Description:
Thomas Street talks about early Bethany, from 1919 to the 1940s, his memories of the Interurban, and more.
Transcript:
Buddy Johnson: This is April 27th, 2009. We're at the Bethany Public Library. My name is Buddy Johnson and I'm interviewing Thomas Street for the Bethany Centennial Project. And so Thomas, you were just telling us that your family—is this your father?
Thomas Street: And mother
BJ: Father and mother came to Bethany.
Thomas Street: In 1919 from Stillwater, Oklahoma. They were farming there, and they come in a wagon and team; took them two days to get here and they tied up right there, just in the 200 block of Main Street here in Bethany.
BJ: Okay. So they, they tied up, you mean just like to a hitching post, like?
TS: Well, yeah.
BJ: Wow, okay. And so Bethany was still pretty, a country town then I guess.
TS: Yeah, Dad eventually few weeks opened a barbershop or not really a barbershop. He had a barber chair in the Interurban depot and he'd just cut hair on Saturday there.
BJ: Okay.
TS: And eventually he put a barber shop across the street and but he had to draw water there. He told me, he said he had to go across the street to draw water and heat it on a stove there in the Interurban station to do shaves and stuff, you know?
BJ: Uh-huh. Even after he had moved onto Main Street, he still had—?
TS: No, no, they finally, they had water over there in ’27.
BJ: Okay. Okay. So was the Interurban depot already there when, when they came in 1919?
TS: Yeah, there was two urban, Interurban depots. I have a picture of both of them, but one of them was close to College Street and Main. And the other one, they moved that a little further west and I used to go over there and play on the loading dock when I was a kid.
BJ: Okay. Well, what kind of what kind of things were they loading on? I mean, did they have freight?
TS: Well, yeah. Yeah, some light freight and mail. They had to mail bags and they threw them in the back of the Interurban. And you could ride back there if you wanted to. And as kids you liked to ride back there.
BJ: Oh, okay. Well let's jump back real quick and find out what your father's, father and mother's names were.
TS: Well, it was William Mills Street was my dad and my mother was Willie Ruth and her maiden name was Smith, Street.
BJ: Okay. And did they come, did they—how long did their—did your family—or how did your family come to Oklahoma? Do you remember how?
TS: Yes, they came from, my, my dad's family came from Tennessee to Indian Territory down at Sulphur, Oklahoma. Then they went from there out to western Oklahoma, out around Erick and Sayre and farm there. And my dad and his brother went up to Stillwater and started farming and then it came to Bethany.
BJ: Okay. So they've been here quite a while then before if it was in the Indian Territory days.
TS: Yeah.
BJ: Yeah. Okay. Did they participate in any of the land runs or I'm not sure when the Erick part of the country opened up.
TS: You know, this part of where Bethany was at, in the run of ‘89, they didn't let them settle on this part here. It was timberland. There was nine sections of land that they kept for timber for Fort Reno. And the soldiers would come over here and kind of guard that. And I heard they took a plow; instead of fencing it, they just plowed one row all the way around it so that people would know where that nine acres, nine sections of land was at. But they cut timber there and hauled it over there, to Fort Reno because it was—back then it was not any timber over that way.
BJ: Yeah. I, there, there wasn't much, even in the Oklahoma City area, I don't think at first.
TS: That then, the nine sections was from 42nd street, down past Reno a little ways.
BJ: Okay. And along the, I guess it would have been along the river then not, not the lake, but on the river then.
TS: Right.
BJ: Okay. Is that the one, is that Council Grove? Is that what that's called?
TS: Yeah.
BJ: Okay. I've heard that mentioned there.
TS: Well it started there.
BJ: Okay. Okay.
TS: Ray Melrose, lives here just a block from me: his granddad settled there where Western Electric Plant was at, that was Coun—[inaudible].
BJ: I’ve seen Melrose the street so that's probably related.
TS: It might've been named after him, yeah. But when they made the run and got there, there was already a man on that land. It was a Negro man and he had a crop coming up and he said he had a reason to be there because his wife was a maid over at Fort Reno. But eventually Mr. Melrose got him off the land. It took about five years.
BJ: Wow, okay.
TS: But he ended up with that nice bottom land where Western electric plant at.
BJ: Okay, wow. So and that for, let’s see, for people who don't know that is off of Reno and MacArthur or where—
TS: Council.
BJ: Okay. Yeah. So now you're, when your folks arrived from Stillwater in 1919, did they have prospects here? I mean, did they—
TS: They had some relatives here.
BJ: Okay. So they were able to have a place to stay. And did they have a plan beyond that? I mean, was your dad—
TS: I don't know, you know, it wasn't long until the Ford plant opened up downtown in Oklahoma City and they just assembled cars there. And, and so he worked there and then on Saturdays he'd still cut hair.
BJ: Okay. So would he ride the Interurban into work or?
TS: No, they, there were several men from Bethany and of course the old roads were sandy just about all of them were, you know. They didn't pave 66 until about—well, if you look it up in the computer, you know, it was different stretches. So as long in there about or ‘25, ‘26.
BJ: Okay, yeah. That's when the, I think the federal highway program started in somewhere in ‘25 or so that they probably would have gotten the funding in for that, so. Okay. So it, it was, it was—Now where did they live when they came here?
TS: Well, they, they lived several places. But they ended up on the, they called it North Street then; it was 42nd street and that's where I was born in that house. But they lived over on College Street for a while and that was called Kings Highway.
BJ: Kings Highway, okay.
TS: When they got here.
BJ: Was that a main, was, was the, so was the main intersection then would have been 39th and College? Was that the sort of the—
TS: Uh-huh. That’s where the depot was at, yeah.
BJ: Okay. Okay. And so is that where you were born? Were you born at that house?
TS: It, yeah, North Street or 42nd and Asbury. Across the street from the school.
BJ: Okay. And were your, was your family already Nazarene or did they become Nazarene once they moved here?
TS: They became—well, my mother and her family were originally from down in Texas, north Texas. Pilot Point: that's kind of the starting place for the Nazarenes, where they got started. But I have a great-grandmother that's buried out here at the Bethany Cemetery. I didn't know for years that she was buried there, I didn't know where she was at, but I finally kind of got into genealogy a little bit and, and found out she was buried there.
BJ: Okay. And did she, so she eventually came to live with your family or were they, was she one of the relatives that was already here?
TS: I think she just eventually came to live with some of the Smiths—that was my mother's maiden name.
BJ: Okay. Well do you remember hearing about the tornado in 1930 that came?
TS: Yeah.
BJ: What, what do you remember hearing about that was your family, your family was here in town?
TS: Yeah. My dad was, he was in the barber shop then. There was, had his own shop there on Main Street. Yeah he said he would just kinda shave and, you know, he would go down there and shave himself with straight razor, you know. And he said that's when it came through. And so he helped, you know, get people ready to go to the hospital and different things. But one, one fellow that was my brother's age, Norman Bounds, he had actually blew him several blocks—he just a little baby. And they picked him up and they didn't know who he was. And they took him to the city hospital and his, his dad finally, you know, went down there and found him and brought him back. But Norman Bounds is still living here in Bethany.
BJ: Wow! He was literally blown by the tornado and he lived.
TS: Yeah, he lived.
BJ: I mean, no—you think you'd get internal injuries or something, I guess tornadoes do some pretty weird things.
TS: Well, yeah.
BJ: Of course that was an unusual one I always thought, cause it happened in December if I remember right or some time.
TS: November.
BJ: Okay. Yeah, that's right. It was around Thanksgiving if I’m not mistaken.
TS: Yeah. It was unusual time for, for tornado to be in that… time of year.
BJ: Yeah. Yeah. We normally have, you know, this time of year. But so did your, was your house destroyed or anything. I heard it ruined a lot of buildings.
TS: No, it went east of our house.
BJ: Okay. So and, and your dad helped do some of the getting people some the first aid and things like that.
TS: Into the hospital and stuff.
BJ: Okay. Now your, did your dad, you said he worked at the Ford plant. Did, did you all have a car?
TS: Yeah, but he ended up, I think they traded rides, but I know some of the roads they took were sandy and he said, one day they just flipped it over.
BJ: In the sand? It just got—
TS: And they said, you know, the guys in there just set it back up. And they came on home. But I mean, they were kind of young and reckless, I think. But I can tell you some stories about the bank there in Bethany.
BJ: Sure.
TS: The first bank was a Farmer State Bank, and a lot of people won't agree with this, but it was down there at Peniel and 39th street. That's where the drive-in bank is now, right. It was Farmer State Bank, and my dad and Frank Stockton, John Stockton, then they built a new bank building at 39th and College. And that building is still there, Posey and some of them law offices are in there, and that was 1930 and it was still Farmer State Bank.
BJ: That was a tough time to build a bank or to get started in banking.
TS: Yes, it was. It was robbed in 1934. Now, my sister worked in there. She was just about 16 years old. And Bill Merritt was in Arthur Beaver’s store and that—the alarm went off over there. It was across the street and Bill Merritt you know, it was Merritt funeral home. Anyway, he come in and told Dad that they were robbing the bank. So dad knew they kept a shotgun over across the street, north from the bank. And he went over there and told them, they're robbing the bank.
And of course there was this loaf. And I remember a long bench setting there and this loaf and they said, “no, no, no.” But they, anyway, dad went in and got the shotgun. But they robbed the bank with rifles instead of pistols. Can you imagine? Two guys went in one sat in the car; it was a four-door Dodge.
And anyway, my sister is telling me years later about, said, yeah, she said, one guy was sure good looking and said, he said, “Come over and stand by me.” She thought that was funny. And it was, but anyway, they came out and got in the car and took off. And Bill Merritt, I got a picture of the old hearse there that they chased him in.
BJ: They chased him in the hearse?
TS: Yeah.
BJ: That must have been a scene right out of the movies.
TS: Yeah, they chased them in the hearse. Well, there’s old sandy roads down there. There wasn't any paved roads in Bethany and anyway. They got up close behind him and they took the rifle and knocked out the rear windshield and pointed the rifle at them. And that's when they, they backed off and they lost them. But they eventually caught them in Michigan. They had ran over a little boy. But, and they killed a policeman before they caught them, but Dad went up there and helped identify them. He's telling me about that.
BJ: So these were just kind of, there, I guess there were a lot of bandits around then in the ‘30s. They weren't all a Bonnie and Clyde, I guess.
TS: Yeah. And in the newspaper article I was reading about it. You know, they use such words as “They brandished a machine gun” Brandished? You know? Who uses that now.
BJ: Yeah. That's pretty cool. Well, that's, that's pretty exciting. I didn't realize, you know, there was a lot of, that much excitement in town.
TS: And then the, the bank, you know, it did finally close. You know, I'm not sure exactly what year it closed, but I, my uncle had a Chevrolet agency. Would you believe that in Bethany?
BJ: I can’t imagine where there’d be room for one.
TS: Well, I got a picture of it. Anyway, since dad was on the bank, one of the directors, they made him notify him that he had to pay up or whatever. Anyway, he left town and almost overnight, my uncle did, and went to Arizona, but yeah.
BJ: Skipping out.
TS: Yep.
BJ: Well, what, what all, in, in your memory what all, what, what, what were some of the merchants along the Main Street there that you, that you remember?
TS: I just drew this up from—
BJ: Okay, yeah. You got a map here.
TS: Yeah. You know, the post office moved several times in Bethany. And I think when, when Bethany first started, they said they had just mailboxes at the corner of 36th and Rockwell, which was West Avenue then. There wasn't any trouble to get a post office started. But I don't know whether Mr. Freeze had it in his building or not, but anyway, Mr. Kraft, I got a picture and it shows, says post office on one of the windows, when you blow it up, he had a post office and then it was Arthur Beaver bought him out and it was in his store then. And then it moved around the corner a ways. I remember going there and calling for mail. You'd just go in and say, well, they knew me and they'd just hand me the mail, but then it moved on down on the corner of the alley and College. And then it moved one more time on down to it'd be 38th where Jack Jerry's furniture was Jack was there after the post office. And then it moved caddy-corner across the street where it is now, the post office. So it was about six times.
BJ: So it’s still on 38th, it’s just diagonal from there.
TS: Yeah. So it's about six times the post office moved or either where that's, where you got your mail.
BJ: So is the post office that we had that that's there now, is that, is that the first time it got its own building or was it always in someone’s store?
TS: No, it had its own building when it was on the alley of College. Yeah. And then on down there it was
BJ: Okay. So you had some pretty big names there from the founding of Bethany had Mr. Kraft and Beaver. They were pretty early settlers, weren’t they?
TS: Arthur Beaver, yeah. Yeah. He was one of the main ones and his son Herman, he also had a grocery store at one time over east of College on 39th Street, but he was mostly an insurance man for years. But yeah. He was a nice guy, real funny, and he'd—you know I shined shoes in the barbershop. You know, you heard a lot of stories. You know, if I'd have known what I was going to be doing today, I would have listened better. But he'd come in and dance a little jig right when he'd come in the door and get everybody's attention.
BJ: That's pretty that's. I mean, I never really think, you never really think to give personality to some of those names, you know, you'd seen the name everywhere and that's, that's pretty interesting to hear he would do that. So you shine shoes in your dad's on Saturday mornings?
TS: Yeah. And afternoon after school, 10 cents a shine.
BJ: Okay, wow, okay. What's it take to be a good shoe shiner, good shoe shine boy?
TS: Well, you just need to ask, “Do you need a shine?” You know, and a lot of them would say, “I don't know. I believe I will.” And during the war the sailors from Norman—you know, they had a base down there—they would ride the, Interurban, up here to Bethany because the college was here and they figured, well, they could find some girls here.
Well, they didn't need a shine, but they'd come in. And you know, they had black shoes. And they'd just shine like everything. Well, all you had to do was almost dust them off and then they'd give you a little tip too, you know. But—
BJ: That's pretty interesting. I had never heard that. They, they came here. They didn't realize what kind of a, that it was a pretty strict college. Huh?
TS: No, of course it was always a few girls that wasn't so strict.
BJ: Yeah. Well, we we'll, we can talk about that too. Well, that's one thing I wanted to ask was well, I mean, were there other stores that you wanted to mention or that you— Could you get everything you needed in, in town or did you—?
TS: Yeah, most everything. It would only cost, I think it was 22 cents to ride the Interurban to town and you'd go there to shop for clothes and stuff, but they had, you know—the buildings that— and the people that were there, that changed every so often. So nowadays, if you tell people, well, so-and-so had a grocery store here, they'd say, “Oh no, that was so-and-so” because they remembered it at a different date.
BJ: Uh-huh, right.
TS: But you know, they had an ice plant here in Bethany, made ice and they made electricity for Bethany and it was Baker's Electric and they sold out the OG&E.
BJ: So the, you mean the, where did, how did they generate the electricity?
TS: Well, they had a generator and where First National Bank is now that's where the ice plant and the generator was at. And when they built that First National Bank, that there now, if you'd noticed when they were doing it, they had a huge piece of concrete that they kept pushing around with a bulldozer to get it broke up and get it out of there: that was the base for the generator. You know it took quite a base, quite a footing for it.
BJ: So, and, and then they delivered, was the ice, was it its own ice plant or did they, was it— sometimes they had docks around town where the big plant downtown would bring the ice out. Did they were making their own ice?
TS: Yeah, they made it there in Bethany. That was on Main Street and was it—Peniel— but now I guess I'd have to stop and think. Anyway, if you wanted, whatever size ice you wanted, you had a card you put in the window. It had like 25, 50 and 100 on it. Turn it up whichever way you want. If you want a 25 pounds, you'd set that in the window. And the guy that would deliver ice would know what to bring into your house. But a lot of people just went down and got the ice themselves and they would set it on the, you know, how the bumpers were on the old cars. They set out a ways from the fender. Well, they'd set the block of ice there and let it, it would ride out there on the bumper. Well, a lot of times the old streets in Bethany were just washboardy. Well, it would flip that ice off, you know. They'd have to pick it up and go ahead take it on.
BJ: And if you got a hundred pounds, you had to, it probably would've been a bit of a struggle to get it back up on there. So, and I guess it didn't matter if your ice got dirty?
TS: You’d just have to rinse it off. Yeah, put it into the old ice box and you'd have to empty the water pan every so often, or it’d run over and run out onto the floor.
BJ: So, yeah, you did, you made sure you emptied it at night before you went to bed.
TS: Sure. Yeah.
BJ: Well, did you have electricity then? Or, I mean, I mean, I'm sure you had electricity. You just said they generate, but what about like water and all that kind of thing?
TS: Well, the, that house that I was born in, it wasn't plumbed or anything for water or sewer until later till they got water in Bethany. That was before I was born though. But they had to put it in then. But from the ceiling, they just had one little old cord hanging down and a little light bulb hanging on it.
BJ: That was it for the house.
TS: That was it for that room.
BJ: Oh room. Yeah. Okay. Wow. But by the time you're in your memory, it was, you had all the amenities of modern life.
TS: Oh yeah, had everything.
BJ: Yeah. Okay.
TS: We had, if you want me to just go ahead and tell you some of the things that— One of the first policemen that I remember was Sullivan and he was the policeman, and he was the road grader, and he was the dog catcher. And he would, we'd always try to get on the back of his road grader when he was grading and just, and he'd scold us and make us get off.
But he, they told him they had to get rid of the dogs. There were just so many dogs that would follow the kids to school and they told him to get rid of them. Well, one morning he came up there, he had a little 4-10 single shot shotgun, and he started shooting dogs. And I lived across the street from the school and I watched him—I had my dog in the house—but he probably shot close to a dozen dogs.
BJ: Gosh, there were that many.
TS: Oh yeah. And of course that was bad for him, but anyway, he stayed on as policemen and anyway. Oh Dad, they had a volunteer fire department that was organized in 1925. And Dad was one of the ones on it to begin with. And he was assistant chief. And well, anyway, they had, they didn't have any firetrucks. They had two pull carts. If it was just a little ways to the fire, the men just pulled it to the fire. And it had, I think 250 feet of hose on it, two and a half inch hose, and they could hook it up to a fire hydrant, but then they got to where they pulled it with a car, they’d hook it on the back of the car, but one of those carts is setting down there now in front of the Bethany fire station. It’s setting there and painted red. It's got big wheels on it about that big.
BJ: I’ve probably seen that a million times and never even realized that.
TS: You’ve seen it setting there?
BJ: Yeah.
TS: That’s what—they had two of them. And they just, they got them— Now, I got a picture of, when the girls dormitory burned down. I've got a picture the next morning after the fire. And one—
BJ: Now when was that? Do you remember? Was it—?
TS: I’ve got the date, but I don’t, can’t think—
BJ: Do you remember just approximately? Was it in the—?
TS: Well, it was, it was just after 1927. Anyway that, that's in the picture. Of course the hose is all off of it. And they had Oklahoma City come and help them. They had a truck. Then Bethany finally got an old truck and it didn't start or run very good. And they probably pulled it to fires more often than anything to get it there. But I remember how it would just backfire and wouldn't hardly run. But then in ‘41 they got a new Ford truck. Dad went down to Oklahoma City and got it and brought it out to Bethany. I've got a picture of me standing there by it, but I rode in it lots of times to fires. I'd just, it was volunteer; I just run down there and jump in the front seat and get a ride.
BJ: Did you just watch, or did you, did they make you keep back or?
TS: Oh no, I was, I was just a kid, you know, nine or ten years old and I'd just ride to the fire and watch.
BJ: How many, how much activity was there? I mean, how many times, you know, would you get a big fire?
TS: Well, I guess that they had several right there on Main Street. Always have to call Oklahoma City to help them though, it seems like.
BJ: What about—
TS: Well the fire station, the fire station did burn down and that was in about 1947, I believe.
BJ: That's ironic, the fire station burned down.
TS: Yeah. I stood there and watched that burn. They got one truck out. A guy was in there by the name of Leonard Sisk. He has doing some welding and it's got some oily rags on fire and they just went up the wall and it was a two story building.
BJ: Probably wood frame.
TS: Yeah. Yeah. But— Oh, you know, they had a flood out at Bethany. Of course, you probably don't want to know about that. It's not about Bethany. It's, you know, out-of-town ways. That was in 1923.
BJ: Okay. That's, I've seen a picture of the water up on the dam going over the dam.
TS: Well the west end of the dam was dirt.
BJ: Oh, really? Now I didn't know that.
TS: It washed out about 300 feet of it. Well, when they built the dam back and redid it, they, they put that back in concrete. So—
BJ: What, how often did you go to the lake? Did you, did you visit the lake very much?
TS: Oh yeah. That was one of the main places for, to go to, you know, have a little fun or do something. There wasn't anything around much. And you could go out there and fish. There wasn't many lakes around. Hefner wasn't there; you know, they built it later.
BJ: And was it developed at all? I mean, were there houses or a bait shops or any kind of—?
TS: Yeah, there was two bait shops. It was all there was for years. And my brother finally got a job in one of them, worked but yeah. You know, the Interurban didn't run all the way out this way for a long time. It stopped at MacArthur. That was called stop 10.
BJ: Stop 10. Okay.
TS: And Herman Beaver told me that when he came to Bethany the first time, his mother and him and somebody else, that's where they had to get off. And they walked down to Bethany. And he said Tom, there was about 23 houses in Bethany. That's what there was then. See, that was around 1909.
BJ: Okay. Yeah. That's about, well, obviously that's about the founding of the town then. Yeah. So they had to walk about half a mile then from the, okay.
TS: Yeah. That— you know, the town that was organized in 1910, but it was actually laid out and everything in 1909. That’s when they named the streets and laid it out and everything. I, I don't quite understand why we're celebrating—I guess, because it was incorporated in 1910.
BJ: Okay. That's the official date. Yeah.
TS: But you know, it had a place in there where this— I always heard it was 40 acres that you couldn't sell liquor or tobacco on.
BJ: That's the famous blue laws.
TS: Yeah. But they, it was 160 acres. And I know a lot of people disagree with me, but I've got the ab—the first couple of pages of the abstract here and it says 160.
BJ: Okay. so did they, do you think they picked 40 acres do to make the law on or was it just—?
TS: Well, the way it was divided up, the college was on 40 acres and then Mrs. Jernigan had an orphanage and it was on 40 and Mattie Mallory, I believe it was her name, she had 80 acres and so, but they did all that together. And so that made it 160.
BJ: Okay. So and she had the orphanage, right? Or some kind of children's home or?
TS: Yeah. And Mrs. Jernigan, she had the one for unwed mothers.
BJ: Okay. And one of those became the children's hospital. Is that right? Or the convalescence…
TS: Yeah, I think it was, Mallory was her name. I'm not sure, but there's the first page of the abstract that shows where you couldn't sell.
BJ: So it is on there, huh? Because we, I, there has been, I've heard some people say that it never really was an actual law that, but, but people just sort of, you know, believed it was and so they—
TS: Yeah, well, they had a lot of blue laws about, you couldn't have a theater and you couldn't open up on Sunday. They had those blue laws, but they, they couldn't enforce them. They tried to. But this was in the abstract, “No tobacco or liquor of any kind should be sold in any part of this subdivision.” Well, it names all this subdivision here.
BJ: And that was essentially the town of Bethany.
TS: It was, yeah, it was from Peniel to Rockwell, which was West Avenue and from 36th to 42nd, that's 160. And it tells how it was all divided up here.
BJ: Okay. And so there, that's, that's the part that had the, the, the no alcohol or tobacco in it. Okay.
TS: Yeah. There's, there's another—Joy Beaver, her dad was an author. And but she said their store was on the corner of 39th and College, but there's a picture of it right there. It's author Beaver and when you blow it up, there's the Pay and Save store. And that's in John T Browns. He owns that building now. And he's the one that gave me that picture. When you put it in the computer and blow it up, you can read it real easy.
BJ: Read on the window and everything. Yeah. It looks like they did a little bit of everything there.
TS: That building was built in 1911.
BJ: So were, that was what we think of as Main Street now, a lot of those older buildings, were they there like from the beginning? Or I mean, are, are those buildings there?
TS: Yeah, a lot of them are still there, but it's hard to tell which buildings are which because they've remodeled the front of them so much. Yeah, that ended up, I remember it being John T's dad had a grocery store in there, and then I don't know what else went after that, but I do remember H.B. Frank had a variety store there and it just kept changing, you know? And that's how come there so many kind of arguments over what really was there. Because it just changed over time along. This is kind of what I grew that from College to Mueller Street or to Asbury first.
BJ: Okay. Do you remember where, when, when you grow up and you said you, you all were Nazarenes, but were there other groups in town?
TS: Oh yeah.
BJ: Or were, or was everyone a Nazarene?
TS: Almost.
BJ: Almost.
TS: Well, they built the church. I think it was in 1914. They built a little rock building over there on College Street. And they even had school in there. My sister went to school there. John T. Brown went to school there, and Andy Smith's daughter went to school there. They didn't have a schoolhouse. They went in the church building and they had had it kind of divided up inside, but it had a dirt floor in it. But I just barely remember the building. I wish that had saved it.
BJ: So they'd had public school by the time you started?
TS: Oh yeah, yeah. Across the street. I didn't have far to go. Yeah.
BJ: Okay, well, what, what other— Do you want to go some more on your list there?
TS: Well, I don't know about some of this stuff whether I should say it or not, but of course I've got a picture. They had a ferry out there across the river before the highway 66 was built. But I talked to Dinsmore Brian about it. He said, “Oh yeah, Tom, I rode that ferry lots of times” and said, “We farmed on the other side, you know, partially.” And he said, “The horses were kind of shy when you went across that.” I guess it kind of scared them looking down there at the water.
BJ: Do you remember what kind of ferry? Was it the kind where they, you just have ropes and you pulled on the rope or was it rowed across?
TS: I didn't see that. I just got pictures of it.
BJ: I've ridden, never really ridden—The river's always wide, you know, I don't, I'm not sure how it was then, but you know, it was always shallow, but wide and shallow.
TS: So well you know back then, they didn't have the reservoirs upstream like they do now. And of course well when it flooded in ’23, see and that's about when they built the bridge that's there now—the steel bridge—that's about when they built that. But you know, all the water in Bethany didn't drain toward the lake, it drained of what Wheeler's pond.
BJ: I'm not sure where that is.
TS: Well, that's where now where the Warr Acres police station and everything is. They filled all that in and that’s where we used to go up there and swim in that old dirty, muddy water.
BJ: And that was a natural pond?
TS: Yeah, where all the trash and stuff from Bethany drained up there. And we'd go up there and swim. It was nasty. Anyway, there was, this is kind of unusual. You cut this out if you want to, but there was a house on the corner of—let’s see, was it Asbury?—yes, Asbury. I remember seeing it and everybody talked about it, because it was still, a man was killed in there. He had a nursery out around Stop 16, which is Council Road and the fellow that worked for and killed him with an ax. Anyway, it was kind of a sad situation. They talked about it. It was, you know, the thing that get—my brother went down there and he saw the mess. I didn’t.
But anyway, later on I, I, I went to work for Western Electric, not out at the plant, but I traveled for them. But I got tired of that and I quit and barbered for a while and I cut this fellow's hair, his son's hair. And then he had a son and they both committed suicide. So that their dad was killed there in that house and then the son killed himself and then that'd be the grandson killed himself.
BJ: Wow, it's almost like there was a something, a curse or something there.
TS: And that was, we call that the Luke House. And that's almost where my folks tied up, just that was in the 200 block of Main Street. They, they tied up just a few houses down behind in the alley there, with their wagon and team. But Bill Merritt, his ambulance service and morgue and everything was there on 39th and the Mueller. And then he moved down there where it’s at now. You probably know where it’s—
BJ: Yeah, it’s a little off the street there.
TS: Yeah. So anyway, that's, that's where he had his hearse and everything, and he had a garage apartment back of it and he kept his hearse underneath. And my sister rented the upstairs part and I didn't like going over there and spending the night with her. It was too close to the, to the business.
BJ: I can imagine. Did she work for him or just, she just rented the space?
TS: Just rented that space.
BJ: Yeah, that would be a little bit unnerving if you weren’t used to it, I think.
TS: And this might, this is something funny. During the war, you know, we thought the Germans was going to come and get us. We really did. You know, we stomped cans flat in on save the meat grease and all that stuff, you know? And so Dad being on the fire department, they would have meetings every so often and I'd just tag along. Well, they had a meeting over there and one of the college buildings one night upstairs and they had a fellow there that was gonna tell him how to take care of incendiary bombs, you know, and stuff when they fell. And I mean, we thought they was going to get us. But anyway, after the meeting was over, they got to arguing and talking kind of, and there was a guy named Reedus Stewart. He's, he's dead now. They got to talking and he said, “Well, you can't carry me out of this building. You know, I'm upstairs. You can't—" That guy said, “Oh yeah.” And they went and got a ladder off the fire truck, which was setting downstairs and set it up to that upstairs window. And that guy put old Reedus on his shoulder and backed out of that window. It was, there were big windows and carried him down that ladder and me being a kid, I was really impressed about that.
BJ: Yeah. And you, and it was, it was preparation for the German invasion too.
TS: Yeah, kind of ridiculous, but you know.
BJ: Well, that's, you know, that says where, you know, people were, where their minds were at then.
TS: We were worried about it, yeah. Yep. And you know, the boys' dormitory was built on the corner of College and 39th and that was on the north side. And underneath that part of the time was the grocery store. And part of the time city hall was there.
BJ: City hall was underneath the boy's dorm? I’d never heard that. Okay.
TS: Yeah. I used to go over there and pay the water bill for my dad. He’d send me across the street. So, yeah. And all the Vader family was real prominent and popular family here in Bethany. And the Vader house was up there on 41st and College, College Street. But he, he gave a lot of money to the church and college and he was I think even president of the college at one time. Oh. And by the way a lot of people don't know this, but we had a jail back in ‘27.
BJ: No, I did not know that.
TS: Well, you look on the map. I remember seeing it, it was concrete. It had bars all over the windows and stuff. And it was, it was on the alley between the College and Peniel.
BJ: Well, I wouldn't expect that it would get much use.
TS: No, I don't know that; I never did see anybody.
BJ: But they were prepared.
TS: Yeah. Yeah. But you look on the map. Well, it might be even on that map you have there, but you get it in the computer and you blow it up and you can see it real easy. It says jail house.
BJ: Okay. I'll have to look for that. Yeah. That's pretty interesting. Well and, and the, the policemen, there was only one policemen, right?
TS: Well, before him, there was—I've got his picture; I can't think of his name, but he was pretty popular too. And then of course we had several after that and then had the Longacre boys, both of them, you know, brothers worked on there and, and they, they were big husky fellows and a lot of nice stories about them.
BJ: Well, do you remember any of those?
TS: Well, they would, they would wait out here by the lake and they, you know, the curves that come around there. They knew just about how fast they could take those curves and they would go out there and sit. And I know one day in particular they caught some guys that had robbed some stores out west and they had all this stuff and anyway, they caught them and brought them down there to the station. It was a different station then, and then unloaded all that, all that goodies, you know, saws and tools. And I was looking at that and my mouth was watering. I thought what's going to happen to these.
BJ: Yeah. So they were pretty, pretty active, thorough— They weren't just a dog catchers by that time.
TS: No, no, they, they were pretty good. And we had one fellow; he was real small policeman, Homer, at the same time they were. And it was kind of funny. They'd tell stories about, they'd take Homer with them and they'd say, “Sic ‘em, Homer, you go in there and get him.” He was a little bit, littler than me. Yeah. Real nice fella. Yeah.
BJ: That's pretty interesting. I've never really heard stories like that about—I've never heard of the Longacre boys. That, that sounds like almost like a something from a movie.
TS: They were for real and they were big. Yeah. Yeah, the Vader was the president of Oklahoma Holiness College. That's what it was called then.
BJ: So that was pretty early on then.
TS: Oh yeah. That was in 1909.
BJ: So he and the Vaders and the Beavers were some, were, and the, among the original families that came here.
TS: Mm-hmm. And that lady’s name that had that 80 acres, her name was Mattie Mallory, M-A-L-L-O-R-Y. Yep.
BJ: Okay. Well do you remember, how far did you have to walk to school?
TS: Across the street.
BJ: Oh yeah, that's right. You said the new one was just across the street. Well, did you stay there? How, how many grades did it, did it go with your high school when you were there
TS: Yeah, oh yeah, went through high school.
BJ: Okay, well, who were some of the memorable teachers or things like that that you can remember?
TS: Oh, Marvin Peterson was my—when I, I was a freshmen that was the first year we had shop. He was my shop teacher, Marvin Peterson, and I have coffee with him. He comes over here to the family life center two or three times a week. And so he was my shop teacher and that was his first year out of college. And he had to, and that was the first year we had shop. Well it—I told him the other day, I said, “Marvin, I bet you about lost your mind, worried about all those freshmen kids in there, around those saws and stuff. You know what I mean? Afraid they'd cut off a finger and stuff.” And I was telling him about me getting my thumb caught in the lathe between the board that was turning. And I told him, I said, “You know, when that happened, I never told you. And I didn't dare tell you. I just went around with a sore thumb for a long time.” But you know, that was one of the teachers that— and of course, Lacey Neil, she was my first grade teacher. Yeah. And her daughter still lives here. She's married to one of the Gassett boys.
BJ: Okay. How many kids were in school then?
TS: Oh, I, you know, they had big classes back then that. You know, now they have what, 18 or 20 class. Man back then they probably had 30 or more.
BJ: Wow. Yeah, that’s a lot to handle.
TS: And so. I had one old stove, you know, to heat the whole room. And in the summertime, you know, you'd go out and play and recess and get all sweaty and dirty. And I was telling my wife the other day, I said, you know, I know now why the teacher went over by the window and raised the window. All those sweaty bodies in there...
BJ: Got a little musty and stale in there.
TS: Oh man. And some kid he’d be sick and throw up on the floor, you know? Well, they they'd call the janitor and he'd come down with a shovel full of sand, throw it on top of that and stir up and scoop it up and haul it out. Well, the old floors were those, just wooden floors, you know? And they used that floor sweep on them. Do you ever, you seen that?
BJ: It's like a sawdust kind of thing?
TS: And it's red, you know. I accused my buddy of smoking that floor sweep.
BJ: Ew. Well that would be not prohibited by the law there, if, if it was, if it was that, if it was dust, not tobacco there.
TS: Yeah. Yeah.
BJ: Well, what kind of things could you do to get in trouble in Bethany when you were a kid?
TS: Well, well, and you know, the Interurban, they had the trolley sticking up, you know, and it was on the back and you could go around there and pull that rope and it would make it flip off the wire that drove the trolley.
BJ: Oh yeah. Kill the current for it?
TS: The juice, yeah. And so he, the conductor, or the engineer, whatever you call him, he'd have to come around back and get all the rope and set it back on that wire, you know? Well, he'd get back in there to go and we'd jerk it off again about the time he got ready to go. I'm sure it got aggravating.
BJ: I bet. That that would be pretty annoying. What, were you guys hiding? I mean, did he know it was you or?
TS: He knew, but we'd hide. Yeah. But then, you know, old 66 coming through there, you know, and it night maybe we'd, we'd be sitting around on the curb, some of us would. That's all there was to watch the traffic. We'll maybe we'd get out there and act like we was holding a wire across the highway and there'd be someone on the other side. And, you know, they come screeching to a halt. And we'd just take off it. There was nothing there.
BJ: Oh, you just totally faked them out.
TS: Yeah. Make them think that we had something stretched across the highway. You know, we'd just do ornery things like that. Get in the car and light up cigars with windows all rolled up tight. Just blow until it got so thick in here, somebody have to bail out.
BJ: So it was like a dare or whatever to see who could take it the longest.
TS: Yeah. Just, I mean, you couldn't see, you couldn't, you couldn't breathe.
BJ: I bet. I think that'd be tough enough just being in the car with someone smoking, but to fill it up like that. Yeah. Well now where'd you get your cigars then if you couldn't buy them in town.
TS: Well, one thing we'd go over to Springlake Park and you could get them over there, especially if you could take that hammer and hit this mallet deal and ring the bell, you know, if you were strong enough to ring the bell. Well you’d get a cigar. Well, you'd already paid enough for more than to buy the cigar, but the guy made a little money that way.
BJ: So he gave cigars to the kids or I mean—
TS: Yeah.
BJ: Wow. That's just hard to believe today, isn’t it?
TS: If you could ring the bell, with the big old clumsy mallet. Well, that was just some of the things we did. That was when we could either drive the car or could ride in the car with somebody that, that did have a car and had license. You know, things were different back then, you know, I, I hunted a lot and I had a pistol and I had an old ‘39 Ford. That was my first car. Well I just carried that pistol underneath the front seat and you couldn't lock my car. Nobody, I'd go to school and park that car. And at noon, some of them would say, “Well, let's go out here along the canal and shoot some birds or something.” And we'd go out there and take that old pistol and shoot around and get back in time for lunch.
But one day, you know, with the windows down, it was cold. And I had on a pair of jersey gloves and I cocked that pistol. And when I did my finger slipped off of it and it went off in the car. I said, “Where did it go?” We finally got to looking around, it went up behind the rear view mirror. But I mean, you know, you didn't worry about anybody thinking you were going to shoot somebody. That never entered my mind, but that's, I mean, you know, you could do things like that.
BJ: What, where, what was your territory then in high school? What, where all did you run around? Did you go into the city much, or once you got a car, what did kids do?
TS: You know, we had a theater up there at 39th and MacArthur. There was a theater there, and of course we would— Before we could drive, we had a path where we cut off of 42nd Street and kind of cut through there. There was no houses there then. And so we'd go to the theater a lot. And lie about your age, about half the time, where you get in—
BJ: For a cheaper rate. Yeah. Well, did you go into the city much or?
TS: Well, after we could drive, we did some, yeah.
BJ: Okay. And you just ran around downtown or what kind of things did you do? Well, you said you went to Springlake, of course.
TS: Yeah. Do you remember Springlake?
BJ: I remember… No, I never went there. I I've got family pictures of me being there, but I, you know, as a kid, but I don't remember it. So I'm not sure when it closed, but.
TS: You know, this is changing the subject, but, you know, I don't have it but one picture of the Bethany water tower. But there's all kinds of stories about kids climbing that. You know, I didn't ever climb it, but a lot of them did climb it and paint on it, you know.
BJ: Yeah. That's kind of the classic thing to.
TS: But you know, I was married before and the wife I'm married to now, I've been 39 years with her, but her husband took the bid on taking the water tower down.
BJ: Where was it? I don’t—
TS: It was a, well, it was almost on the corner of Asbury and 39th, between 39th and 38th.
BJ: So it was right, right down in the middle of town.
TS: Yeah, it was. And they took it down in sections. They had a big crane there, but my wife told me here a while back about, they had to get Lloyd's of London to insure him because when nobody else was— with Lloyd's of London, you know, if you insure with them, they they spread it out with other little companies.
BJ:, So nobody, well no one person has to take a big hit.
TS: Well, I watched him take some of it down. They had a huge crane and they cut it in sections and took a quarter of it down at a time. So it was risky. Hagen Plumbing was right down below it.
BJ: Huh. I bet they had to evacuate. That would be pretty scary, I think. Well what did, what, so you graduated from high school, it would have been in—
TS: ‘51.
BJ: ’51, okay. So did you—
TS: Well let me just tell you the truth about that. I liked a half a credit. I never took a book home in my life. In fact, I never read a book, just made out something, made it look like I did. And the teacher was smart enough to know that I didn't read that. But anyway, I liked a half a credit. So years later I went to school at night. I wanted that half a credit and I, so I took plain geometry again, made straight A's in it. You know what I mean? ‘Cause I was older and I wanted to learn something then.
BJ: You were trying, putting out the effort.
TS: So they have, they, they took my picture and put it in some—I don't know what year that was—but some year up there, way late, like in the late fifties and my picture’s with that graduating class, kind of silly.
BJ: Yeah. That is kind of, so you're in with like the, someone in the late fifties even though you weren't even in school.
TS: Well, I guess they got to keep everything proper.
TS: It's kind of embarrassing to me, you know, to think. But anyway, that's—
BJ: Well, were there other you said almost everybody was Nazarene, but were there other ethnic groups or any?
TS: Baptist.
BJ: Okay.
TS: Yeah, Baptist was here.
BJ: Okay. But were there any you know, like Yukon has the Czechs and anything. Were there African-Americans or Czechs or any of the other?
TS: Oh, there wasn't, there was no Negroes here in Bethany. And when I was a little kid and my mother would take me to the city and on riding the elevator and different things and you'd see a little Negro boy, I was fascinated by him; I was just a little kid. But yeah, there was a picture of the Depot. They finally built a little place on the side of it where you could eat called a Mexihot.
BJ: Mexihot. Okay. What was it? Like a chili parlor or? What kind of—
TS: Well it's hamburgers and stuff. And I've got pictures, later pictures that show that on there, but then there was the, the first depot was out this way further.
BJ: Is this the same, are these two the same building?
TS: Yeah. Yeah, they are. By the way, the policemen, they didn't have a police station. They, there was a telephone pole here with a phone on it and they just parked there by that telephone pole.
BJ: So you could, you knew to call the telephone pole if you— Or the number for the police rang at the telephone pole. That's, that's pretty low tech there.
TS: And there’s the first depot and the boys' and girls’ dormitory.
BJ: Now, how much did you mix with the kids at the college? Did you go, you didn't go to the college yourself or?
TS: No, but I played over there and I was thinking the other day I had a BB gun and I played in the alley when I shine shoes. And I’d shoot birds back there in the alley and I'd go over around the college and shoot birds. And nobody never said a word to me. There's the boys dormitory with the grocery store down below.
BJ: Oh yeah, sure enough. Yeah, it’s got a store front down below it. I've never seen that.
TS: Oh, there's that church I was telling you about, Rock Church, where the kids went to school.
BJ: That was, served as the public school too at the time.
TS: Yeah. My sister went to school there.
BJ: Well, we talked some about the police and things like that, but do you remember—most, most of the time people remember stories about bootleggers and things around, did you, Bethany ever have trouble with any kind of you know, people like that that around town?
TS: What kind of people?
BJ: Bootleggers?
TS: Oh yeah. Yeah
BJ: You know, cause we had Prohibition for so long. What, what do you remember? What stories do you remember about that?
TS: Well, you know, if you drank bad liquor and stuff, you could get Jake leg. Did you know that?
BJ: I didn't know that. I mean, I heard people, you know, like drinking bathtub gin in the twenties and stuff would get, you know, sick, but what’s—
TS: Well this one guy, this one guy come in the barbershop all the time—and I forget what they call him—but he had Jake leg from drinking.
BJ: Jake leg! What happens to you?
TS: Well he was crippled. He had to walk with a cane, yeah. But it was well known and that there was a picture of the, in ‘49, of the college.
BJ: The whole college, okay. So did, did the police have to run guys like that out or were they, would they not, they just knew not to come to Bethany?
TS: Yeah. Most of them just stayed out around the perimeter of Bethany. Yeah. I even patronized some of them once in a while.
BJ: So did you go to them or did they come to you?
TS: Oh, I went to them. Mr. Vader got hit by the Interurban.
BJ: Oh, okay. Wow that's a picture of a demolished car. So he was crossing the street and he got hit by the—?
TS: Uh-huh
BJ: When was that?
TS: In fact, when was the mother, my mother was going across the Interurban tracks one day and it just, the Interurban just clipped the back end of the car. Well, she didn't even stop. She just went on. Well, anyway, Dad knew most of the drivers and they stopped one day and told him about it. But I guess it didn't hurt the car.
BJ: So that wasn't that uncommon of an occurrence.
TS: Well, you just, you got so used to it that—
BJ: How well, how often did the cars come by? The Interurban cars? I mean, it just seems like you, you just could see them coming or something or hear them, but.
TS: Well she ended up suing, this lady Vader, because he didn't blow his horn or whistle and that's the way, she sued for $50,000. But I don't know what she got or whether she got anything.
Oh, something that, the Arnett building. Did you ever hear anything about it?
BJ: Well, I just, I just did here that that's over by Putnam City High School.
TS: Yeah. There's a little bit of it still left. It burnt, it burnt down, just about all of it, in about ‘51 or ‘52. And there's a little bit of it still left that they use. But the guy that—Arnett—it’s the one that it had 52 rooms in it, the building did, and it had a tunnel that went out underneath the railroad tracks where you could get on either way, you know,
BJ: So you didn't have to cross the tracks.
TS: Right. You could go underneath. And he was quite an odd fellow, Arnett was.
BJ: Was the building like a house or is it like an office?
TS: No it was like— It looked like an office building. A guy by the name of Putnam built it. That's where Putnam got its name.
BJ: The school.
TS: They thought Arnett did, especially thought that the Capitol was gonna locate out there. And this was going to be part of the complex for the Capitol, but he was an odd guy, this Arnette was. He made his name by, he made a million dollars, I think it says seven years, which was a lot of money back in the twenties. So that's, but he was odd.
BJ: So how did you get into the, you got into working for AT&T? Oh yeah. There's the fireway. You got some great pictures there. Did, did, how did you get into working for AT&T or Western, was it Western Electric then?
TS: I went to work for Western Electric to begin with as an installer and traveled around all over Oklahoma and finally Kansas. And I got tired of that. I went to work for a dollar an hour. But when you went out of town, They paid you like $57 extra, you know, for you to stay in a motel or wherever you want to say.
And I got tired of that. So I quit and went to barber college and barbered for all, about six, seven years.
BJ: In Bethany?
TS: Yeah. And then I thought, well, “Hey, I'm not really saving anything for retirement or anything.” So I went back to work for, for the telephone company this time. Well, after I'd been there a little while they bridged my time, took my old Western electric time and added it to that.
BJ: Oh, wow, that's a bonus.
TS: Because it was all AT&T, see. And then at divesture, I went with AT&T.
BJ: Well did you, so you, you stayed living in Bethany the whole time, so if you've lived, you've lived there your whole life.
TS: Yeah.
BJ: Okay. What do you remember about when Bethany started to grow outside its own—would that be fifties or sixties—when it got really big.
TS: Yeah, after the war’s when it really started growing.
BJ: Did you feel like it was, what did you think about that? Or did you feel like it was changing the town or?
TS: Yeah, I went with a girl called Elizabeth. Her dad was a builder. In fact, a little street up there by, I guess, Braums or one of them, is called Libby. That was named after her. He named all the streets after his daughter. And her name was Elizabeth. He named that street Libby. But yeah, it was, it was growing quite, quite a bit. My brother, he had, he got his license and was electrician and he wired houses all around Bethany and I'd go and help him some, just, you know, hook up the electrical plugs and stuff.
Everything back then was just two wire. It wasn't, wasn't three wire ground, it was just two wire. Yeah. Ridiculous. There's a picture of Dr. Bumpus across from the girls' dormitory in an old Pontiac, 1930 Pontiac.
BJ: Wow, you got, you got a lot of pictures I haven't seen before.
Well so what else, what all have you, we're about to run out of time on our recording. So what all, what have I not covered that you think is important to know about you or about Bethany?
TS: Well, there’s not really anything important about me. But yeah. Oh, trying to think of something. I got pictures there of the tornado and, well, I've got my big book out in the car. with my main pictures. I just put a few in here, but tell you the most interesting there's the picture of that guy?
BJ: Oh yeah. You can tell, Mr. Arnett. He does look a little bit strange. Yeah.
TS: They would call him a hermit there. Well…
BJ: Well, we'll try to get a copy of your—you've got kind of a book here. Maybe we can try to get a copy for the library. And then when folks listen to this, they can look at your pictures too.
TS: Well, really. There's when they straightened part of the river, they did that with the horses and a slip. You know what a slip is?
BJ: Is it like a dredge or something?
TS: Yeah, it’s got a, big and wide and one handle on the back. And you’d dig in and the horses pull it in when we got where you wanted with it, they just flip it over. But it flooded everywhere. Well, it crossed Rockwell four times.
BJ: Yeah, it's pretty windy in this map here.
TS: It just crossed it right in there where Western Electric’s at, where a lot of it would flood clear up to where the raildroad tracks were.
BJ: So once they straightened it, that did that area, it was, did it stay marshy or did it dry up enough? I know. I mean, they drained it.
TS: It did pretty good. I can get on the internet and look at Google and look down and see about where the old riverbed was.
BJ: Oh I’ll have to try that. I hadn’t noticed that.
TS: But anyway, it just flooded out a lot. That lady was a Grace Markwood.
Well that, but this fellow Melrose, shorty, he tells a good, interesting story. But, and I was talking to—Melrose's granddaughter the other day she's she said before they made the run, they cut some sapling trees and cut all the limbs off of them and sharpened the ends of them and tied them on the back of their wagon, pointing back. They didn't want anybody running up those horses and wagons behind them and hitting them. And that would make you think about when you got up behind it and you seen these sharp sticks.
BJ: And you were going to back off. I'd never heard that. I've heard a lot of land run stories but never that one.
TS: That's the first time I'd heard that.
BJ: Yeah. And that's, that's pretty extreme.
TS: Oh, there's a picture of the Arnett building.
BJ: Oh, with the street car out front. Okay, cool. So it's right on, right on the Interurban.
TS: 39th.
BJ: Yeah. Okay. Well, we appreciate you coming today and sharing with us.
TS: You know I know I started this some time ago. I didn't know they was going to have the Centennial.
BJ: Well, you've made a valuable contribution to it.
TS: It's, it's really kind of personal in a way. I just, I put a little, some of the, these pictures are copyrighted, so I thought, well, I put a little note in here that said, you know, it wasn't for sale or anything because I didn't want to get in trouble.
BJ: It’s usually okay, as long as you're not trying to sell it or anything,
TS: There's a corner of 39th and Peniel. There's a picture of the old—
BJ: You can see, yeah, the bank there.
TS: And right now there's a drive in there and this was the telephone office of that house. And they moved that catty-corner across the street. And when the tornado come it tore off part of the roof of it. Then after that they moved it up there to 42nd, just off College. I worked in it a lot, installing equipment.
Well anyway, I hope haven't took up too much of your time.
BJ: No, you did exactly right. We've got it right to the button. It's, we got an hour and 20 minutes on a CD and that's exactly what we did. So we're good.
We appreciate you coming out.
TS: Well thank you.
BJ: And if you still got that on the computer or something, we can pay for another copy of that. You know, folks would probably like to see that.
TS: I can make you a copy. Yeah, I can burn one for you.
BJ: Okay.