A Very OK Podcast
Episode 21: “Retail Therapy”
January 17, 2023
Episode Transcript
(upbeat music playing)
Trait Thompson: Hello, and welcome to A Very OK Podcast. My name is Trait Thompson, and I’m the executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society. And here with me, as always, is Dr. Bob Blackburn, the former executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society. And, Bob, it’s been a minute since we were together. It’s great to see you again.
Dr. Bob Blackburn: It’s good to see you after the holidays, and especially this time of year when I know you’re going over the legislature and I’m not.
Thompson: Yeah. You know, it’s funny, I was on the way over yesterday for our budget hearing over at the legislature, and I happened to catch you coming inside the Oklahoma History Center building, and I tried to get you to go over and do it instead of me, but you took a hard pass on that. (laughter)
Blackburn: I had a smile on my face, knowing that you were headed over there and taking care of us.
Thompson: You looked very relaxed, and I was very jealous about that. Well, how were your holidays? Did you get a chance to spend some time with family?
Blackburn: We did, the grandboys. We’ve got a five year old and a one year old in Denver. So Debbie and I went there, got caught in the canceled flights coming back. But to get back, at 2:30 at night.
Thompson: Yeah, that’s a kind of a miracle. We’re glad you’re back.
Blackburn: Which is about six hours after I normally go to bed. So I was up late that night, but we had a great time in Denver, and, of course, the family. Every moment is golden, and I’m just enjoying being a grandpa. Papa is my new, real occupation.
Thompson: Well, I can’t think of a better occupation. I have to tell you a little bit about our holidays. We went up to Chicago and just barely beat that big winter storm that moved in over the holidays. And of course, I don’t think the temperature got out of the teens while we were there. My brother and his family live there. Now my son, who just turned 15 right after Christmas, he’s become a big fan of the NFL. And so, earlier, back in September of last year, we took him to his first NFL game at the Dallas Cowboys with the Cincinnati Bengals. He had a great time. So as we’re driving into Chicago, he says, Dad, can we go to the Bears game that’s in town? So let me tell you this. The Bears are playing Christmas Eve in Soldier Field. And I say, okay, we’ll look and see what tickets are. Well, tickets were only 23 bucks apiece. So there went my argument to say, well, it’s too expensive. And my brother was like, yeah, we should go do that. And so there we are, Soldier Field, Christmas Eve. The temperature at kickoff is nine degrees, Bob. And by the third quarter, I couldn’t feel my toes. And so, it of course, the Bears are terrible. They were playing the Bills. The Bills won and all of that kind of thing. It was a fun atmosphere to be in. You can stand at the top of Soldier Field, and you can see the Shedd Aquarium. You can see out into the Great Lakes. But it was, I don’t know that I’ve ever been colder in my entire life.
Blackburn: Well, I’ll tell you the payoff there, and I can talk about this with my uncles and my dad, is that when you’re in a wheelchair, your son is taking care of you in your old age. He’s going to remember that day.
Thompson: I hope so.
Blackburn: That will be one of those memories that will stay with him and you. It is something you two share, and no one can ever take that away from you.
Thompson: Well, we did have a good time, and my brother was with us as well, and, we made it, I have to say, we did make it through the whole game. I will say I spent about 25 minutes of the third quarter in the men’s restroom, because that was the only place there was heat in the entire stadium trying to get my toes to thaw out. And once I did, I made it to the rest of the game. And we are glad we did it. But I’m also glad that it’s, as we record this, about 70 degrees outside today. So it’s good to be back in Oklahoma again. It’s good to be back with you on the podcast and talking about history, and we’ve got a great topic today. We want to talk about, you wrote a book called the Crossroads of Commerce, and we want to talk about the history of retail establishments in Oklahoma, and Oklahoma has had some iconic ones over the years. But I thought we could start out, you know, you grew up here in Oklahoma. Do you have any good memories of going shopping? Maybe with your parents or with friends at some of these iconic Oklahoma establishments?
Blackburn: Oh, Trait, you know, once you start thinking of memories like that and the people in our lives, it’s very nostalgic. I grew up very early in Edmond, where my dad was a highway patrolman. My mom was teaching school before she started her television career. But I remember buying my first bicycle there at Otasco and going into Otasco and looking at all the toys and the smell of the tires, very much a part of who I am. And then later in life, living on the south side of Oklahoma City, probably the greatest memories of shopping, because I never was much of a shopper, but going to C. R. Anthony’s every August before school started, and I got two new pair of jeans to start the school year. That was back when we kids, you know, we had patches on our jeans because we were so rough on them, but they were $5 apiece. I don’t know why I remember that. And, I remember the Anthony’s where we would get those jeans and get a new pair of sneakers. And of course, I grew up in the in the golden age of television when it was all local. So we didn’t have the advertisements for a lot of the big national brands like you have now. And so almost all of the local retailers of a certain size advertised on television. So ads for B. C. Clark’s, the iconic, you know, Christmas sale song.
Thompson: You can’t have Christmas in Oklahoma City without the B. C. Clark jingle, right?
Blackburn: It’s part of who we are since the community, but the same with TG&Y, which was a big regional retailer here. And that was taken a five-and-dime Franklin store and then putting it on steroids. That was really what Ray Young and his partners did. And, going into a TG&Y to buy records, I do remember that because they had a record place where you could go in and get, you know, a Beatles or Mamas and the Papas or some of those early bands. So retail in Oklahoma City was largely downtown Oklahoma City until 1964. Penn Square opened in ’60, but it was still an outdoor plaza, open plaza, Shepherd Mall opened in ’64. Then retail fled out of downtown Oklahoma City. So at that point, shopping becomes part of the mall experience. But before that, going downtown and seeing the Christmas decorations and going to the Midwest Theater or the Center or the State, some of those, and then go and shopping with your mom and eating at the cafeterias downtown. Retail was a part of our lives in Oklahoma. And when it was still downtown, it was still very much a part of who we were with our families.
Thompson: Well, I grew up in Texas, and so I didn’t have some of these iconic stores or shops that we’re going to talk about today. But we did have Anthony’s. And so I remember going to Anthony’s in San Angelo, Texas, which was about, you know, 60, 70 miles from where I grew up. And I have distinct memories of hiding in the clothes racks of Anthony’s and getting in trouble when my mom couldn’t find me, when we were playing, me and my brother were playing games in the middle of the clothes racks. I’m sure that that enhanced the shopping experience of everyone around us. But I do have distinct memories of Anthony’s as well.
Blackburn: It’s funny, my wife, who grew up in Woodward, has memories. She had a younger sister and brother, and she always talks about going into the shops downtown because Saturday, even though they lived in town, you’d still shop on Saturdays. That’s when Gene, her dad, would get his haircut, and they’d go shopping. And you got dressed up to go downtown in the 1950s. And Debbie has a story about, she was so embarrassed because Sheryl and Norman were hiding under all the clothes in the in the stores downtown. And Oliver’s Shoes, Uncle Oliver— Uncle Charlie—I should say Charlie Oliver owned Oliver’s Shoe Stores, and he had stores over in the Texas Panhandle, the Oklahoma Panhandle, western Oklahoma, as far south as Ardmore. So he had his own little chain of shoe stores that he opened after World War II. And Debbie’s mom worked in the Oliver store selling dress clothes. So one of my fond memories, and I love Debbie’s mom dearly, and I always would enjoy going into that store and seeing her and watching her help these customers and that sense of family with Uncle Charlie coming in and out and Aunt Lou. And it was just it was a family retail experience.
Thompson: Yeah. We’ve got, in the little town I grew up in called Brady, Texas. We’ve got a store that’s on the town square, and it’s been there forever. It’s called Evridge’s, and they sell everything from furniture to, you know, knick-knacks, and all kinds of things that you could ever want. And in fact, their slogan is, if we don’t have it, you don’t need it. And that is one of the iconic shopping experiences in the hometown that I grew up in. In fact, even today, when I go back home, it doesn’t feel like a trip unless I’ve stopped through Evridge’s at least for a little bit, to see some of the things that they have on sale there.
Blackburn: That sense of place, that sense of community that you have.
Thompson: Exactly. Well, you know, when we’re talking about retail in Oklahoma, you really don’t get to the modern shopping experience without going all the way back into the early history and even into prehistoric history and talking about trade and the trade that the Native American tribes would do with each other. We know for a fact, and for those of you who might need a refresher, you might go or listen to our episode on Spiro Mounds with Dennis Peterson when we had him on. But when they excavated those mounds, they found items from all over the United States, and those items get there because of trade. And that’s how kind of retail starts out. Can you can you talk a little bit about how we get to the point in Oklahoma of getting into retail?
Blackburn: Yeah. Well, it all goes back to the basics of free enterprise. When we worked on the exhibit here, Crossroads of Commerce, and part of that was my own personal career as a historian because I wrote histories of all these businesses in Oklahoma. Out of the 26 books, I would guess 15 of them are on businesses because I wanted to understand free enterprise. What drives the wheels of the economy? What supports paying taxes, getting jobs, people’s quality of life? It all comes back to free enterprise. We have to be champions of free enterprise. And I really broke it down into three themes. In an exhibit, as in a book, you’ve got to make it fairly simple, but really, I use the themes of supply and demand. The basic law is that there has to be demand and a supply, and you connect supply and demand, you make the whole thing work. And then people are trading back and forth. Second is that you have to add value to something. So whether it is adding value to the soil and growing your cotton and having your cotton to trade for a sack of sugar, that’s free enterprise. And then third is taking a risk. People have to be willing to take a risk to invest in that cotton crop, invest in a building where you can sell things, investing in a shop that creates something out of wood, or metal, or clay, and then that’s really at the heart of free enterprise. And if you go back to Spiro Mound, the people from the Great Lakes area had pipestone that you quarry there in Minnesota that they would carry with them to the south to trade with the southern Mississippians who had trade goods that they got from the Gulf of Mexico, shells and beads that the people in the North wanted. And once you say yes, this is how much value I assign to this pipe. This is how much I assign to these beads. Let’s make a trade. That’s free enterprise.
Blackburn: And then ultimately add the monetary part of it is that we have a currency that somehow we assign values to certain products, which again, is based on supply and demand. If there’s a lot of something; price will go down. Scarce supply, price will go up. So the price of gold and sand—both have value, but we assign prices. And so the Spiroans, and then the merchants of the Southern Plains would have been then the descendants of the people who lived at Spiro. Those would have been the Caddoan speakers, the Wichita and the Caddo, Natchez. And these people kind of had that commerce as part of their culture of trade, and they knew that their quality of life could be improved if they could encourage trade. So they became the middlemen between the Chickasaws and the Choctaws farther to the east, and the Comanche and the Kiowa and the Plains Apache to the west. So you might get the Kiowa, who have horses and beaver pelts or deer skins that the Choctaws and the Chickasaws wanted. And they had trade goods from trading with the Spanish or those colonists over in Savannah, and they would bring it, and they would meet, and the Wichita would be those middlemen. And we know by the 1720s, the Wichita built a fortified palace up on Pond Creek in northern Oklahoma where the French could come up from New Orleans, the tribes from the east, the Sac and Fox, the Osage and others could come, the Comanche, the Kiowa, the Plains Apache from the other direction. They could all meet and trade, and that was going on in Oklahoma from the earliest days.
Thompson: It seems like the French are the first to really kind of come from the outside and just start opening up trade. You’ll have to excuse my, you’ll have to pardon my French here, but in 1719, Jean Baptiste Bérnard de la Harpe comes to Oklahoma, and he opens French trade to the Wichita and to the Comanches. And the Wichitas would trade things like beans, corn, squash, horses. Bison were very valuable because we know how great the Native tribes were about really taking every part of the bison and making it a useful tool of some form. And then in 1764, Auguste Pierre Chouteau established the village of St. Louis, and they start trading with the Osage there, and they learn the Osage language. They established trust. And then Pierre comes to Oklahoma and establishes a trading post on the Grand River near present-day Salina. And then within two years, the Chouteaus are controlling more than half of all the trade goods that are moving through St. Louis.
Blackburn: Yeah. And of course, in that story, you have to admire the Chouteaus for willing to take a risk, because they had debts back in France where they were buying goods that had come across the Atlantic, come up river, and then sell and then hopefully survive long enough. So that was taking a risk. But those Osages were taking a risk. So to have the trade goods to trade with the French, they had to go out onto the Plains, hunt the buffalo, defend their territory against the other tribes, you know, their ancient enemies, the Pawnees. They might meet, and they’d have warfare. So you might lose your life. But you’re adding value to that buffalo herd by getting the buffalo, tanning the hide, taking it to the trade post and and trading your added value to the Chouteaus, who had added value. And of course, the Osages were the dominant force in Oklahoma from about the 1720s, oh, to the early 1800s. So for 100 years, the Osages were dominant because they were getting guns from the French, whereas the English never like to trade, and the Spanish certainly refused to trade guns.
Thompson: Right, the Spanish didn’t want to give anything to the Natives.
Blackburn: To the tribes, but the French didn’t care. They didn’t have settlers in the next valley who were moving out and the northeast farms. Well, for over 100 years, the Osages were militarily dominant in Oklahoma. They had pushed the Wichita south of the Red River. The Comanches were fairly content to go farther south into the west. But the Osages were so dominant because of trade. They had trade goods that the French wanted. The French needed slaves to work in the Caribbean and the sugar plantations. Osages knew how to capture slaves. They knew how to get the hides that were needed and other goods. Well, the French would trade them guns, whereas the Spanish and English did not like to trade guns. to the tribes because it just inflamed border conflicts. But the French would, and with those guns, the Osages, who were big people anyway— dominant physically— just controlled this area for 100 years, and it gets back to free enterprise.
Thompson: You know, one of the most important early settlements in Indian Territory was Doaksville, and that was established by Josiah Doak and his brother sometime around 1824. We’re not exactly sure. And I should also mention that’s an OHS site that you can still go visit today. Now, there’s not a whole lot there. You can see some of the foundations of some of the original settlement buildings there. But Doaksville becomes a place that is for a while, it’s going to be the capital of the Choctaw Nation. It is— Sam Houston ends up coming through there. They have some industry there. And then a man named Robert M. Jones comes from Mississippi to Indian Territory. He settles around Doaksville. And then once the Red River gets cleared for riverboat traffic around 1838, then he’s able to export crops and raw materials to New Orleans. And he imports the first cotton gin to Indian Territory and then expands. He’s got 28 stores, two riverboats. But Doaksville is kind of the Oklahoma City, if you will, of its time down in southeastern Oklahoma. It’s a thriving settlement.
Blackburn: Yeah, and Robert M. Jones, we call him the richest Choctaw. He, by the standards of the day, he would have been considered a millionaire. He had Rose Hill Cottage. He had, you know, his plantation, several different kinds of exotic woods. He had portraits of American presidents. He was a Choctaw who had been forced out of his homeland, got a job driving out a herd of horses and mules that people would need. But he was serving his people. At the same time, he was making a buck because he was opening general stores. I think he eventually had over 20 stores throughout the Choctaw Nation, had his own plantations. He did own African American slaves. That was part of the economic system of the Old South, and Robert M. Jones was from that bolt of cloth.
Thompson: And I think a lot of people may not know, but a lot of the Five Tribes, when they came here, they had enslaved populations, and they brought them with them.
Blackburn: Yes. Will Rogers’ dad, Clem Rogers, owned slaves before the Civil War. So it was fairly common among the Five Tribes, especially those of mixed heritage. In most of the centers of commerce like Doaksville would have been on the borders with Texas to the south, Arkansas to the east, Missouri to the northwest, and the Old Texas Road that started in Missouri went down to Texas. It’s no accident that it became the crossroads of commerce north and south. because with trade from Missouri to Texas, then people would stop in towns like Durant, Eufaula, Muskogee, Wagoner. And so, the Texas Trail became a very important part that intersected with the Arkansas River, which was navigable as far north as what we have now at present-day Muskogee. So with the ability to bring trade goods very cheaply up the river, either the Arkansas or the Red, and then from there the goods would be transported by wagon to these other communities. And then in 1871, with the first railroad in Oklahoma, it connects those towns.
Thompson: Yeah.
Blackburn: Suddenly, you can ship goods much more cheaply than ever before, even on water, much more safely. And then these towns grow. Well, these are centers of free enterprise where the people in the surrounding communities were creating wealth and adding value to the soil, the sun, the grass, the crops, the seeds, the chicks, the calves, you know, all of this—raising their cattle. And then they would exchange it in town. And once you have this exchange, it’s creating specialists who need attorneys, who need newspapers, who need teachers, who need attorneys. And you get then retail establishments that the communities big enough with enough fluid wealth to support a general goods store, to support a grocery store. And then these towns grow, Muskogee being the largest of all of them in the territorial days.
Thompson: You know, one thing that was a little surprising to me is that Oklahoma was actually a pretty prosperous place for those who were engaged in salt production. And the Cherokees were really involved in salt production. In fact, Sequoyah had a salt works, and salt became, it was so important for curing meats. And if you’re going to ship meats on long distances, then you had to pack it all in salt. And Oklahoma actually had a very, a very robust salt trading enterprise, which, who would have thought?
Blackburn: You know, that gets back to some of the other elements of free enterprise. I’ve talked about the basics, but you get off into technology and how technology allows retail to change for, you know, for your generation, Trait, and my son, internet has changed retail. It’s technology. Well, in the day of Sequoyah, before refrigeration, before railroads, you had to have that salt to preserve the meats that people needed. They needed the protein. That was a way to cure your meats with salt. So it was high value. Well, you advance all the way to railroads and refrigerated railroad cars. Suddenly, you didn’t need that salt. You needed ice. Well, that was the beginning of the free enterprise of opening an ice plant that also became the power plant for the community. And then you get your ice, and you put it on refrigerated cars, and you would need, well, so the value of salt had been high. Well it goes down, and no one’s in the salt business. Eventually, you get to big utilities with natural gas and coal generating power. Suddenly, those municipal power plants where you could get ice go out of business. My granddad in Claremore worked for an ice plant, and I look in the census records, as an “engineer.” He was running an ice plant that would make the ice at night and then provide electricity for the town during the day. And it was a way of adding value to the fuel that fired the engines, that created the steam, that ran the engines that created all of this. And so technology was as important to Sequoyah just as he’s important to us today.
Thompson: Well, fast forwarding a little bit, you get into the land run in 1889, and Oklahoma City is essentially created overnight, and this city springs up. What were some of the retail establishments or the types of retail establishments that were important to a brand-new city?
Blackburn: Well, I even include banking in retail, even though it’s a service to us today, but in the days you had to have your cash, and that was in the bank and for the free enterprise system to work. So the banks come here. The founder of the First National Bank, Mr. Richardson, can’t remember the first name now, but he opened up in a tent, says here’s First National Bank, come in, and I’ll, you know, I’ll help you in this free enterprise. And then you get, of course, William T. Hales is one of my favorites. He was the old mule skinner from Missouri who comes in and buys, gets a couple of lots during the land run and creates stables for horses and mules. And so he’s trading. So all these farmers who’d come into town on a Saturday were raising the horses, the mules, and they wanted to buy things at these stores in town, and Mr. Hales would be there saying, yeah, I think that old mule is worth $10. Oh, no, we couldn’t let go of that for anything less than 20, and then said, finally, 15. Then they have cash in their hand to go to the dry goods store, to go to, you know, place to, to get flour. C. G. “Gristmill” Jones started his grist mill down on the river on the south side of town, where people could bring in their corn and their wheat, and he would grind it. Well, that was creating jobs. Then those people with jobs could afford to buy a house. They could afford to do business with others in town. And you put enough of those stories of the C. G. “Gristmill” Joneses and the William T. Hales and the Henry Overholsers—who, he had brought in six prefabricated buildings the day of the land run and put them up. Well, he was a merchant renting that space for cash because he had been willing to take a risk to build those in Kansas and bring them here. And it was all working.
Thompson: I would imagine that if you were selling lumber, you were also pretty in demand in the early part of building Oklahoma City. And I do know that there were several merchants who shipped lumber by train from some of the surrounding states to Oklahoma City and some of these other cities that were springing up. And then, of course, a bakery is an important thing to have. And, we have the Bakery of Indian Territory was founded by George Ross after he claimed a lot on West California Avenue. And so, I can imagine that that was a popular establishment as well.
Blackburn: Yeah. Just go and get a little bit, “B.I.T.” We got some early photographs of an Oklahoma City with a “B.I.T.” sign up there. And, Bob Ross was a good friend of mine—recently lost Bob— but he was very proud of his ancestors who came in and took a risk, started a business, and then stuck with it in good times and bad. And his family is still serving us today. Bob Ross, I may have said Bob, but Bill, Bob is his son now running the Inasmuch Foundation, still contributing to quality of life and keeping the wheels of the economy rolling.
Thompson: Absolutely, absolutely. Well, let’s talk about some of the, and we mentioned it before. You talked about Anthony’s, which Anthony, C. R. Anthony, opened his clothing store with $10,000 of merchandise in 1922, and within a year, he had stores in six Oklahoma boomtowns and by 1972 was up to 325 stores in 21 states west of the Mississippi River. Certainly an Oklahoma success story, and one of those places where you could go get just about anything, and clothing was certainly important back in those days and still is. Let’s talk about some of the other iconic stores. You mentioned TG&Y. Now I would compare TG&Y to maybe the precursor of a Walmart. Is that a fair comparison?
Blackburn: It is; a little bit of everything. It’s taken the old five-and-dime, and a five-and-dime was basically you could get everything that was not at the hardware store, not at the general merchandise store, not the grocery store. So that was the five-and-dime, the Dixie, Ben Franklin, and other things like that. Well, TG&Y came about in the ’30s when society was changing. People were leaving the farms and ranches, and they were going to the cities. Well, they discovered that they could undercut a lot of the local general merchandise stores and five-and-dimes by pooling their resources to buy the middleman. That’s where a lot of the money was. Yeah. You’d make, you know, a little bit on a 98-cent 45 record, and you might make a little bit at the candy counter, but the money was there in the middle. And TG&Y, and that was Ray Young, Tomlinson, and Gosselin. One time I was given a tour and someone said you the TG&Y, they said, you know what that stood for. I said, yeah. And they said, no, no, what it really stood for, it was turtles, yo-yos, and girdles.
(laughter)
Blackburn: Turtles, girdles, and yo-yos, I have to say it the right way there. But anyway, those three gentlemen pooled their resources, started central warehouses, buying in mass. So if you could buy more, you get a better deal on the the front end, and then you bring it in, you distribute it to all your stores, and you make more money on the back end of it as you sell to the customers. But just like C. R. Anthony, who really was a master of going from the old credit system that was so common on the frontier, because currency was scarce. When the economy was driven by farms, it was cyclical. You had money when you sold your cotton crop, or you sold your cattle or your, you know, your your hogs or your eggs or your cream. So it was cyclical. So credit was very important. Well, he said I’m going to start a store— cash and carry. And with cash and carry, there was no credit. So you had no losses on people who didn’t pay and to carry people’s notes for even two or three months, you had to have enough cash flow. So you had to raise your prices. So prices were high. It was a lot of loss. Local merchants couldn’t make it. Well, Mr. Young, excuse me. Mr. Anthony discovered that if he went cash only, eliminated the credit, and had sales, and he could mark it down because he was he was getting it in big orders that he get shipped to his other stores. He had that margin in there between his cost and what it was retailed for. And then he knew he needed to clean out one season, so he had to have fall clearance, summer clearance. And today we think, you know, you go into a store any day today, and it seems like I have a sale perpetually, 380 days a year, seems like. But then they’ll add those seasonal sales, and C. R. Anthony understood that very well and used that.
TG&Y merchants used it, and that carries all the way to Sam Walton, who born in Kingfisher, married the banker’s daughter out of Claremore, and has a B. C. [sic] Franklin, and expands it into what he calls Walmart. Well, it’s the same thing. How do you buy cheaply? How do you add value? And then you add value by building these stores. He found a very efficient way to build stores where his money’s not tied up in a store. He finds someone else to build it. He leases it over a number of years. So he’s keeping his cash flower into merchandise and keeping it turning, buying more, out-competing someone else. Well, the story of retail in Oklahoma is generation to generation. Some people learn the new ways, learn how to buy in bulk. They learn how to market better, whether it’s in newspapers, or it’s in seasonal sales, or it’s on the internet. Times change. People always want to say, well, these are the bad guys because they put the old generation out of business. It would have happened no matter who did it because that technology changes, the markets change. And this flow of goods in this thing we call supply and demand is always going to change.
Thompson: You always have to adapt, otherwise you’re going to get left behind. You know, you talked about Otasco, and being that be the place you got your first bike, which Otasco stood for Oklahoma Tire and Supply Company. That was started by Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, who started out working as mechanics in South Carolina. So it was Sam, Maurice, and Herman Sanditen who started out, and they started Otasco. They moved to Oklahoma, started selling automobile supplies in Okmulgee after World War I. And then they started calling it Otasco. And by 1959, there’s 86 stores, 167 franchises. But I would imagine this is, as it’s part of your experience growing up, it’s part of many people’s experience growing up.
Blackburn: Right. And of course, tires was where it started. And so, we still remember the smell of the tires and the, seems like oils and things, going in and out of those stores. But they carried toys and the bicycles and other merchandise that people liked. And I still love going into to parts stores, and Ace is now, you know, the place, or, you know, you go to the big box stores, but, you know, those are Otascos, they had local merchants that, you know, probably grew up in a community, knew the community, who were community leaders. That was part of small time, small-town life in Oklahoma for many generations. And, you know, many people alive today remember those days of retail. And of course, everyone remembers Walmart now as it’s been around for, gosh, almost a half a century. But there are always going to be new people. I did a history of Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores.
Thompson: Another great Oklahoma company.
Blackburn: Tom Love, knew a little bit about the oil and gas business, Kerr-McGee heritage, and wanted to have his own business. Found a little gas station in Wotanga, Oklahoma leased it for a little bit or nothing. Found a hard-working farm boy. It worked for a little bit of nothing; paid at the end of the month. Found out he could buy gasoline out at Wynnewood, with 20 days to pay and just start selling with a very basic business plan: cheapest gas in town. That was his business plan. And then as he opened other stores, it got to the point he needed to hire a manager. Centralized staff started growing, and he started getting bigger and bigger, 24 hours a day. Added food, 7-Eleven concept. He proved that he could do that without adding to the labor side of adding value to what he can generate out of that store. And then with the completion of the Interstate Highway System, and especially with the deregulation of trucking in ’79, suddenly, trucking industry is changing. Truckers and travelers are out on those interstates. Well, he goes out to Amarillo, opens that first big travel stop. And that’s the beginning of him being a nationally dominant retailer, starting right here in Oklahoma City.
Thompson: Yeah. Today there are over 300 locations of the Love’s Country Store, Love’s Travel Stops. And I’ll tell you, you know, going on that road trip to Chicago, there’s a couple of Oklahoma companies I always look for on the road, because you know that you’re going to get a clean bathroom. You know you’re going to get a good store experience, and one of them is Love’s. The other is QuikTrip. And so, those are always kind of the beacons that you’re looking for because that clean restroom part is probably most important of all.
Blackburn: Yeah. Well, Tom and Judy, and Greg and Frank and Jenny, and the entire crew at Love’s have burst way through that 300th store. And I’ll never forget, Tom called me back after the first book had come out in 2013. About five years later, he said, “Bob, I’m sorry, we’re going to have to do another book.” He said, right after your book came out, I told the staff and the family. I said, “Well, it took us 50 years to get to this size, and in the next six years we’re going to double it again.”
Thompson: Isn’t that something?
Blackburn: And they’re doing it.
Thompson: Yeah.
Blackburn: And that’s just vision, willingness to take a risk, understanding supply and demand, and going right back to those basics of adding value.
Thompson: Well, speaking of gas stations, I don’t want to, go, I kind of want to end on talking about a gas station. You know, a lot of people might say, well, where can you go to get that old-time service? Where can you go where people still will wash your windshield and help you fill up the car? There’s actually a place like that that still exists in Oklahoma, and it’s the Kemnitz Service Station that is in Perry, Oklahoma, and it was started in 1937 by the Mid-Continent Petroleum Company as a DX service station. It’s still in business. It’s been in the Kemnitz family since 1955. They went to Apco, and now they’re a Sinclair service station since 1994. But you can still go and have that old-time experience with a full-service gas experience there in Perry, Oklahoma. It’s right there on the town square. It’s an incredible place. You can always see lots of people going and taking photos, because it still looks like that old -tyle service station. And you should go visit it in Perry. A couple of good places to visit in Perry. First of all, the Kumback Cafe is there in Perry, and you can get a great meal there and then go visit the service station.
Blackburn: And when you pull in to see Craig Kemnitz, and Craig is one of my favorite Oklahomans. A character, just full of life and vitality and passion. And he’s loaned us artifacts for our exhibit on oil and gas. But when you pull in, you get that ding-ding, ding-ding when your tires roll over those wires. And that’s just a comforting sound to me, because I grew up in the days of full service. I remember self service. I remember when gas went from $0.28 a gallon to $0.45 a gallon. I thought we were getting ripped off at $0.45 and shortages, not being able to buy gasoline there in ’74. But Craig has stuck with it, with his bulk sales, selling to Ditch Witch as well as bulk to other retailers, and then that retail station. And he is committed to keeping it open, and he takes such pride in it. I was there just a few weeks ago for the 80th-birthday party of that filling station.
Thompson: Well, we’ve only scratched the surface here, and we could probably spend the next couple of hours talking about great Oklahoma retail businesses. But I want to transition now to our guest that we have today. Our guest is going to be Ed Threatt, who is the grandson of Allen Threatt Sr., who started the Threatt Filling Station in 1915. And this is an iconic filling station because it was one of the only Black-owned businesses on Route 66, and it’s been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. And so, I’m really interested to hear his family’s story.
Blackburn: Well, and what we’re going to get there, Trait, is this just this reflection of the exhibit on Crossroads of Commerce that people can see here at the History Center every day of the week, but it gets back into supply and demand. There was a demand for local goods in the farming community, Mr. Threatt provided that; traffic on Route 66; he provided that. So, as supply and demand was there, he was willing to take a risk, and he added value to the traveling experience, added value to sense of community, feeding, carrying people on credit when they couldn’t afford things. And so you get all the basics of free enterprise in an African American owned business right here on historic Route 66.
Thompson: Well, let’s talk to Ed. Well, I want to welcome into our podcast now, our special guest for this episode. And we are here with Ed Threatt. Ed grew up on the property of Threatt Filling Station in Luther, Oklahoma. He has been a lot of things in his career. He’s been a jet engine mechanic in the Air Force. He’s worked in IT. He’s worked in the insurance and banking industries. And we’ve brought Ed in to have a conversation about the history of one of our iconic Route 66 retail establishments in Oklahoma, and that is the Threatt Filling Station. And the Threatt Filling Station was built in 1915 by Allen Threatt Sr. It is one of the only known Black-owned and operated gas stations on Route 66 during the Jim Crow era, and it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. So we’re really happy to have Ed in here to talk about his memories of the Threatt Filling Station and the history and the importance of that property, and as well, what they’re working on as a family to restore that for the 100th anniversary of Route 66 in 2026. So Ed, thank you for being here. It’s great to have you.
Ed Threatt: Well, thank you for having me, both yourself, Trait, and Dr. Blackburn. And it really is an honor for me to be here, not just to represent the family property, but to represent my family in general. So, thank you very much.
Thompson: Can you talk a little bit about your family’s history? Because you all got to Oklahoma very, very early. Did your family come in the land run and claim that land in Luther?
Threatt: Well, at the time, my grandfather was already here, and that’s part of what got him to acquire that property for the family. And, bless him, it has been in the family ever since, and that’s, well over a hundred years now, so.
Thompson: It’s pretty remarkable to be able to have, usually as generations go by, more land is kind of parceled up and sold off. So to have that filling station still in the family and to have that property still in the family is pretty remarkable.
Threatt: Well, yes, it is. We had a, in our family, we had this, what we thought was the verbal understanding that no one in the family could sell their portion of the family to someone outside the family. But as things happened, we did have one branch of the family where the kids moved to Las Vegas. Never intended to come back this way, and ended up selling their portion of the family to someone outside the family. And that individual basically tried to acquire the entire land, but, you know, we, as a family, we stuck together and made sure that we did what was necessary to get this individual out of the family. And the most important part was not to have a verbal agreement anymore; to get it documented so that the family is legal. We have a covenant that said the property can never be sold outside the family. So that is a blessing for us and for generations in this family to come.
Thompson: Absolutely. Well, your family started off on the property. They farmed, and there was a stone quarry. So they quarried native stone there on the property. In fact, the filling station is built of stone that is from that property there.
Threatt: Exactly.
Thompson: And then lo and behold, you have Highway 7, which runs on the edge of the property. And I guess Allen decided that this was a good opportunity to take advantage of some of that traffic.
Threatt: Yes, he did. And, again, it’s a blessing to his entrepreneurial attitude, so to speak, that he had that vision, and he built the service station, and the rest is sort of history, if that makes any sense, you know. Because, not only was grandpa able to start selling fuel to travelers along the way, he pretty much instilled that entrepreneurial attitude in his sons. And it was basically passed down to the rest of the family, because as so many members of our family now who have their own businesses and stuff. So it was very good, very good, for us as a family.
Blackburn: You know, Trait, that date of 1915 is significant because the history of every business, it really goes back to the laws of supply and demand. A retailer like your grandfather would have been responding to where were the customers? Well, they started driving, and it’s coincidental because in 1915 is the year that Henry Ford built a Model T assembly plant in Oklahoma City on West Main Street. It’s now the 21C Hotel. But they were assembling parts coming out of Detroit that were being shipped by rail with 100 fenders on a car rather than four cars, and they were selling cars for $400 apiece, which meant that farmers, as well as people in the cities, could afford cars for the first time. The Model T, a high center of gravity with those narrow wheels could go through sand and dirt that you found on oh, I’m sure the highways there were dirt or sand right there in that Deep Fork Valley, that rich soil over there. But your granddad responded to this new clientele, people traveling from point A to B by car, not by rail or wagon. And he saw an opportunity and invested. And that building is so important to us today because it takes us back to that moment in time when times are changing, and here was a man of vision and entrepreneurial spirit, willing to take a risk with the capital, as a good farmer, probably had done well as a farmer, right in that rich soil of that that North Fork, or the Deep Fork River, and made it work. I admire that so much.
Threatt: Well, I think another thing that’s so important about what grandpa did, like you said, he built a station, but it also became a haven for for people of color, okay. Because, as you know, during the Jim Crow era, there weren’t many places that people of color could stop when they were traveling, get food, get fuel. And again, because of what grandpa did, and because of the fact that the family owned 150 acres, people were also able to park out back, rest, sleep overnight, and they continued their travels the next day, and being able to come to a location that was safe and people felt secure. Okay. That was such an important part. And even though our location was not a part of The Green Book, word of mouth spread. And so that people were, people just knew about the county line. And that’s what it was referred to back in the day.
Thompson: Bob, Ed mentioned The Green Book. Can you talk a little bit about what The Green Book was?
Blackburn: Yeah, The Green Book was a publication circulated throughout the country for African Americans as they traveled. And in the days of strict segregation in the South, you took your hands, you know, you took your life into jeopardy, not knowing where to stop. And so with The Green Book, it would be a guide where you’d see a friendly face. You could get the gasoline, you could stay, eat, and all of that. It was a guide that was...there's been a movie made about The Green Book, and it was very significant because people don’t realize that really, in the Deep South, the days of segregation really do not end until the 1960s. Ed and I were both teenagers, and so segregation was still part of our lives in the South, not Oklahoma being a border state, not quite as much of a threat, but throughout the South, it would have been dangerous. So when African Americans travel, they wanted a bit of safety, and that Green Book gave them a place to find those safe spots along their journey.
Thompson: Well, and it’s hard for me to believe that, you know, this is not only one of the only known Black-owned businesses on Route 66 to be able to provide that haven, but Route 66, it goes from Chicago to Santa Monica, California. It’s a very long route. So the fact that this may have been one of the lone places of safety and sanction there, it’s kind of astounding to me. And Edmond is a sundown town, so Luther’s a good place to stop before you get to Edmond because you don’t want to be driving through Edmond after dark and probably some other towns along the route as well.
Threatt: Well, yeah. I mean, you’re absolutely correct. But I should also point out that Luther was also a sundown town, and grandpa’s station was in between two sundown towns— Luther being one and Wellston the other. Okay. But the way grandpa was as a man, okay? He did not discriminate, and he taught us not to discriminate. And so we welcomed everyone, and anyone could come, to the service station. There was a bar next door where people could get libations, get food and stuff like that. But grandpa didn’t tolerate that. And like I said, and what I mean is he did not tolerate discrimination. And it’s hard to discriminate against someone when you know what discrimination feels like. Okay. You just you don’t practice that. And so, grandpa taught us a little different, and even and even with my mom, you know. Yeah, she told me what I could and could not do, where I could and could not go. But discrimination was not a part of the way we were raised. It just wasn’t.
Thompson: Well, one of the interesting things that I read in researching to get ready for this interview is that, really, the filling station was probably one of the first known examples of kind of a convenience store on the route.
Threatt: Exactly. Exactly.
Thompson: In 1935, they had a cafe. And in 19, I’m sorry, 1935, they had a grocery store. In 1937, they had a cafe. And so now this becomes not only a place to get gas and get your car worked on, but now you could come in and grab a few groceries, and it became a place for the people that were out in the country. They didn’t have to go all the way to town to get their, get a few necessary items.
Threatt: Correct, again, and that, this is not the reason that the the station was so significant. Okay. Because again, you’re talking people of color. They can come in. They can get what they need. And the one thing about, and this is what you’re talking about now is past some of the things that grandpa did, he— people didn’t always have money. Okay. And so we have, thanks to my aunt, we still have the ledger books where people came in, and things were pretty cheap back then. Okay, so $0.35 and $0.20 for that. And we have all of this historical documentation to show who owed what, when they got it, so on and so forth. Okay. And that was important because like I said, people didn’t have a lot of money back then. And for people of color to be able to come in and get something on credit. And my grandpa knew they were going to come back and pay. That was not a big deal. And it was a blessing for him to be able to provide that kind of a service to the people in the area and stuff. So it was just a blessing.
Blackburn: My guess too, Ed, is that we know until the early 1930s, there was probably a family on every 40 acres in that area. That’s good cropland. Cotton would have been the crop for cash. So a family, if they had say 40 acres, 20 acres in cotton, ten in maybe corn to feed the cattle and the horse or the mule and, but their income was seasonal with whatever they could truck farm, or they could sell the cotton. And people like your grandfather, and your grandmother, and your aunt, who kept the store going, would have said, yes, you can buy your five pounds of flour. You come pay me when you sell your apples or your peaches that come in when you harvest those peanuts, or you take your vegetables in Oklahoma City to sell, and people typically would come back and pay.
Threatt: Yes.
Blackburn: So I would guess a big portion of their business was that local community along that Deep Fork River. A lot of people don’t realize Deep Fork is a major river. And it had been flooding for 50 million years and laying down that good soil that you all have there. And then when Route 66 started, in 1926 is when they started building original roadbed through there, it was a major thoroughfare from Oklahoma City to Tulsa. When my father was a highway patrolman on Route 66 starting in 1945, and he was assigned to Chandler, because he had the section between Stroud in Oklahoma City or Edmond. And I grew up in Edmond because of that. But that was his stretch of Route 66. And, you know, people go to Turner Turnpike today and see all that traffic. Well, that was on Route 66. So your granddad probably was making a penny a gallon on that $0.15 gallon for Marland Oil or Conoco, whomever it may have been at the time. Then, making money from the local community. I can see him balancing his business plan.
Threatt: Yeah. He, like I said, grandpa was just an entrepreneur, and he passed it on to his oldest son, my Uncle Ulis, who actually took over the station. Him and Miss Threatt. I call her Miss Threatt because she was my teacher. She was also my aunt, but you can’t go to school and say “auntie.” So she was always Miss Threatt to me.
Thompson: Was that Elizabeth?
Threatt: Elizabeth. And like I said, she taught in the the school system in Luther. She was first my teacher at Washington, okay, which was the segregated Black school, and then we moved. She was one of the few teachers that moved from Washington over to Luther, and she continued to teach there, and she was the teacher in Luther for 46 years total. So, but I can remember, you know, when we would get off at the bus, and this is when we were at Washington, the bus always let us off right there by the station. Okay. So a first stop was always at the station, and Miss Threatt knew we were coming to get popsicles. Okay, and so.
Blackburn: Probably a nickel a piece in those days.
Threatt: Yeah. Yes. Well, they didn’t cost us anything because she would just give us the popsicles and stuff like that, you know? But, no, that, oh man, I cannot tell you how much of a blessing that it was just to grow up on that property, to be surrounded by people that look like you. They didn’t, you didn’t have to be worried about being called anything but your name. You have more than one mom. More than one father. Because if you got in trouble,
Blackburn: They all knew.
Threatt: They all knew. They all knew. So it was the blessing, yeah.
Thompson: And part of that is I grew up in a small town, and part of that is small town life too.
Threatt: Yes, it is.
Thompson: All the other moms were your mom, too. So if they caught you cutting the fool, you were going to be, not only in trouble with your own parents, but you were going to be in trouble with them too.
Threatt: And if we got a spanking over here, you can count on getting a spanking when you got home. And I guess that’s why we don’t, I can’t remember any of my cousins getting in trouble, because when you grew up getting a spanking over here for acting silly and then another spanking when you got home, you knew to straighten up, you know, so you just, I don’t know, that’s just the way it was.
Blackburn: Ed, speaking about Luther and retail, of course, a lot of your memories are at the store, but in Luther itself, in 1978, I put several buildings on the National Register of Historic Places when I was still at OSU graduate school. But one of them was Tuton’s Drugstore in Arcadia. And the other was an old drugstore in Luther that had a bunch of Coca-Cola posters around the top, and you could still go in and get a dip of ice cream. And this was ’78. So I’m sure when you were there was still there. But that was quite— I don’t remember the name of that store— but it was still going in the late ’70s. It has since closed.
Threatt: That was probably Jake Loman’s store.
Blackburn: Yes, it was. That is exactly, he was still alive when I interviewed him.
Threatt: Yeah. Yeah. We used to eat there all the time. You know, it was, again, growing up in the small town, the mentality is just different, okay, than being in Oklahoma City, so to speak. And we just saw life different, and growing up out on the property, oh, man. I again, it was the blessing to be around people that thought like you did, that acted like you did, that, “boy, you better not do that, I’m going to tell your mama” and, you know, just, it was nice.
Thompson: Now, this is something that I read that I find fascinating. Did they actually hold Negro League Baseball games out there?
Threatt: Yes, yes, yes.
Thompson: Can you tell us a little about that?
Threatt: Well, my dad, my dad actually owned, a, not owned, Yeah, owned. He had a baseball team. It’s not like it is today. You know, ownership and that kind of thing, but, yeah. But Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, that place was packed with just people of color because back then, you know, it was just, it was strictly Black people against Black people. And there were teams that would come out from Oklahoma City and play games, and not just my dad, but my uncle also had his own baseball team. So we had a baseball field, on the same side of the street that the station is on, and my uncle had another baseball team that was across the street, and man, you, I’m talking wall-to-wall people. And now I was just a kid, so I was just fascinating to me. And because, I guess I really had an up-close view of everything because my dad on the team and my dad also ran the bar next to the service station. And back then, you know, there was no age restriction on kids going into bars. And I was in and out at the bar. I was there trying to catch pitchers. Well, I was too young, they threw too hard, ’cause I just I couldn’t do it. Just being a part of that environment was really, is a blessing, man. It was just a blessing.
Thompson: And, you know, there were also big barbecues and dances out there. And I read that people would come from Oklahoma City and Tulsa to, and all points in between, to go out there. I’ve driven by there several times, and I hope that at some point we can recreate that out there again, because it just, I would have loved to have been, if I could get in my time-traveling Delorean and go see what that atmosphere would be like out there.
Threatt: Well, behind the, and you’re talking about behind the station, behind the bar, they built, I don’t know if my dad built it. Some of the brothers, I’m not sure, but there was an actual dance floor that was built out in the back back there. And they had lights hung in the trees and stuff like that. And they would just have, it was a big party. It was just one big party. So it was nice. And, you know, people get tipsy and again, because we had so much property, park your car, and stay right there. Don’t try to drive. Don’t try to go nowhere. Sleep it off. And you don’t have to worry about somebody, (knocking sound) you know, messing with you. You just don’t have to.
Thompson: So Allen Threatt Sr. dies in December of 1950.
Threatt: Correct.
Thompson: And so then, Grant, his son, takes over the operation until 1956. Correct?
Threatt: Ulis. Uncle Ulysses.
Thompson: Oh, okay.
Threatt: I remember, I was, you know, he was my favorite uncle because he lived right there. And, yeah, he took it over. He passed, Uncle Ulis passed away in 1956, and like I said, I was his favorite. He was my favorite uncle. Everywhere he went, I wanted to go, Yeah. I really kind of get, every time I talk about him, I think about— because I remember when Uncle Ulis passed away— I remember what the funeral services were like that day. That was the first time I ever saw my dad cry. Okay? And, you know, at that age, you wonder okay, what’s he crying about, what’s this, what’s that, you know, that kind of thing there, but I think that because I was so close with my Uncle Ulis, 50 years later, here I am, me and my wife, we are the caregivers for his wife. Because when he passed away, she never remarried. And I remember her telling me that their bedroom used to be upstairs in the service station, okay? But when he passed on, she said she never went back up there again. Okay? And she had an extension built onto the back of the station so that she would have a bedroom up there, but she never remarried. It was over 50 years, and she never made a trip back up those steps again, based on what she told me, you know. And the only thing that I regret is that I didn’t pay more attention when she was talking to me about things. I didn’t listen and remember and write stuff down. I mean, it’s too late now, but, you know,
Thompson: Bob, we hear as people in the history world, and as a historian yourself, we hear those comments time-and-time again. If only I had recorded these stories. If only I’d ask these questions. So do you have any admonitions for people out there about talking to their family members before it’s too late?
Blackburn: Yeah, oral histories are important. And when Ed and I were growing up, and people still sat around the campfire a lot. That’s the value of deer camps and go on fishing in the spring with the uncles, because you hear those stories over and over, and we pass it down to the next generation. But that’s becoming more problematic now that people have computers and live distances. But Ed, I wanted to bring up, if you don’t mind, Trait, I remember meeting you and a couple of your cousins. You came into Melvena Heisch’s office, and I know Melvena kind of took you under her wing, and Melvena was kind of the grand matriarch of historic preservation. Can you talk about when you first came in, what were those first meetings like? What were you trying to do? What were you and your cousins— you recognize the importance of it, and of course, your love for your family and preserving that memory. But I remember you coming in and meeting with you.
Threatt: Well, okay, so on my way here, I had a conversation with my cousin David, okay, and we spoke specifically about you, okay, and how we had this desire to save, to preserve everything about our family because we knew about the history. We knew about the property, the station being on the historical register and stuff like that, but we didn’t know was how to move forward, okay? And again, it was a blessing that we were able to sit down and talk to you. And one thing that, because we talked about turning the station into a museum, and the one thing that sticks in my mind and David’s mind is you telling us that’s not a good idea. (laughter)
Threatt: I mean, that we preserve the history, yes. But that we turn that place into a museum, no, because museums typically are not.
Thompson: It’s hard to make a run at a financially prosperous museum.
Threatt: That’s what I’m trying to say.
Thompson: But I would say, just as a little aside, that in my short tenure of being two years at OHS and I know Bob is, you know, much longer than I have, we talk people out of trying to do museums a lot, and not because the idea isn’t valuable, but because it is a really hard row to hoe to get a museum to be viable.
Threatt: Correct. Correct. So, so, you know, now we’re working to get the building fully restored. We want it to be an interpretive center. We want it to be a destination for people who travel along Highway 66 to stop, spend some time there, find a little bit more, find out a little bit more about the family history, things of that nature. Look at the property. But I really have to pat you on the back for saying don’t do that.
Blackburn: Okay, well, and I remember that conversation. But and it came from the heart, from all of us. We all wanted to do something, but we just by saying, what can we do? And just throwing that question on the table. And Melvena’s connections with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. That first grant that you got for planning, that helped us explore why what could be done with that property. But I remember you and David, I could sense your passion for it. You wanted to do it for the right reasons. And Melvena and I would talk after you would leave and say, we’ve got to help these people. We’ve got to do something with this. And I know Melvena will be listening to this podcast. I would like to give a shout out to her, because she was the creative person who knew that community. Talk about that first planning effort, and then the roof, and that grant from Route 66.
Threatt: Yeah. Well, you say that that first planning effort. Well, it was all about us trying to, okay, get your heads wrapped around everything here and, you know, try to develop a direction. Okay. What is it that you want to do? How do we get there? Okay. And not only yourself, but the National Trust, the Oklahoma Route 66 Association, the Road Ahead Project. There have been so many people, and I don’t want to call names, because if I do, I know I’ll leave someone out. So I’m just trying to identify all the different organizations that have helped us, none more important than the kick start we got right here at the Oklahoma History Center. I can’t emphasize that enough. And we still, I can still call the name the people here that help us a lot, and that being Lynda Ozan, Sara Werneke. They’re just invaluable. And Sara has played a big part in steering us, in terms of what we can do when we talk about restoring the service station and stuff, you know? So, Mike Kertok, the architect that put together the original HSR report, you know, that was the guidebook to everything that we’re doing right now, and we still use that today because the project itself is not complete. Okay. And as a matter of fact, I got to get a meeting together between the contractor, the architect, and Sara, the next week sometime, just to make sure that we’re still on track and moving in the right direction. But everything, everything started right here at, which is so, and Melvena.
Blackburn: Well, it started with you and your cousin wanting to do something. Without that, we in the public sector can support and help guide, but it has to come from people like you, who not only can visualize something, but it’s got to be in the heart. It has to be a passion. And then once we have a passion for something, and there’s so much satisfaction in you watching this thing come together piece by piece must be very satisfying to you, and those memories of your uncle and your dad and your grandma, your aunt. Those memories probably come back every time, and your sense of place is something all of us strive for. Where do we fit in this world?
Threatt: You know, I don’t think that, but I know, I know that there’s not a time that I walk through the front door of that building that I don’t think about Grandpa, Okay? Because, Lord knows I never met him, but at the same time, I do not want to disappoint Grandpa because I kind of feel like he’s watching me. And not just me, but, this whole thing started with myself, my cousin David Threatt, and my cousin Linda, and David he lives out in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Linda, she’s in Las Vegas, and I’m here. But it was the three of us coming together about five, six years ago. Said we have to do something. We have to save this. We have to make sure. Okay? And basically, that’s what we’ve done, and we have accomplished. We set to have three conference calls every week without fail. And we do that. And that’s three of us. But David and I, we talk more often than that because we have to. I don’t do anything on this end without David knowing about it, without you know.
Blackburn: You’re like brothers.
Threatt: Yeah, we are, we are, we are brothers, you know? I mean, we’re cousins, but we’re brothers.
Thompson: And I should point out, too, that Allen Threatt Sr. in July of last year, was added, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Route 66 Hall of Fame.
Threatt: Correct, correct.
Thompson: So, a big honor there, and I had the privilege of speaking at that ceremony out in Clinton at the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum. And so that recognizes his impact and contribution to the history of Route 66.
Threatt: Correct. Correct, correct. Yes, it does.
Thompson: You know, Allen, I’m sorry, Ed, there are probably some folks out there who are stirred by this story, and maybe they’re hearing it for the first time today. I know you have a website, and some folks may want to say, how can I help? What are some ways that they can help, either financially or in other ways? And you might mention the website too.
Threatt: Well, the website is ThreattFillingStation.org. Okay. And we encourage people to go and make a contribution. Because we are, I would say, 90% through the restoration process with the Threatt Filling Station. But that’s not even half the story of everything we need to do in order to be ready for the Centennial in a couple of years here. So if people could go to the website, make a contribution, we would be forever grateful. And, you know, I also, I have to say there’s the gentleman who actually lives in Australia who sent us a donation, and I have some paperwork and some articles that I intend to send back to him just to say thank you. Okay. Because yeah, our story is out there, and there are people who are aware, who are aware of us, but we can’t have enough support, okay? We just can’t. There’s a lady that came over from Spain that did an article on us, and we actually had a viewing of the video that she did at the Overholser Mansion, a couple, a few weeks back, you know, so it’s. yeah, it’s been all good. There are a lot of positives, but we just, there’s still so much yet to be accomplished.
Thompson: Well, Ed, thank you so much for coming in and for sharing your family’s story and for talking about this really important institution of the Threatt Filling Station. We’re so glad that we had a chance to talk to you today.
Threatt: Well, thank you very much. I want to thank yourself, Trait, and Dr. Blackburn. And again, I just have to send up high praises to Dr. Blackburn because he was just right there giving us support, giving us direction, and that was very critical. And you met with myself and David, my cousin, so thank you. Thank you all very much.
Blackburn: It’s been a pleasure to know you and to watch how much progress you’ve made. And you will finish this project, and you will be a rock star in ’26, when Route 66 is the news of the town.
Threatt: All right, all right. That sounds good to me. So. Okay.
Thompson: All right, well, Bob, I just had such a good time talking to Ed. It was wonderful to hear his stories. You can see, I know our listeners can’t, but you can see the emotion in his eyes when he’s talking about his family and the memories of growing up around that iconic service station. And it was just wonderful to have him here and hear his stories.
Blackburn: Well, again, back to the basics of free enterprise. The supply and demand is that many of us want to see back into the past, the way things were. And you can see it in that historic architecture and the story of the family. He’s adding value by trying to do the restoration to provide more experience as we approach the centennial of Route 66, and they are just taking that risk by being dedicated to this, and they really want it to happen, and I appreciate that passion in anybody for getting something done. And I have faith that he and his cousins will complete this.
Thompson: Absolutely. Well, it’s been wonderful to talk to you again, Bob, and we’ll look forward to the next episode.
Blackburn: Thank you, Trait.
Thompson: You’ve been listening to A Very OK Podcast, hosted by Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn. The podcast is produced by the Oklahoma Historical Society. Visit us at okhistory.org, and find us on social media by searching for @okhistory. I encourage you to purchase a membership to OHS to help us continue our mission to collect, preserve, and share Oklahoma’s unique and fascinating history.
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