CSRHC Podcast 001 Question & Answer with the Staff

In Director Andi Holland’s office, overlooking the beautiful Government Springs Park and the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center plaza with its’ four replica columns modeled on the Phillips University Columns, at the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center.

Website Intern Derek Quinn- Hello and welcome to the first Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center Podcast. This is Derek Quinn here doing a quick question and answer with some of the staff.

Website Intern Derek Quinn- Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center Director Andi Holland, tell us all about the center.
Director Andi Holland- The Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center really is a wonder, its’ the first of its’ kind in the state of Oklahoma, the first Regional Heritage Center in the state, and we shine the light on northwest Oklahoma. We tell the story of the Great Land Run, the 1893 Land Run that opened the Cherokee Outlet and the development of northwest Oklahoma to present.
    Part of our mission also is to inspire future generations by sharing the character traits that the pioneers brought with them. So throughout our gallery and throughout our programming that is one of our main points that we stress, to all ages, and our programming highlights those lessons of leadership that we would like to see passed on.
The Heritage Center is a four and a half acre facility, the building itself is 24,000 square feet. We have five permanent galleries, a temporary exhibit gallery, a theater, a museum shop, a living history village that has four historic buildings in it including the only remaining land office from the 1893 Land Run and we have a research center that holds all of our papers, paper documents, photographs, maps, and we also have ancestry.com so for those that are interested in genealogy research we have that capability as well. We have outdoor venues for rentals, one a beautiful setting for weddings, overlooking Government Springs Park, which was a watering hole on the Chisholm Trail, so actually our whole facility along with Government Springs Park creates one of the most historically significant sights in northwest Oklahoma.
     The Heritage Center is just a magnificent place, its’ beautiful, its’ meaningful, and tells one of the greatest stories of the American West. Hope you’ll come to see us.
Website Intern Derek Quinn- Thank you.

In Education Director Cody Jolliff’s office located just downstairs from the exhibits, with selves full of various historical replications, including surveyor equipment, a fire chief’s hat, and numerous other historical pieces that he uses for discover trunk or wears for the many events here at the CSRHC.
Website Intern Derek Quinn- Hello Cody Jolliff Education Director at the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center, when people visit the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center events what can they look forward to seeing?
Education Director Cody Jolliff- Well you can see a lot of things, the Heritage Center has its’ museum with five different permanent galleries inside of it, and a temporary gallery, and the temporary gallery has an exhibit that changes out about every three to four months so we run about three exhibits a year through there, and the next upcoming exhibit is called “Farm Life” and it is everything that happens on a farm. [CORRECTION: The next exhibit will be “Red Dirt BBQ Student Art” from April 17-May 8, 2012, then the “Pioneer Pets” exhibit will follow from May 25-July 29, 2012, then we will have the “Farm Life” exhibit from September 1, 2012-January 7, 2013]
Website Intern Derek Quinn- Can you tell me more about the Turkey Creek School?
Education Director Cody Jolliff- I can, that’s the other part of our Heritage Center that you can see that is Humphrey Heritage Village, were we have four historic buildings. Turkey Creek School is a program for Oklahoma history students in Elementary School, fourth graders, and they come in a day in the life of a 1910 school. So they get to experience everything that happens in a 1910 school room.
Website Intern Derek Quinn- So far what has been your favorite event?
Education Director Cody Jolliff- My favorite event has probably been Frontier Festival, and that is during Cherokee Strip days in Enid, and it celebrates the 1893 Land Run. We have a huge living history event in the village. It’s when the village really comes to life. It comes to life then, and probably my second favorite would be the Christmas in the Village, again when the village comes to life in a living history setting.
Website Intern Derek Quinn- Thank you.

Inside of the Research Center with Archivist Aaron Preston at the CSRHC, with rows upon rows of texts from Enid directories to Phillips Annuals.
Website Intern Derek Quinn- Hello Aaron Preston down in the research center, what can people expect to find here in the research area of the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center?
Archivist Aaron Preston- Hi, good to talk with you Derek. We have a number of resources, we have a lot of genealogical information, city directories, yearbooks, information in our vertical files on frequently resourced subjects, all of our computers have ancestry.com particularly for genealogy researchers, we have a small resource library, particular with information regarding western histories, biographies, native American books, Oklahoman histories, Cherokee Strip histories. We have city directories going back to about 1896, we have some county histories. So we have a lot of resources here.
     We also have a large number of oral histories, interviews taken with people over time that have lived in their counties for a long period of time, they’ve seen them grow and change over a large period of time. We also have a large number of photographs, that were beginning to digitize on a lot of different subjects and that’s a lot of the things you can find down here in the archives.
Website Intern Derek Quinn- What information is most requested from your visitors?
Archivist Aaron Preston- A lot of visitors come in here and want information on their family that made the run, land records, we have a lot of land record information down here. If someone comes in we can find their section, their township, their range, sometimes their farm on a set of plat maps, we have plat maps for both Grant and Garfield county dating back to the 1930’s and in some cases back to the early 1900’s and so that’s some of the information we have on land records.
     We also get research requests a lot, usually pertaining to either land records or genealogy information sometimes church histories sometimes house histories and then photos, that’s the other thing people want, duplications on photos. Those are the big things that people request.
Website Intern Derek Quinn- How can people contribute to the archives?
Archivist Aaron Preston-If anyone thinks they have a photo that they don’t want around anymore or their just going to give it to cousin Eric and he’s going to end up throwing it away please feel free to bring it on in and we’ll take a look at it and there’s a chance we’ll add it to our collection and save it, preserve it. Also, if you know someone or you are someone who has lived in the community for a long time please consider sitting down and doing an oral history with us, an interview. Its’ real informal, we just sit down and talk with you about what your life has been like, maybe memories of growing up. Everyone thinks, oh well my life hasn’t been that interesting, but when you stop and think about everything you’ve seen throughout your life it is really a neat thing. So please feel free to contact us here at the center and we can possibly set something up.
Website Intern Derek Quinn- Thank you.

In Collections where Curator Dave Kennedy takes many new additions to the collection and brings them back to life for the exhibits.
Website Intern Derek Quinn- Hello Curator Dave Kennedy, tell me a bit about the exhibits and the buildings.
Curator Dave Kennedy-Well the exhibits and the buildings have been here for a number of years, they represent a lot about the heritage and the culture of northwest Oklahoma, Cherokee Outlet, commonly called the Cherokee Strip. The materials cover everything from the wagons and other belongs that came out when settlers came out on the Land Run in 1893. They include materials from the houses, the businesses, the people, and the places all around the region, and they really help us talk about the people who lived here, what their lives were like, and how the persisted through adversity to make the region great like it is today.
Website Intern Derek Quinn- Can you tell me about some of the past temporary exhibits and some that are to follow?
Curator Dave Kennedy-Well I can’t talk about the exhibits that took place prior to our re-installation in 2011 but for the exhibits we have had since then, just prior to our reopening we had had one small exhibit about the Cherokee nation it was photography, it was produced by Oklahoma Historical Society, and being an OHS property we were able to host that here. Since our opening we have had a diverse couple of exhibits. One was an exhibit on the history of the use of carriages in American society, the other one was “Field, Forest, and Stream”, another exhibit produced by Oklahoma Historical Society, it was about the hunting and fishing heritage of the state of Oklahoma. The great part of that was that we were also able to partner with the National Quail Hunt that is here in Enid, we were able to use that to modify the existing exhibit to show that much more about northwestern Oklahoma.
     Some of our future exhibits we have coming up, one of those is a great partnership with Eagle Marketing as part of the Red Dirt BBQ. They host a youth art show and contest that is judged by H. Holden, Enid’s local artist, and what we’re going to be doing is we’re going to be providing exhibit space for the prize winners. So it’s a great opportunity for us to have an exhibit space in a museum for high school students, it’s going to be an opportunity that some of them may never have again and I think it’s great that were able to do this.
Later on this summer were going to have a photography exhibit from our own archives, it will be about the pioneers that came out on the Land Run, and their pets. Every time you see a photograph of people outside their sod houses, dugouts, or even their built homes they have all the belongs that their very proud of and in almost every single one of them they’ll have a dog, they’ll have some sort of pet around them even if its’ a horse, which is the borderline between a pet and today’s modern tractors and cars. They were still considered animals the family had, and the family loved their animals. One of my favorites is even a shot of a family that has what is very obviously a coyote sitting in the picture right next to the family, so they were able to tame a coyote to be the family pet.
     Later on this year we will be getting in an exhibit called “Farm Life” we will be hosting that from September 1st through the beginning of the new year. Farm life is an exhibit all about the farming heritage of the nation, over the last 100, 150 years. There have been some huge changes and we’ve seen those here in our region. Everything from the introduction of the internal combustion engine to be used in tractors, prior to that there was the steam engine to be used, differences in how crops were produced, how life is handled a 100 years ago and even 50 years in some parts of the country nobody had power in their house if you looked outside of town. I remember growing up myself on the farm we had 3 TV channels, nothing like the satellite and cable people have today. So the really huge changes that have taken place we get to talk about that, and I think it’s’ perfect for the region given our agricultural heritage.
Website Intern Derek Quinn- What about our exhibits interests you the most?
Curator Dave Kennedy-Well I think from everything that we have the big draw for me is always the human element. With a lot of places that you go to when you look at the museum exhibits they might be glitzy, they might have a lot of computers, they might have lots of pop to them but the thing that really makes them great to me and that really gives me a good feeling about how museums do their work is just the story. If you have a lot of just object on the wall, whether you’re talking about anything from telephones to irons to firearms to clothes, it doesn’t matter what it is, if your just showing me stuff it doesn’t really do anything, if you’re talking about how the materials were used that helps, and especially if your able to bring in individuals and their life stories about how those materials impacted them. For example with a gas meter, we have a gas meter on exhibit that was the meter that was put into place when someone first got gas put into their home when they were a child, and this was 60 to 70 years ago, and you get to see a part of their life. When you start to think about before that how did they heat their home, how did they heat their food, and you start to think with some of the different musical instruments that we have how did they entertain themselves around the family home. There are a lot of differences when you start to look at just mainly the differences between how we live now, and compare and contrast those with how people lived in the past. I think that really helps get our story across.
Website Intern Derek Quinn- Thank you.
For more information about the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center don’t forget to check us out on our webpage and social networking sites such as twitter and Facebook. Links to these and other related sites can be found on our “follow us” page.

Derek Quinn, Website Intern

In celebration of the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center’s first anniversary, a competitive shooting competition was held on March 31, 2012. Six five-person teams competed in the first April Fools Shoot held at the Grand National Quail Hunt Gun Club.

In addition to the competition, Heritage Center Education Staff, dressed in 19th century hunting gear shared interesting facts on historic firearms and the history of competitive shooting.
              

Proceeds from the April Fools Shoot benefits the educational programs of the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center.

Winners of the April Fools Shoot:

Top Team Johnston Enterprises (Matt Landwehr, Fred Taylor, Joey Meibergen, Tim Crowley, Butch Meibergen)                                                                                      
Top Gun Don Jacks – Dillingham Insurance                                                                                
Top Trap Greg Liebel – City of Enid
Top 5-Stand Jed Dillingham – Dillingham Insurance
Lewis Class “A” Rick Tozzi – Ward Petroleum
Lewis Class “B” Drew Deaton – Ward Petroleum
Lewis Class “C” Lynn Phillips – City of Enid                                                                                                                              

    In preparation for the 2011 Christmas in the Village volunteers and staff have been working consistently on making the Humphrey Heritage Village a village out of Christmases past. As you can see the Glidewell house is being transformed into what it would have looked like on a Christmas eve more than 100 years ago. When walking in you feel as though you have just stepped into the past and are enjoying Christmas at the Glidewell house as the family has just left to visit church or post a letter.
    The Glidewell house is not the only place that has been transformed, the entire village has been changed into a late 19th early 20th century village in the Christmas spirit that is ready for good old Saint Nick to visit. As I walked past the school house, ornamented with garland, I began to hear a Christmas melody echoing from the Church, as I neared I could hear that it was a trumpet and a piano performing classical Christmas music, including music from the Nutcracker Suite. It almost felt as though the ghosts of Christmas past have revisited the village, I walked into the Church, with its’ beautiful stained glass, having been fully decorated with trees and garland, and listened as Cody Jolliff and Dana Reese practiced for the event.
    Continuing through the village I visited the school house, which had been adorned with paper chains created by the kids, and snowflakes created by Mary Jantz, it was a marvelous sight. Next, walking past the Bandstand decked with lights and garland I visited the village post office. I strolled through to see where the kids would be posting letters for Santa this Sunday. It was remarkable.

Click on the images for a close up view. 

Derek Quinn, Website Intern

During the process of expanding and renewing the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center, many changes were made to the interior of the building. Some of these changes required updating aspects to match state building and fire codes.

As the current State Fire Marshall was formerly the Fire Marshall for the City of Enid, we started locally to see if they could help guide us on our way to having an efficient, but safe, building. During the Fall of 2009, I made a trip to the Enid Fire Department Headquarters in order to talk to the City Fire Marshal.

While at the Fire Department, I was introduced to Chief Philip Clover. The conversation ranged from our museum to firearms to the old fire engine the department owns (and possibilities of exhibiting it). Eventually, it triggered a memory he had that the Department still held ledgers and papers dating back to the turn of the century.

Excited, he pulled out the ledgers and we took a quick trip down memory lane, examining the history of Enid, as viewed through the many fire calls made during 70 years, various budgets and duty rosters, and financial/bookkeeping records from the early part of the century. It became apparent that he and I both shared a belief that a better home for these records - along with 15 8mm reels of training/documentary film - would be the museum that was to open shortly.

Within the week, these materials were delivered to the museum and added to the archives, where they are currently visible. Along with many photographs of the Enid Fire Department taken by the likes of McConkey, Vreeland, and Edson, this helps to round out an integral part of the history of our community.

From pictures of the assembled firemen in front of the first firehouse to images of the Enid Fire Department extinguishing fires, saving lives and property, the history of our town can be seen. However, it is the pages of these documents that tell the tale. This tale could not have been told without the vision and assistance of Enid Fire Chief Philip Clover.

Click on the images for a close up view.

Images:
Selection of materials from Accession 2009.175
Detail, 2009.175.007, showing fire report of the burning of Old Main on
the Phillips University Campus

Dave Kennedy, CSRHC Curator

A new item had just been received and our Curator of Collections Dave Kennedy was preparing to bring it back to life. He called me in order to watch and take pictures of the cleaning process for the website. So what was the item? A meat slicer once used in the Nuremberg General Store in Breckenridge, OK, and donated by Don Herth of Enid.

The first image that may come to mind is the shiny, stainless steel, mass-produced meat slicer used in delicatessens and butcher shops. You would be close, but this meat slicer was made in the 1920s. Now think of the Art Deco movement common to all design during the period and apply it to the sterile tool sitting behind the counter at the deli.

The meat slicer had been disassembled and set out into two parts – the base and the carriage rack. The base of the unit holds the cutting blade and the manual crank that powered the device. The carriage rack holds the meat in place as it is sliced using a reciprocating action. The whole assembly was caked with a thick layer of Oklahoma red dirt obscuring what appeared to be a dull finish.

Dave started cleaning by brushing off the thick clusters of dirt with a soft brush, using a vacuum to keep the dust out of the air. As the layer became thinner, he dampened a cotton rag and began to lightly brush away the dirt to reveal that it did not just have a red finish, but also was decorated with white bordering in the Art Deco style. The cleaning also revealed a plate on the side that showed the patent dates from the turn of the century to the 1920s, helping to explain the style of the pin-stripe decoration common to a period in which commercial tools were considered to be a form of art. These tools were intended to be useful to the owner and attractive to the customer.

For more images of the cleaning process visit flickr

Derek Quinn, Website Intern

The vast majority of the objects in most museum collections are small: eye glasses, hand tools, hair brushes, military decorations, and similar. These are the personal objects of individuals. They tell how people live and spend their time. However, there are also the large objects that tell stories about work and society. One of the large objects in the collection of the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center is an eye on the work and social fabric of Northwest Oklahoma in more than one way.


Longtime residents of the Cherokee Strip will remember KGEO-TV as the first VHF television station in the region. Starting in 1954, KGEO-TV operated in Enid, Oklahoma. As an ABC affiliate, national news was available with a local bent. KGEO moved to Oklahoma City in 1958 and changed the callsign to KOCO.


One of the studio cameras used was an RCA T.K.11. According to the plaque on its side, it went into service on July 14, 1954. After the Gannett Company purchased Combined Communications in 1979, it began a process of investment in the station. This included purchasing new cameras. As a result, this camera was taken out of service on May 16, 1980, after 26 years of service.


The Kleigl Brothers lamp (commonly referred to as a Klieg Light) was used in the studio during the same time frame.

Dave Kennedy, CSRHC Curator

We think you will enjoy exploring our new website.  It was built especially with you in mind! Within these pages you will find all the information you may need to plan your visit to the Heritage Center and beyond to other adventures in northwestern Oklahoma. We encourage you to check out our social media page, Follow Us, and become a fan on Facebook and follow our updates on Twitter.  Please let us know what you think of our new site and suggestions of ways to better serve you.  We can't wait to meet you as the doors swing open on November 5.

Andi Holland, President