Weston Wednesday: Nola Jane Gray memories, Part 3
Editor's Note: In collaboration with the Bartlesville Area History Museum, the Examiner-Enterprise has revived the late Edgar Weston's 'Revisiting the Past' columns that ran in the newspaper from 1997-99. Weston's columns recount the history of Bartlesville as well as Washington, Nowata and Osage counties.
(The following concludes Nola Jane Gray’s personal account of what transpired from when she first arrived in 1898 until April 1959.)
The Community Hall that sat down in the park, near the Caney River, was later moved to the corner of Second Street and Osage Avenue and was continued to be used as a Community Hall. That is where Bartlesville saw its first picture show. They had a machine they could put slides in and throw on a screen, and that was great to us, we had never seen anything like it before. Then came big pictures thrown on a screen, the ones that told a real story, but they were still pictures. Then came moving, then talking, then colored. It was a long road from those slides thrown on a screen to colored television in our homes.
About the time pictures came, some people had been back east or some traveling man came through here, anyway, we heard they had seen horseless carriages on the street that really ran. Finally Dr. Sutton decided to go back east and buy one. We knew the day that he was to come home, and I think everyone in town was down in front of the Almeda Hotel (Second Street and Johnstone Avenue, location of Tates Tires today) to see him come in. The car looked like a buggy. It had high wheels like a buggy that were rubber tired. A rod came up in front of the seat with a wheel on it to steer by, and of course it had to be cranked. But it did run without a horse. We had the first sedan that came to town, it was a Dodge. But the windows did not run up and down like they do now. When you wanted the glass down you unscrewed them and took them out and when you wanted them in, you reversed the process.
Schools: Mrs. Blanche Bennett was one of the first teachers. The first house used as a school was built in 1894 east of the Johnstone and Keeler Store in which a subscription school was held each year. When I came in 1898, there was a two room white frame school on the ground where Garfield School now stands. (Note: Garfield School was torn down to make way for the Community Center.) I taught one term there. Some of the children I remember are: Hoyt Huling, George and Louie Wilkie, Bill and Ray Overlees, Lizzie and Edwin Miller and Jessie Norman.
The first public school was organized in Bartlesville, August 3, 1899 and the school term began the first Monday in October of that year with John A. Neilson as principal and Mrs. Mary Hillhouse and Miss Jennie Ralston as teachers. The school term was six months. The second term of school began in September 1900 with W.H. Aston as principal. The third term of school opened September 16, 1901 with R.W. Clevenger as principal with five teachers. J.P. Easterly, who served two years, was assisted by eight teachers the first year and the second year was assisted by ten teachers. Then, in 1903, he was followed by Lynn Glover who was assisted by twenty teachers. Thus, the Bartlesville schools grew in a few years from a school of three teachers and about one hundred twenty pupils to a school of twenty teachers, a superintendent, and an enrollment of about nine hundred pupils.
When I came here, they had laid out and fenced the land of White Rose Cemetery. The only graves that I remember there was Grandpa Lounsberry and Gracie Thompson, the Gray brother's sister's little girl. She was buried one cold rainy day in April, and it seemed so far out of town and so lonesome. There were two other cemeteries that were used earlier than White Rose. One was Silver Lake Cemetery on the Hillcrest Country Club. The other one is in the bottom southwest of Bar-Dew Lake, the Stokes Cemetery, known as Stoke's Hollow.
In 1908, the Gray brothers built the building at Fourth Street and Johnstone Avenue which they called the Coliseum. When it was first built, the whole first floor was a big balcony with a skating rink. The upper part was an open-air dome where they had summer shows. Later the first floor was remodeled and made into business rooms. The upper part was made into a hotel.
The first country club was out on the hill west of Wilkie's Golf Course, Oakhill Country Club.
The smelters came in 1906 and 1907.
There are very few landmarks left. The house at Fifth Street and Cherokee Avenue where the Johnsons and Mrs. Brenstine live is one. It has been built on to, but it was here in 1898. It was the Joe McClintock home. Another one stands right east of and across the street from College High. That big barn is where my husband got the buggy and team to take me out riding. It has been built on to a little but not changed much.
George B. Keeler’s second home set where the Memorial Hospital is now. When they built the hospital, it was moved back on Delaware Avenue and used for a nurse's home for many years.
The William Johnstone home was where Central High School is now and stood in the center of the wall around the school. The Johnstone home was moved to 912 S. Cherokee Avenue, and is now the Byfield home. (Note: It was built in 1886, and is one of the oldest buildings in the county.)
The stagecoach came from Coffeyville, Kansas. They had four horses and changed horses once on the way. On the southeast corner of the Mound, out by the airport now, there was a big two-story house and barn and that was a station where they changed horses on the stage to Pawhuska. The roads were mostly trails across the fields, very rough.
Is it any wonder I love Bartlesville? I have done a heap of living here since 1898. I met my husband here, we were married here, and our children were born here. They grew up and married here. Three of them were born in Indian Territory. We celebrated our Golden Wedding Anniversary here, made our friends here and made everything we have here.
Bartlesville has really been good to me. I have seen it grow from about 300 people and that little handful of business houses in April 1898, to a population of 29,559 in April 1959.
There are many stories of Bartlesville, Dewey, Ramona, Copan, and Vera that are equally as interesting and impressive as the one of Nola Jane Gray. If we only took the time to remember and record the information for posterity, it would be a tremendous gold mine for those that follow us.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Weston Wednesday: Nola Jane Gray memories, Part 3
