Return of Drive-In Theaters-- Part 7: The 66 Drive-In Theatre

And what would drive-in theater's be without at least one on the famed Mother Road, Route 66?  There are several, including one that just reopened on Sapulpa, Oklahoma, and, of course, Litchfield, Illinois, but probably the most famous one even carries the name, 66 Drive-In Theatre neat Carthage, Missouri.

Its original neon sign continues to attract road-trippers.  (Route 66 is part of the National Trust's National Treasures Program.)

Tickets are often sold out of the original ticket booth, a glowing little building with walls made entirely of glass blocks.

For a complete Route 66 experience ,owner Nathan McDonald recommends staying at the recently restored Boots Court motel (1939) in the nearby town of Carthage, which advertises "A Radio In Every Room)"

Whether You Want One Or Not.  --CootBoots

William J. Snow-- Part 3: Of Huge Importance in the U.S. Army's Field Artillery (and Anne Louis Toussant)

In July, 1917, he was selected to command the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and promoted to brigadier general.  At the school, he began the process of   reorganizing and modernizing the  program of instruction to meet the increased  demand for officers created by World War I.

In September 1917, Snow was assigned to command the 156th Field Artillery Brigade at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.  In February 1918, he was selected to serve as the first Chief of Field Artillery, an unofficial position created to oversee the field artillery branch's wartime mobilization and training and was promoted to major general in June.

In this role, he created a system of training centers and replacement depots, which enabled the artillery branch to meet the wartime demand for qualified artillerymen.

William J. Snow was obviously a very important man in the field artillery branch of the U.SA. Army.  Of interest, currently I am writing about a man named Anne-Louis Toussard in my Not So Forgotten: War of 1812 blog.  He was of great importance to  the American artillery in the American Revolution and wrote a book about artillery used in the 1800s by the United States.  He also was very important in the creation and early days of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.  Well worth a trip over there to read about him.

Just Some More RoadTripping Through History.  --Cooter

Ten April Days of Tragedy (April 11 to 20)-- Part 2: School Shootings and Industrial Accidents

**  APRIL 15, 2019:  Notre Dame Cathedral fire in Paris.

**  APRIL 16, 2007:  Mass shooting at Virginia Tech  (32 killed)

**  APRIL 17, 2013:  West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion  (15 killed)

**  APRIL 18, 1906:  San Francisco earthquake.  (Est. 3,000 to 6,000 killed)

**  APRIL 19, 1993:  Branch Dravidian Siege, Waco, Texas  (About 80 killed)

**  APRIL 19, 1995:  Oklahoma City Bombing  (168 killed)

**  APRIL 20, 1999:  Columbine High School in Colorado murders.  (13 students and one teacher killed)

**  APRIL 20, 2010:  Deepwater Horizon explosion in Gulf of Mexico (11 workers killed)

--DaCoot

The Tulsa Race Massacre, 1921-- Part 6: What Could Have Been

 At Tulsa's Greenwood Leadership Academy school, classrooms are named after teh Dreamland movie theater and other black businesses that white Tulsans burned down, said Kristi Williams, operations manager at the school.  Her great aunt fled with her date from one theater when armed whites came to destroy the black part of town in 1921.

Williams, whose family descended from Blacks enslaved by the Oklahoma-based Muscogee (Creek) Indian nation, emphasizes to her students the joint power and financial resources that communities like Tulsa's Black Wall Street once embodied.

"I just always imagine -- what would Greenwood look like if the massacre never happened?  We had an economy within an economy," says Williams.  "What could have happened?  What could we be."

Never Forget Or Overlook the Past.  

The Tulsa Race Massacre, 1921-- Part 5: Educating the Young About It

 After generations of determined public silence on the massacre -- long dismissed by white Tulsans dismissively as a race "riot" -- black and white  Tulsans are increasingly trying to tell the story of Black Wall Street, including its fiery and deadly ending.

Teaching about the massacre is being added by state and city school standards, so that this fall third graders will learn about it. (I think third grade is a bit young, though.)  Even preschoolers in some districts are being told about -- not about how it ended, but what it was, said Danielle Neves, deputy chief of academics for Tulsa public schools.

"Four-year-olds can understand that people like them once owned movie theaters and hotels and had a thriving community," Neves said.

The Tulsa Race Massacre, 1921-- Part 3: Part of a Surge of White Attacks on Blacks in the Country

 The Tulsa rampage was part of a surge of white attacks on black communities-- from Washington, D.C., to Chicago to the Pacific Northwest--  at the time, said Scott Ellsworth, a historian who has worked for decades to bring the Tulsa massacre to light.

The Ku Klux Klan was surging as well, putting many of its members in public office and other influential positions.

In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson gave a White House screening and praise to "The Birth of a Nation," a tremendously influential and viciously racist film on the South.

You sure don't read much about these sad happenings from history, but they should be better known so they don't happen again.  It is horrible that Whites could do something like that to Blacks.  And, for no reason apparently.

I need to temper my anger at black rioting and looting with remembrances of things like this.

The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre-- Part 2: To Be Lynched for Stepping on a White Girl's Foot?

 Historians say that the trouble began after a Tulsa newspaper drummed up a furor over a black man who allegedly stepped on a white girl's foot.  When black Tulsans showed up to prevent his lynching, white Tulsans responded with overwhelming force.

A grand jury investigation at the time concluded, without evidence, that unidentified agitators had given Tulsa's Blacks firearms and what was described as their mistaken belief "in equal rights, social equality and their ability to demand the same."

Back in June of this year, President Trump was planning to hold a giant rally in Tulsa, which brought national interest back on this race riot.  That, and it was also originally planned for Juneteenth.

The black Greenwood District which was hit hard was once known as Tulsa's "Negro Wall Street."  Today, visitors from all over the country and of all races journey to the site.

Seriously?  To Be Lynched for Stepping on a White Girl's Foot?

Death of Tulsa Race Massacre Survivor Olivia Hooker-- Part 6: Education and the Commission

Olivia Juliet Hooker was born in Muscogee, Oklahoma, on February 12, 1915, and was one of five children.  She graduated from Ohio State University in 1937, then taught elementary school in Columbus, Ohio.

In 1947, she received a master's degree in psychology from Teachers College at Columbia University.  In 1961, she earned a doctorate from the University of Rochester.

In 1997, she worked on the Tulsa Race Riot Commission, which investigated the massacre and issued a report in 2001 "detailing for the first time  the extent of the city and state government's involvement in the riot and the cover up that followed and the total lack of remedy available in the courts at the time," according to a congressional report.

Death of Olivia Hooker-- Part 2: Survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre

She was one of the last-known survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre in what is often regarded as the deadliest episode of racial violence in American history.

This event, and others like it, are rarely mentioned mentioned in history books.

In interviews about it, she recalled the rampage through the eyes of a child.  Her father had been the owner of a department store in the community of Greenwood, a center of commerce known as the Black Wall street. When the mob marched on Greenwood, burning houses and shooting people in the street, her mother hid her and her siblings under a big oak dining room table as their home was being ransacked.

"We could see what they were doing, she recalled.  They took everything they thought was valuable.  They smashed everything they couldn't take.  My mother has [opera singer Enrico] Caruso records she loved.  They smashed the Caruso records."

They also poured oil over her grandmother's bed but didn't light it because members of the white mob were still in the house.

"It took me a long time to get over the nightmares.  I was keeping my family awake screaming."

Spies, Traitors, Saboteurs Exhibit Opens in Chicago-- Part 2: Oklahoma City Bombing

One of the reasons for the massive public reaction against Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor took place because during the attack, a Japanese plane crash landed on a Hawaiian island.  The pilot was initially captured by citizens, but was freed and rearmed by a Japanese-American.

There were also German bombing campaigns within the United States prior to our entry into World War I.  In Mosinee, Wisconsin, on May Day 1950 the local American Legion staged a day-long mock Communist coup to dramatize what life would be like under Soviet rule.

Other items in the exhibit are about Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City Bombing), Chicagoan Bernardine Dohern and the Weather Underground, Joseph McCarthy and intercepted mail bombs to important people.

The exhibit was put together as a reaction to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and debuted in 2004 at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.  It has traveled extensively ever since and Chicago will be its final stop.

--DaCoot

American Legion Baseball in High Gear Here: Going to Tonight's Game Against Lake Zurich

The Fox Lake Bulldogs of Post 703 in Fox Lake, Illinois, travels to Lake Zurich for a game tonight.  I'll be there.

From the American Legion Site:

"American Legion Baseball is a national institution, having thrived through a world war, several nation tragedies, and times of great prosperity as well as great despair."

The 2016 American Legion World Series will be August 11-16 this year in Shelby, North Carolina.

One of the notable Major League Baseball players who played Legion ball was Bob feller.

The best-named team is the Hooker Horny Toads of Hooker Oklahoma in the panhandle area.  They are sponsored by the Jack Goosen Post #137.  They report great tee-shirt sales, including the one I bought when passing through.

Teams play in June and July.

James Garner-- One of My Favorites

From the Jan. 5-11 American Profile Magazine "Ask American Profile."

Someone wrote in and asked "Where was James Garner born, how old is he, and does he have any children?"

Garner, 85, was born and raised in Norman, Oklahoma. He and his wife Lois have been married for 57 years and he has a daughter and stepdaughter.

He was the star of TV shows "Maverick" and "Rockford Files." His movies include: "The Great Escape," "Support Your Local Sheriff," "Murphy's Romance" and "Space Cowboys." His autobiography "The Garner Files" came out in 2011.

He always reminds me of my dad.

--Cooter

The El Reno Federal Reformatory

located in El Reno, Oklahoma, it is west of town and north of I-40. During World War II, enemy prisoners were held here and at nearby Fort Reno.

In 1934, it was the fifth largest prison constructed about two miles west of town and originally called Southwestern Federal Reformatory and housed men under the age of 35.

In the mid-1970s, it was renamed the Federal Correctional Institution of El Reno and then housed men of all ages. To this day, it is El Reno's largest employer.

In the Jailhouse Now. --DaCoot

Plenty of History on Trip

We've been on the road since the 6th and drove across Illinois, a real little part of Iowa by Keokuk, a whole lot of Missouri, and little bitty parts of Kansas and Oklahoma.

Saw Mickey Mantle's home town in Commerce, Oklahoma. The Marsh Bridge in Kansas. Tornado damage in Joplin. Boots Motel in Carthage, Missouri. Spent three nights at the Munger Moss Motel in Lebanon. These last two dating to the 1940s.

Also, we met two Route 66 characters, Dean Walker and Cowboy Don.

Ate at Lambert's Cafe and caught "Throwed Rolls" by Springfield, Missouri, and that great old Steak 'n Shake in the same town on the way back.

There were plenty of museums and a whole lot of Civil War related stuff.

The last three nights we have been in Springfield, Illinois. To say there is a lot of history here would be an understatement.

For more on trip see my RoadDog's Roadlog Blog or Down Da Road I Go Blog.

Deep in the Heart of History. --Cooter

German Prisoners on US Homefront-- Part 3

Today, most Americans don't even know of the large numbers of Italian and German prisoners who were kept in prison camps on the US homeland. This is the story of one camp in Oklahoma.

Roland Brashears was too young to go to war, but he did his part by driving German prisoners back and forth from farms where they worked in the fields.

Most times, the moving went with no problems, but there was one time he got scared.

"We normally had about thirty prisoners in our truck and the ones in the middle had to stand up. One afternoon after we had already loaded up, the guard had lost count. He told the interpreter to tell everyone to get out of the truck and he was going to count again.

"Well, all but one got out. He was on the front end and just said, 'Count me as number one.' There were two guards. One on each side of the truck. One guard told the interpreter, 'I said tell him to get out one more time.'

"He nodded his head and flipped his rifle up and loaded at the blink of an eye. When he cocked the gun, the prisoner came out in a hurry. I don't know that he could have shot him, though, due to the Geneva Convention rules.

"I asked him what he would have done if the prisoner would not have gotten out. The guard said, 'Well, I bluffed him and it worked.' I didn't know what was going to happen."

I guess the German was just having a bad day or feeling a bit cantankerous.

A Little-Known Aspect of the War. --Cooter

USS Oklahoma's Mast Finally Back Home-- Part 2

Well, it was never actually there in the first place, but it has returned to its namesake state.

From the July 11th Muskogee Phoenix.

The two Pearl Harbor survivors spoke. Ed Vesey, who had been on the Oklahoma in the attack said, "We're kind of crusty and rusty and have barnacles, too. It was a wonderful, happy ship. A good ship with great food." He continued saying people would come to the Oklahoma just to eat.

Arles Cole said he survived the attack because of a dud bomb. "I was on the third deck and I saw water coming into the third deck below. I was knocked to my knees and everything went black. I was entombed in oil and water." He also recalled finding a hole overhead made by the 500-pound did bomb. "I put the flag up while the battle was still raging...."

After the war, the Oklahoma was raised and sold for scrap, but it sunk in a storm while being towed to California.

Quite a few Oklahomans were involved in getting the mast, including state representative George Faught, Rodney Mish and Dr. Judy Morty.

A 120 square-foot building is planned to protect the mast and for displays on the ship's history.

Everyone Always Hears About the Arizona So It's Great That People Are Now aware of the Tragedy on the Oklahoma. --Cooter

It's a Road History Thing

Since Wednesday, we've been cruising the old Route 66 from Dwight, Illinois, out to Afton, Oklahoma.

Lots of old places still in business and some falling into disrepair and ruin. It is like a trip back into the 40s to 60s and something we really enjoy.

Route 66 dates back to the 1920s. Two weeks ago, we toured the original transcontinental road, the 1913 Lincoln Highway through Illinois and Iowa.

Yesterday, we ran into small groups of road enthusiasts from Germany and France at the old Gay Parita gas station in Missouri, a couple from Ireland at 4 Women on the Road in Galena, Kansas. While driving the old Ribbon Road stretch of 66 between Miami and Afton, Oklahoma, we came across two bicyclists pedaling away. They were from Spain and said they are doing the whole route from Chicago to LA. They'd left Chicago on Tuesday.

A Real Piece of History. --Cooter