Spring Comes to Downtown Tulsa

Tulsa's streets are dotted with ornamental trees, some of which are already in bloom.


On Friday I spent the whole afternoon touring Tulsa's historic Art Deco buildings with Karen Smith of Karen's Tours.  You may know that I do another blog on Historic Tulsa.  Over the past year or so I have posted photographs and text on 100 of Tulsa's historic places.

Modern Tulsa was created with the Land Run of 1889. In 1905 oil was discovered in Glenpool,  just south of Tulsa. In the years following, the oil industry grew very rapidly and with it came great wealth for the early oil men. These pioneers created the oil companies whose names are still familiar to us, Phillips, Sinclair, Skelly, Getty, Champlin, Marland, and many others.  The wealth brought to these men was used to build elaborate office buildings and homes, each one seeking to outdo the others.  Many of those buildings remain in Tulsa as handsome treasures.


Some of the most interesting architecture is in the downtown office buildings built in the period between 1910 and the early 1930's.  These great buildings are missing from Historic Tulsa.   I have not featured them because I wanted to wait until I had the opportunity to photograph the inside as well as the exterior.  In one long busy afternoon I was able to cover many of the more interesting buildings.  I will start posting most of those to my Historic Tulsa blog.  Some which stand on their own as interesting photographs I will post here.  Stay tuned.