Post by cottonpicker on Sept 27, 2011 10:28:01 GMT -5
SATURDAY IN ELK CITY, 1940’S STYLE
Larry D. Davis
During the late 1940’s when I was 8 or 9 years old, Elk City, OK and indeed all other
rural communities were quite different from today. Elk City had a population of about
5,000 in those days and many of the families had been around there for two or three
generations since that area of Oklahoma was first settled by whites and most of them
knew each other. Unlike families in today’s mobile society, they had grown up together,
felt comfortable and trusted one another. As a result, many of the original families in that
area, such as my family, had intermarried and thereby strengthened the bonds between
them. Several of the old original settlers were still alive and I particularly remember that
Mrs. Ethel Brooks who lived near us at the corner of Calloway & Second Street told me
about “making the Run” to Oklahoma in a covered wagon with her parents. At that time,
1892, she was about ten years old when the Cheyenne-Arapaho Indian Lands were first
opened for white settlement. Mrs. Brooks had been married to a very famous cattle trail
driver from the “old days” years before and later settled down and lived on a farm east of
Elk City, but that story is best left for another time.
Elk City was a farming town with most families engaged in cotton, wheat, oat, or
alfalfa hay farming and Saturday was a very special day for all farmers who looked
forward to going into town. Nowadays folks can jump into a car or pickup and be in
town on the spur of the moment. Not so back then. Saturday was “the day” when the
adults did their shopping or, “trading” as my grandma Davis called it, and kids had their
day of fun away from the chores of the farm. My grandma Davis called Saturday,
“Trading Day” which harkened to the fact that many farmers in those days brought their
extra eggs into town and traded them (bartered) for other necessities or sold them for
cash. She always “traded” at Hewlett’s Grocery on Main Street located across from
where the Dollar General Store is now located and I remember being with my grandma
Bowen when she sold eggs to Armours located near where Dolese now stands near south
Main & 7th street. She usually bought her chicken feed & laying mash from Fred Smalts
on 5th street just west of Jefferson Street.
Noontime on Saturdays would find at least some of our family eating a “Burger-in-a-
Basket” or bowl of red top chili & crackers in Mr. Owen’s Café, at Red Crump’s, or the
Green Frog Café on Broadway. My earliest memory of Mr. Owens was when I was no
more than 4 or 5 years old and he would always serve me a small helping of mashed
potatoes with gravy free of charge. The ubiquitous “Burger-in-a-basket” in those days
cost about 30¢ and consisted of a nice sized hamburger served in a red plastic basket with
French fries filling the remainder of the basket they were served in. It was a full meal!
That and a Coke or RC Cola made a filling lunch for about 35¢. For dessert, freshly
made ice cream or a cold malt or milk shake could be had for 25 or 35¢ in Matt’s Ice
Cream Parlor located on the east side of Main Street near the Elk Movie Theatre. Matt’s
and the Elk Theatre were the coolest places in town to be found on a hot summer
afternoon since they were the first businesses in town to have “air conditioning “ that I
can remember. Most other stores had only the big slowly-moving ceiling fans to stir the
warm ambient air of summertime and which afforded little real comfort.
At the corner of Main & 3rd stood the Casa Grande Hotel, a busy hotel in those days
with black porters and shiny granite floors that sparkled! It was in a prime location since,
at that time, our 3rd street was Route 66 through town. It was quite the place to stay
in Elk City during the 1930’s and ‘40’s since it was about mid-way on Route 66 from
Chicago to California.
Just around the corner from the Casa Grande, on north Main, was the small
studio of KASA Radio, 1240 on the AM dial, our local radio station. I remember going
there with my grandpa Bowen to see & hear “Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys” in
person!! They came out from radio station WKY in OK City and performed on a flatbed
trailer in front of the radio station on North Main Street. WOW!! What a treat and what
memories!!!!!
Heading south down Main Street, toward 7thstreet was the famous “Story Hotel and
Saloon”. It was a building out of the “Old West” and definitely looked the part, but
unfortunately, a few years ago, the “town leaders” in their infinite wisdom saw fit to
destroy “the old eyesore” rather than preserve it. Most of the town council were not
originally from our area but merely “imports” who had no ancestral ties to Elk City or
it’s pioneer past. That building was truly a piece of the “Old West” and a link with
Elk City’s earliest beginnings when it served as the terminus of the Choctaw Railroad
and I still remember, as a small boy, peering into that “den of iniquity” and seeing the
swinging saloon doors and the staircase leading upstairs to eternal damnation! What a
terrible loss and now we have modern replicas of the “old Elk City” out on west 3rd street
aimed at attracting tourists off the Interstate, I-40. It’s just not the same when they could
have preserved the real McCoy!
On Saturdays during my childhood, farmers could get a tub bath in the backroom of a
barber shop and a shave & haircut-- all for a couple of dollars or so. My Dad did that
before he was married, but when I was young, Dad always went to Henry Hargrove’s
Barber shop on Saturday evenings for his haircuts. Henry clipped hair at a pace
commensurate with the speed of the horse race he was describing at the time. The faster
they ran, the faster he talked and the faster his scissors would fly!! Occasionally he
would nick an ear in all the excitement just as the winner passed the “Finish Line”.
A leisurely afternoon “fountain drink” could be enjoyed in one of our four
Drugstores—Swartz, Mr. Gregory’s, Henry Hunter’s Drug or Paul Jones’ Drug which is
the only one of the four remaining today. Inside and upstairs at the top of a staircase on a
balcony at the rear of Hunter’s Drugstore was Mrs. Herd’s Beauty Parlor where the local
women got their hair cut or curled. I was taken up there only once--into that woman’s
world-- by my mother and I was amazed at the whole operation with it’s smell of curling
lotion and singed hair in the air. I was probably 5 or 6 years old but I remember that the
women’s hair was rolled up and each curl was secured by a metal clip attached to an
electric wire leading to a hood-like apparatus. With each curl attached to an electric wire,
it looked to me like Medusa of ancient Greek mythology. The heat generated was used to
set the permanent curls and sometimes, if not closely monitored by the extremely busy &
frantic Mrs. Herd, the hair would over-heat and singe a little. The resulting smell in the
air reminded me of burning chicken feathers and the entire operation looked to me as
though electrocutions were being performed!
Swartz Drugstore, on Broadway and across the street from Hunter’s Drug, was where
all elementary school books, grades one thru six, were sold at the beginning of every
school year. I’ll never forget my excitement with all the new books and as soon as I got
them home, I began paging thru them to see what was in store for me. I liked school and
learning new things !!!
Also upstairs, on the second floor above the Hunter Drug Store was the office of Dr.
Levick, MD… a small, thin and mustached Jewish Medical Doctor, originally from back
East, somewhere. I asked mother why he “talked funny” and she explained that he
hadn’t grown up in Oklahoma and had been educated elsewhere. Mother took me to see
him since I was the proverbial “49 pound weakling” for far too long and something
simply had to be done to “put some meat on my bones”. She had already exhausted all
her “vast” medical knowledge and nothing had worked-- not even the raw egg malts she
forced me to guzzle down every morning at breakfast time. They consisted of two raw
eggs with sugar and vanilla flavoring beaten in milk until frothy. Tasted pretty good with
all that sugar and vanilla, but it accomplished no weight gain. For my condition, Dr.
Levick put me on a strict dietary schedule and injected me with “Liver & Iron” shots for
a period of time. I guess it worked, but don’t really know, since at some point I did start
gaining a little weight and snapped out of it enough to satisfy mother’s concerns. But,
what I still remember to this very day is the ever lasting smell of those unforgettable liver
and iron shots!
Toys, trinkets, candy and nuts warmed under a bright light and other variety store
merchandise could always be purchased in McClellan’s or Goslin’s Variety stores on
Main Street and later in TG&Y on Broadway. All my school clothes for the year were
bought in J.C. Penney’s and I remember that the one and only cashier sat up in
a second level office overlooking the main floor and the cash tendered to a clerk
downstairs was placed in a closed cup and sent streaming up along a wire to the lone
cashier for change by the pull of a cord. There were no cash registers on the sales floor so
the change and a receipt was then returned downstairs to the clerk via the same closed
cup on a wire.
Groceries were always bought from Puckett’s or United Cash on Broadway and I
loved to go into Puckett’s where they had a coffee bean grinder situated near the front
checkout stand where the fresh aroma of “Airway” coffee being freshly ground was
wonderfully overpowering. I had learned to drink coffee which I called “caw-kee” at
about 4 years of age while sitting on my Dad’s knee at our breakfast table early in the
mornings before he left for work at the cottonoil mill. He would cool it off in a saucer &
feed it to me. Right then and there I developed a taste for coffee which remains with me
to this very day… over 65 years later. But, I digressed….now, back to the story….
After suppertime in Elk City, most folks would park their cars at the curb all along
Main Street and the men sometimes sat on the fenders of their cars, smoking a cigarette,
while a parade of friends and acquaintances on the sidewalk would pass by and
occasionally stop by to talk about the latest happenings or news. It was a very leisurely
evening of friendly chatting and renewing acquaintances. It is my contention that this
personal interaction strengthened the very fabric of our community. We were MORE
united and involved back then and, unfortunately, this closeness has all but disappeared. I
tend to think the advent of television kept us at home more and fostered our growing
isolation. It seems to me that after that we didn’t take the time to communicate at length
or keep in touch as much with each other and, in a sense, we became more distant from
friends and neighbors and, as a result, the very fabric of our town / society became more
loosely woven. I suppose this was one step along the way to our present-day kind of
“estranged” friendliness. Seems as though we shy away from genuine closeness and we
now have a certain “guarded attitude”. Just MY opinion.
While the grown-ups were visiting all along the Main Street on Saturday night, the
teenagers went to the “late show” or the even later “preview” which was the new feature
for the following week shown very late on Saturday night. I was too young, but my older
cousins, Goebel Gene, Mabel Lee & Earl Dean always went to the “preview” and Aunt
Mae & Uncle Goebel couldn’t go back home to the farm until it was over quite late.
Aunt Mae visited while Uncle Goebel stayed in the Domino Parlor on Main Street.
So…. such are my memories of an uncomplicated and simpler time in life that
is now sadly missed, gone forever, and not remembered by many. However, I am warmed
by the feeling of appreciation that I was able to experience those special Saturdays of my
early childhood during the 1940s.
©2010Larry D. Davis
Larry D. Davis
During the late 1940’s when I was 8 or 9 years old, Elk City, OK and indeed all other
rural communities were quite different from today. Elk City had a population of about
5,000 in those days and many of the families had been around there for two or three
generations since that area of Oklahoma was first settled by whites and most of them
knew each other. Unlike families in today’s mobile society, they had grown up together,
felt comfortable and trusted one another. As a result, many of the original families in that
area, such as my family, had intermarried and thereby strengthened the bonds between
them. Several of the old original settlers were still alive and I particularly remember that
Mrs. Ethel Brooks who lived near us at the corner of Calloway & Second Street told me
about “making the Run” to Oklahoma in a covered wagon with her parents. At that time,
1892, she was about ten years old when the Cheyenne-Arapaho Indian Lands were first
opened for white settlement. Mrs. Brooks had been married to a very famous cattle trail
driver from the “old days” years before and later settled down and lived on a farm east of
Elk City, but that story is best left for another time.
Elk City was a farming town with most families engaged in cotton, wheat, oat, or
alfalfa hay farming and Saturday was a very special day for all farmers who looked
forward to going into town. Nowadays folks can jump into a car or pickup and be in
town on the spur of the moment. Not so back then. Saturday was “the day” when the
adults did their shopping or, “trading” as my grandma Davis called it, and kids had their
day of fun away from the chores of the farm. My grandma Davis called Saturday,
“Trading Day” which harkened to the fact that many farmers in those days brought their
extra eggs into town and traded them (bartered) for other necessities or sold them for
cash. She always “traded” at Hewlett’s Grocery on Main Street located across from
where the Dollar General Store is now located and I remember being with my grandma
Bowen when she sold eggs to Armours located near where Dolese now stands near south
Main & 7th street. She usually bought her chicken feed & laying mash from Fred Smalts
on 5th street just west of Jefferson Street.
Noontime on Saturdays would find at least some of our family eating a “Burger-in-a-
Basket” or bowl of red top chili & crackers in Mr. Owen’s Café, at Red Crump’s, or the
Green Frog Café on Broadway. My earliest memory of Mr. Owens was when I was no
more than 4 or 5 years old and he would always serve me a small helping of mashed
potatoes with gravy free of charge. The ubiquitous “Burger-in-a-basket” in those days
cost about 30¢ and consisted of a nice sized hamburger served in a red plastic basket with
French fries filling the remainder of the basket they were served in. It was a full meal!
That and a Coke or RC Cola made a filling lunch for about 35¢. For dessert, freshly
made ice cream or a cold malt or milk shake could be had for 25 or 35¢ in Matt’s Ice
Cream Parlor located on the east side of Main Street near the Elk Movie Theatre. Matt’s
and the Elk Theatre were the coolest places in town to be found on a hot summer
afternoon since they were the first businesses in town to have “air conditioning “ that I
can remember. Most other stores had only the big slowly-moving ceiling fans to stir the
warm ambient air of summertime and which afforded little real comfort.
At the corner of Main & 3rd stood the Casa Grande Hotel, a busy hotel in those days
with black porters and shiny granite floors that sparkled! It was in a prime location since,
at that time, our 3rd street was Route 66 through town. It was quite the place to stay
in Elk City during the 1930’s and ‘40’s since it was about mid-way on Route 66 from
Chicago to California.
Just around the corner from the Casa Grande, on north Main, was the small
studio of KASA Radio, 1240 on the AM dial, our local radio station. I remember going
there with my grandpa Bowen to see & hear “Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys” in
person!! They came out from radio station WKY in OK City and performed on a flatbed
trailer in front of the radio station on North Main Street. WOW!! What a treat and what
memories!!!!!
Heading south down Main Street, toward 7thstreet was the famous “Story Hotel and
Saloon”. It was a building out of the “Old West” and definitely looked the part, but
unfortunately, a few years ago, the “town leaders” in their infinite wisdom saw fit to
destroy “the old eyesore” rather than preserve it. Most of the town council were not
originally from our area but merely “imports” who had no ancestral ties to Elk City or
it’s pioneer past. That building was truly a piece of the “Old West” and a link with
Elk City’s earliest beginnings when it served as the terminus of the Choctaw Railroad
and I still remember, as a small boy, peering into that “den of iniquity” and seeing the
swinging saloon doors and the staircase leading upstairs to eternal damnation! What a
terrible loss and now we have modern replicas of the “old Elk City” out on west 3rd street
aimed at attracting tourists off the Interstate, I-40. It’s just not the same when they could
have preserved the real McCoy!
On Saturdays during my childhood, farmers could get a tub bath in the backroom of a
barber shop and a shave & haircut-- all for a couple of dollars or so. My Dad did that
before he was married, but when I was young, Dad always went to Henry Hargrove’s
Barber shop on Saturday evenings for his haircuts. Henry clipped hair at a pace
commensurate with the speed of the horse race he was describing at the time. The faster
they ran, the faster he talked and the faster his scissors would fly!! Occasionally he
would nick an ear in all the excitement just as the winner passed the “Finish Line”.
A leisurely afternoon “fountain drink” could be enjoyed in one of our four
Drugstores—Swartz, Mr. Gregory’s, Henry Hunter’s Drug or Paul Jones’ Drug which is
the only one of the four remaining today. Inside and upstairs at the top of a staircase on a
balcony at the rear of Hunter’s Drugstore was Mrs. Herd’s Beauty Parlor where the local
women got their hair cut or curled. I was taken up there only once--into that woman’s
world-- by my mother and I was amazed at the whole operation with it’s smell of curling
lotion and singed hair in the air. I was probably 5 or 6 years old but I remember that the
women’s hair was rolled up and each curl was secured by a metal clip attached to an
electric wire leading to a hood-like apparatus. With each curl attached to an electric wire,
it looked to me like Medusa of ancient Greek mythology. The heat generated was used to
set the permanent curls and sometimes, if not closely monitored by the extremely busy &
frantic Mrs. Herd, the hair would over-heat and singe a little. The resulting smell in the
air reminded me of burning chicken feathers and the entire operation looked to me as
though electrocutions were being performed!
Swartz Drugstore, on Broadway and across the street from Hunter’s Drug, was where
all elementary school books, grades one thru six, were sold at the beginning of every
school year. I’ll never forget my excitement with all the new books and as soon as I got
them home, I began paging thru them to see what was in store for me. I liked school and
learning new things !!!
Also upstairs, on the second floor above the Hunter Drug Store was the office of Dr.
Levick, MD… a small, thin and mustached Jewish Medical Doctor, originally from back
East, somewhere. I asked mother why he “talked funny” and she explained that he
hadn’t grown up in Oklahoma and had been educated elsewhere. Mother took me to see
him since I was the proverbial “49 pound weakling” for far too long and something
simply had to be done to “put some meat on my bones”. She had already exhausted all
her “vast” medical knowledge and nothing had worked-- not even the raw egg malts she
forced me to guzzle down every morning at breakfast time. They consisted of two raw
eggs with sugar and vanilla flavoring beaten in milk until frothy. Tasted pretty good with
all that sugar and vanilla, but it accomplished no weight gain. For my condition, Dr.
Levick put me on a strict dietary schedule and injected me with “Liver & Iron” shots for
a period of time. I guess it worked, but don’t really know, since at some point I did start
gaining a little weight and snapped out of it enough to satisfy mother’s concerns. But,
what I still remember to this very day is the ever lasting smell of those unforgettable liver
and iron shots!
Toys, trinkets, candy and nuts warmed under a bright light and other variety store
merchandise could always be purchased in McClellan’s or Goslin’s Variety stores on
Main Street and later in TG&Y on Broadway. All my school clothes for the year were
bought in J.C. Penney’s and I remember that the one and only cashier sat up in
a second level office overlooking the main floor and the cash tendered to a clerk
downstairs was placed in a closed cup and sent streaming up along a wire to the lone
cashier for change by the pull of a cord. There were no cash registers on the sales floor so
the change and a receipt was then returned downstairs to the clerk via the same closed
cup on a wire.
Groceries were always bought from Puckett’s or United Cash on Broadway and I
loved to go into Puckett’s where they had a coffee bean grinder situated near the front
checkout stand where the fresh aroma of “Airway” coffee being freshly ground was
wonderfully overpowering. I had learned to drink coffee which I called “caw-kee” at
about 4 years of age while sitting on my Dad’s knee at our breakfast table early in the
mornings before he left for work at the cottonoil mill. He would cool it off in a saucer &
feed it to me. Right then and there I developed a taste for coffee which remains with me
to this very day… over 65 years later. But, I digressed….now, back to the story….
After suppertime in Elk City, most folks would park their cars at the curb all along
Main Street and the men sometimes sat on the fenders of their cars, smoking a cigarette,
while a parade of friends and acquaintances on the sidewalk would pass by and
occasionally stop by to talk about the latest happenings or news. It was a very leisurely
evening of friendly chatting and renewing acquaintances. It is my contention that this
personal interaction strengthened the very fabric of our community. We were MORE
united and involved back then and, unfortunately, this closeness has all but disappeared. I
tend to think the advent of television kept us at home more and fostered our growing
isolation. It seems to me that after that we didn’t take the time to communicate at length
or keep in touch as much with each other and, in a sense, we became more distant from
friends and neighbors and, as a result, the very fabric of our town / society became more
loosely woven. I suppose this was one step along the way to our present-day kind of
“estranged” friendliness. Seems as though we shy away from genuine closeness and we
now have a certain “guarded attitude”. Just MY opinion.
While the grown-ups were visiting all along the Main Street on Saturday night, the
teenagers went to the “late show” or the even later “preview” which was the new feature
for the following week shown very late on Saturday night. I was too young, but my older
cousins, Goebel Gene, Mabel Lee & Earl Dean always went to the “preview” and Aunt
Mae & Uncle Goebel couldn’t go back home to the farm until it was over quite late.
Aunt Mae visited while Uncle Goebel stayed in the Domino Parlor on Main Street.
So…. such are my memories of an uncomplicated and simpler time in life that
is now sadly missed, gone forever, and not remembered by many. However, I am warmed
by the feeling of appreciation that I was able to experience those special Saturdays of my
early childhood during the 1940s.
©2010Larry D. Davis