Tour of Henryetta - 2010

When Mom passed away, the funeral service was scheduled for Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at Shurden Funeral Home in Henryetta, Oklahoma. The Henryetta area is the geographic center of my family’s history from the early 1900s. Both Mom and Dad were born within 10 miles of town.

On Saturday prior to the funeral, we drove from Houston to Henryetta and checked in at the Henryetta Inn about 10:30 P.M. My sister Geraldine Williams and her husband Glenn had arrived the previous day and were staying in room 114. We were assigned room 120, a few doors down. Traveling with me were my wife, Judy, and our son, Jon.

We knocked on Geraldine’s door after placing our luggage in our room. She had asked us to stop by for a minute after we arrived. So we did and had a nice visit with them before going back to our room for the night.

We didn’t get up until around 10:00 A.M. on Sunday morning. Jon went to the lobby for coffee while Judy and I were getting ourselves ready. In the dining room, Jon saw Geraldine and Glenn who were just finishing their breakfast. They recommended we eat somewhere else as the food there was not so good.

So Judy, Jon, and I walked a block over to the café which is associated with a motel. This is a place where we have enjoyed eating in years past and it was still nice. There were customers at several tables and the staff was very friendly and attentive.

After that, we got together with Geraldine and Glenn and I suggested we take a drive around town to reminisce. The five of us fit into our Acura sedan ok. It was not the most comfortable arrangement for Judy who ended up in the center of the back seat but was good for a brief tour.

We first drove over to Cameron Field, stopping to read the sign about Troy Aikman on the old rock wall. Geraldine and I both commented on the significance of the wall in our memories of football games and Labor Day fireworks shows we had attended as kids. We noted the more recent addition of some sort of public health or services building on what used to be a vacant lot where I recall playing football games during our elementary football league seasons and later practiced junior high football during 7th grade as a young “Chick”.

I related my first memory of attending a high school football game at Cameron Field on a cold Friday night when I was maybe 9 years old. Dad, Geraldine, and I had gone to that game. She was a high school student and may have had a crush on one of the players. Also, my older cousin, Joe Middleton was suited up and probably played in the game.

I remember being very impressed by the shiny football helmets that the players had lined up in a neat row either on the bench or on the ground along the sideline while they did their calisthenics and other drills before the game. And of course the bold and excellent sound of music by the Henryetta band with its heavy drumbeats, the smell of cigar and cigarette smoke mingled with wafting aromas of popcorn, hotdogs, and coffee, all created quite an impression on me that night. The football players seemed to me to be some sort of gladiators preparing for battle, the pads and uniforms of the home team and the visitors under the bright lights of the stadium making for a rich and dramatic scene. I mentioned how my feet we so cold by the end of the game and remember shivering in the back seat of the car as the three of us left the parking area just inside the curve of the street which leads away from the stadium entrance over to east Main Street a block away.

From the stadium our Sunday afternoon tour took us over to Trudgeon Street and on west over the railroad tracks where Geraldine talked about the old Frisco Railroad Depot area where they used to drop dad off for work or pick him up after he had completed a run to Dennison and back as a brakeman back in the 1940s. The depot is gone and we speculated that the street must have been widened after the depot was removed because there didn’t seem to be much room there by the tracks for a depot today.

Arriving at Main again, we talked about the old Georgian Hotel where dad used to take me for haircuts. I think the barber was a man named Rogers. As we drove along, we must have commented on just about every building we passed. We took the first street south along the tracks, past what was once the Broadway feed store where dad would buy feed and supplies when we had horses and cows.

Our tour took us to Moore Street and we stopped in front of what had been the home of Geraldine’s best friend in high school, Cathy Parker. Geraldine recounted memories of Cathy and her mom, about how nice they both were and how they made her feel right at home there. I noted that Cathy’s father had been a barber in town and one day had come home for lunch, laid down on the bed, and died. That is something I believe happened while Geraldine was in high school.

Straight ahead, we could see the Henryetta Territorial Museum. It was not open for business but I suggested we park the car there and take a walk around. For quite a while, we moved slowly along the walkway surrounding the gazebo which sets just east of the museum building, reading the names of people listed on the individual bricks of the walk; stopping to comment on many familiar names; names of school friends, old family friends, and prominent family names of Henryetta. Eventually we made our way to the spot where the entry arch from the old high school building has been so nicely preserved. I noted that I had never entered beneath that arch while Geraldine spoke of her memory of doing so and of all our other family members who had attended there.

From there we walked north to the next block up 4th Street and crossed to the east side of the street, entering the alley which holds so many memories of years gone by. This is the alley that led to the rear entrance and parking area of the Square Deal grocery store, a place that is very very significant in our lives. That is where mom shopped and had a charge account, where Uncle Robert Middleton worked part-time as a butcher, and where as kids, we accompanied Mom each Saturday on her weekly grocery buying day.

Our tour took us on around and half a block north to Main Street;crossing to the north side. While we strolled along at a leisurely pace we commented on our memories of the various businesses that had been active in our days as residents of Henryetta, primarily during the 1950s. At some point we ended up in a store front where about four nice photos were displayed in the windows of what was probably once a clothing store in the 500 block of West Main. One of the photos was of a Labor Day parade which we speculated was probably around the end of World War II. Geraldine had already made mention of the award winning photographer, Joseph Hardin, and I assumed from the angle of the photograph that it must have been taken from his studio window or from the roof of his studio building across the street. Looking closely at the building in the center of the photo and then stepping out onto the sidewalk, we could verify that indeed building in that old photo was the building which still stands on the northeast corner of the intersection of 5th and Main Streets. The clue that clinched our assumption is the appearance of the second decorative brick stack along the top edge of the west wall of the building. Unlike the other similar stacks or columns, this one is missing its cement cap and appears to have been damaged in some way. It was in that same condition when the photo was taken some 60 plus years ago.

We continued our walk, stopping at the former post office building, now the library, and admiring the old Doughboy statue; getting a group picture in front of it.

No tour of Henryetta would be complete without pointing out and raving about the Patty Ann, that special landmark and outstanding restaurant of our youth. Just a half block west of the Patty Ann was the Henryetta Bakery where our Aunt Bertha Fulton worked for many years and where our family bought Freshy Bread and delicious pastries on many a Sunday night after attending evening services at our little family First Church of God on Barclay Street.

We then headed south on 6th Street, pointing out where dad had once worked as a mechanic at Tiger’s Garage. The upstairs portion of that building had housed Teen Town back in the 1950s and holds significant meaning for Geraldine and I, as well as for anyone who grew up in Henryetta during the 1950s.

The final leg of our little tour took us east along Broadway past the old Henryetta Hospital where Aunt Bertha had also worked and where our Uncle Robert had been treated more than once for severe burns received on the job at Eagle Picher Smelter.

We concluded our tour by recalling the old fire and police stations and the skating rink where I spent many Saturday nights in the time around 1956 to 1959. From there we completed the loop, walking the half block back to the museum parking lot.

This was my first walking tour of Henryetta. But over the years since we moved away, I have often driven around town and even took a bike tour of town about 10 years ago.