Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Susan, Smokey and I decided to take a quick break and drove up to Bartlesville, Oklahoma to rest and relax. Bartlesville is a nice town about an hour's drive north of Tulsa. We had an excellent Chinese dinner at the Szechuan restaurant and stayed in a dog friendly hotel. Today we drove over to Pawhuska, then up to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve which is home to a herd of Bison or American Buffalo. We took lots of pictures, and will start with Bartlesville.


On a hill just outside of Bartlesville are three water towers labeled Hot, Warm, Cold. This is not part of a community hot water program, it is just for fun.


The Price Tower is a nineteen story, 221 foot high tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is the only realized skyscraper by Wright. The Price Tower was commissioned by Harold C. Price of the H. C. Price Company, a local oil pipeline and chemical firm. It opened to the public in February 1956. Bartlesville is also home to the Phillips Petroleum Company, now merged with Conoco.

(from Oklahoma Byways)
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower

Frank Lloyd Wright called this masterpiece the “tree that escaped the crowded forest” when he completed it for the H.C. Price International Pipeline Company in 1956. The Price Tower is Wright’s only built skyscraper. The combination apartment-office building received the American Institute of Architects 25 Year Award and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Price Tower Arts Center offers a variety of traveling art exhibits and permanent exhibits on Wright, Bruce Goff and the Price Company and Tower.

Recent renovations by architect Wendy Evans Joseph have created an upscale 21-room boutique inn called Inn at Price Tower. With the creation of this inn, Wright enthusiasts can have the opportunity to stay overnight in a Frank Lloyd Wright building. Also on the premises is the Copper Restaurant + Bar, a fine dining experience for Bartlesville natives and visitors alike. Future plans for the Price Tower Arts Center include an expansion of their educational program. The Price Tower Arts Center has currently commissioned world-renowned architect Zaha Hadid to create the new complex that will adjoin the Price Tower, complementing the symmetrical design of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Bartlesville is the home of the annual OK MOZART International Festival, a week-long music event, each June. It takes place in the Bartlesville Community Center, designed by William Wesley Peters, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's students.

(from Oklahoma Byways)
Bartlesville Community Center

The Bartlesville Community Center was designed by Wesley Peters, chief architect of Taliesin West–The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Beautiful flowers, sheltering trees and a statue called Suspended Moment compliment the smooth curves, rounded lines and earth tone colors that make up the unusual architectural style. The exterior earth colors are continued inside the Community Center where you will find circular ramps leading to different levels and Crystalline light fixtures that are suspended like icicles from the meeting hall ceilings. An acoustically superb performance hall that seats more than 1,700 is the main focus of the Community Center considered to be “…one of the finest concert halls in this country,” said Ransom Wilson, Conductor of the Solisti New York Orchestra. Also found within is the world’s largest cloisonné artwork, a mural that is 25 feet long that depicts a stylized northeastern Oklahoma countryside. The Bartlesville Community Center is a wonderful tribute to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and a must-see for any architecture fan.