoma Wild Sand Plums (though it does not related to sand plums at all) Jack says, "About 10 miles north of Woodward is a large and well-watered canyon with local name "Bent Canyon." I suspect it is named for the Bent brothers who traded in Kansas, Colorado and Indian Territory in the mid 1800's, but I have no proof."

Jack goes on to say, "Their main post was at Bent's Fort in Colorado, and they traded all along the Arkansas and its' tributaries. Can anyone help in tracking down the origin of this place name? Thanks!" ~Jack Rutledge. View/Write Comments (count 0)   |   Receive updates (2 subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

Paul Revere's Ride

America - Midnight Ride of Paul Revere -- With some mangling of American history making the news this last week, we thought it our duty to help untangle the mangling that a certain person put out there concerning the "Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," 18 of April 1775, in which Revere was used as a courier to alarm Samuel Adams and John Hancock that the British troops were marching to arrest these two men.

We shall start with the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. In another article below you can read in Revere's own handwriting (or the transcription) his account of that famous midnight ride of 18 April 1775. There is also a deposition that gives his account of that 1775 midnight ride. We have included a reading of the famous Longfellow poem on another persons YouTube.com video webpage. See below!.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere


Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
>From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
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Paul Revere's Deposition ca. 1775

America - We found the following over at the Massachusetts Historical Society, showing a manuscript deposition written possibly at the request of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. It is from the manuscript collection, which gives a description of Revere's famous ride on the evening of 18 April 1775.

Testimony of the Midnight Rider -- Whig printers, some of whom have smuggled their presses out of Boston, publish accounts of the April 1775 events at Lexington and Concord in the next few days. Within four days of the battles, the Provincial Congress authorized justices of the peace to record eyewitness depositions. Bystanders, militiamen, alarm riders, and even British soldiers taken prisoner were asked to testify. The British, the colonists were convinced and the King should know, prompted the aggression. To carry their point, though, the Congress was to discover exactly who fired the first shot that fateful morning on Lexington Green.

[If you have trouble reading the handwritten version, scrolled to the bottom of the window and click the transcription link for a more readable view.]
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1798 Paul Revere's Letter To Jeremy Belknap

America - Over at the Massachusetts Historical Society online you will find a manuscript written 23 years after the famous ride of 18 of April 1775. It was written at the request of Jeremy Belknap, Corresponding Secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society. In it Paul Revere recounts his activities on the 18 and 19 of April 1775.

Revere tells how Dr. Joseph Warren urged him to ride to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams of British troop movements. Revere had previously arranged with a fellow patriot to signal the direction of the movements of the British by placing a signal lantern in the steeple of the Old North Church. This is where the "one if by land,; two if by sea" comes in to play.

Revere also explains how he left Boston from the North part of the town and rowed across the Charles River by two friends, borrowing a horse to begin his ride through the countryside to warn the people that the British were coming.

Jeremy Belknap included some of his "interlineations" in the hand written copy purported to have been written in January 1798. Revere writes of avoiding British soldiers and reaching Lexington, where he conveyed information to Hancock and Adams as he met up with William Dawes. On their ride to Concord, Revere and Dawes were joined by Samuel Prescott, who helped them "alarm all the inhabitants." Revere's ride ended when he was captured by British soldiers, interrogated (at gun point to the head and chest) and eventually released in Lexington in time to hear the opening shots of the Revolutionary War. See Massachusetts Historical Society's manuscript below.

[If you have trouble reading the handwritten version, scrolled to the bottom of the window and click the transcription link for a more readable view.]
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General Land Office Records Assist Researchers

America - Genealogists searching for land records of their ancestors often use the General Land Office records, www.glorecords.blm.gov, which indexes public land sales in various states and images of the original land grant certificate. These records can provide important genealogical clues, with records often providing the former address of the purchaser.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), General land Office (GLO) Records Automation web site provides live access to Federal land conveyance records for the Public Land States, including image access to more than five million Federal Land title records issued between 1820 and the present. They also have images related to survey plats and filed notes, dating back to 1810. Because of organization of documents in the GLO collection, this site does NOT currently contain every Federal title record issued for the Public Land States.

Survey Plats & Field
Survey plats are part of the official record of a cadastral survey. A cadastral survey is a survey which creates, marks, defines, retraces or re-establishes the boundaries and subdivisions of Federal Lands of the United States. It is a graphic drawing of the boundaries involved with a particular survey project, and contains the official acreage to be used in the legal description.

Field Notes are the narrative record of the cadastral survey and are written in tabular format and contain the detailed descriptions of entire survey process including the instrumentation and procedures utilized, calling all physical evidence evaluated int he survey process, and listing all of the individuals who participated in the work.

Land Patents -Federal Land Patents offer researchers a course of information on the initial transfer of land titles format he Federal government to individuals. It also verifies title transfer, which will allow the researcher to associate an individual (Patentee, Assignee, Warrantee, Widow, or Heir) with a specific location (Legal Land Description) and time (Issue Date).

Land Status Records - Land Status Records are used by BLM Western State Offices to document the ongoing state of a township's Federal and private land regarding title, lease, rights, and usage. These documents include Master Title Plats, which are a composite of all Federal surveys for a township. Other Land Status Records include Use Plts, Historical indices, and Supplemental Plats.

You can search by document type, by location or by identifier. To try this above link out for myself I searched by Document Type in the State of Okalahoma, any county, and the Lastname MCGILL. That brought up a listing of those with the lastname of MCGILL. Three in Woods county (I clicked on 24-26-16, Constance MCGILL); one in Garfield county; and two in Canadian county. You can then see Patent Details, Patent Image and Related Documents.

When I clicked the "Related Documents" tab it brought up another listing showing previous owners of Section 24-26N-16WIM that dated back to 5/25/1907, showing a Homestead Certificate #7095 (MV-0601-238) for PATTEE, Joseph E. (Jr.), owning the West half of the North East quarter and the North half of the South East quarter of Section 24-26N-16WIM, containing 160 Acres. It was signed by T. Roosevelt by F. M. McKean, secretary. Recorder of the General Land Office at that time was H. W. Sanford. Let me see if I can give you a visual location of that property. It is on the Northeast corner of Highway 14 (runs North and South to Waynoka) and what we call the "crooked bridge road" that runs east and west (one mile north of the Avard blacktop road, about 10 miles North of Waynoka, Oklahoma).Does that help in the visual location?

BLM Land Search of MCGILL, 24-26N-16WIM, OK. See what you can find on your ancestry land holdings. View/Write Comments (count 0)   |   Receive updates (0 subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

Old Alva Residence Burns Friday (3 Jun 2011)

Alva, Oklahoma - On the northwest corner of 7th and Locust Street, in Alva, Woods, Oklahoma once stood a wood frame, two-story house that has seen lots of residents in it's long years of standing at 7th & Locust Street. That home stands no more! Friday, 3 June 2011, home of Leo Brandt of Alva, Oklahoma burned to the ground at approximately 8:00 p.m., collapsing on itself after about 10 minutes into the fire after the fire department got there.



If you are having trouble viewing the link above, try this video link at vickyatlynnmartins YouTube webpage for a short video of the old residence. OR . . . check out Alva Review Courier online for the video and story. Here is another link to the Friday house fire of 3 June 2011 as seen from a birdseyed view that also appeared in the same Alva Review Courier.

When we were just McGill girls living at the other end of the block (7th & Church Street, it seems like we would walked down to that house all the time. Were there apartments that you got to from the Northside of that house? My memories are vague on that issue! View/Write Comments (count 1)   |   Receive updates (0 subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe