Postcards offer snapshots of history

Apr. 8—Ninth-grader Emerson Toney saw a personal connection with Muskogee's historic Indian Bowl when she made a postcard about it.

"I kind of grew up around there and I've always been going to football games because my sister was a cheerleader," she said.

Emerson's postcard can be seen at Three Rivers Museum, along with those of her classmates from the 8th & 9th Grade Academy at Alice Robertson.

Students in Diane Walker's Oklahoma history class created postcards showing what they felt were important Muskogee sites. They will be on display at Three Rivers through the Museum's Railroad Day celebration May 6.

Walker said the school received copies of the book "Postcard History Series: Muskogee" earlier this year, when students were studying Muskogee's 150th Anniversary.

"We looked through those books and discussed 'what do you see, what do you not see, what do we have now, what do we not have,'" Walker said. "I said 'let's go out and do some postcards for today. If you were going to mail a postcard from Muskogee, what are things you would want to have a picture of."

Students went around Muskogee on their own or with parents and took pictures of people and places they felt exemplified Muskogee today, Walker said.

"Of course, we've got some of the guitars, some of the important buildings, the Castle, the Depot area, different churches," Walker said. "You've got historical buildings, but you also have Walmart, Zomac Music and the courthouse and the Baptist church, pictures of Honor Heights."

One student shot a photo of the big Muskogee M logo in the school hallway, Walker said.

Students wrote notes on the back of the postcards, as if they were mailing them,

"When we looked at the postcards in the book, they always had the address of the place, and what it was," Walker said. "So I said, 'if we're going to make postcards, you need to put what is it, where is it, you need the address.' So they put information about their place."

One student postcard showed the new Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center and told how the current center has an after-school program and summer program and how Muskogee's previous MLK center had been a library for Blacks.

Another student postcard showed a Boom-a-rang Diner and said the franchise started in Muskogee in 1998.

Many historic cards showed Muskogee homes.

"Do any of those homes still exist?" she said. "Some of the students took pictures of that."

Some students thought some postcards were a little weird, Walker said. "Like, why would we send a picture of a house?"

Walker said she had to explain a little bit about a postcard's function.

"Postcards, as far as historically, were recruitment tools in getting people to move to that city," she said.

Emerson said she learned how important postcards are to history.

"I didn't know Muskogee looked like that until I saw the postcards from the past," she said.

She said it was a challenge to research Indian Bowl, the site of MHS football games and track meets from 1939 to 2022.

"There wasn't a lot of information about it online, but I know it's been there for a really long time," Emerson said.

Three Rivers Director Angie Rush said the museum received a City of Muskogee Foundation grant "Muskogee Reads the Sesquicentennial" to encourage reading. for ages 18 or younger. The grant helped the museum buy copies of the "Postcard History Series," "Images of Muskogee" and a children's book about pioneer lawman Bass Reeves. Rush said many books were distributed to schools.

Rush said the student postcards show how much more diverse Muskogee is now.

"They did an awesome job," she said.

Ninth-grader Aubrea Hayes made a postcard showing Muskogee Public Library and its predecessor, the former Carnegie Library.

"It shows the past and the library today," Aubrea said, adding that she learned "that from the past and the future, there's a lot of improvement."

Aubrea said she does not know much about the old library, which most recently housed the Ark of Faith charity. But her grandmother, Susan Hayes, knows.

"I told her I used to go there a lot when I was a kid," Hayes said.