The Renaissance Neighborhood History Project

Have you ever driven by a house that you used to live in?  Or returned to pass by a house you visited time and time again to see aunts, uncles or grandparents?  Maybe,  if you are like me , you have even thrown the address into a search engine and perused real estate pictures  of homes you once knew inside and out. Nostalgia pulls us to places where our histories were made.   A passerby in our neighborhood stopped to say hello to a family outside their home on 14th Street. The woman explained that her grandfather had built the home and her father had grown up there.  She followed up by sending some photos of the home and family.  This was all passed on to me and I am setting it down for posterity.  Another win for neighbors, connections, oral history and the Renaissance Neighborhood History Project!                                         ...

  1911 Tulsa Postcard Courtesy of Tulsa Historical Society.  Used with Permission. Tulsa’s transportation system has evolved from horse-drawn wagons and buggies to streetcars, jitneys, automobiles, electric bicycles, and scooters. (“Jitney” was slang for a five cent piece.   Small buses that carried people for 5 cents a ride became known as jitneys.) From 1905 through 1935 an electric double rail trolley system wound through the city carrying hundreds of Tulsans to work, shopping, recreation and back home again.   This is a short history of the Tulsa streetcar system, including one line that ran  through present day Renaissance.   Before the introduction of the trolley in 1905, horse-drawn vehicles were the primary mode of transportation. Tulsa's horses were well accustomed to the unpaved, dusty, and sometimes mud-filled roads. Hitching posts in front of homes and businesses were common at the time.   In November 1905, Tulsa Mayor C. L. Reeder...

For folks who are as enraptured as I am with houses as I am, here is a place to archive house related content. I'll add to this as I get more suggestions and discover more content with houses as a main character!   READ The Yellow House:  A Memoir by Sarah M. Broom Winner of the 2019 National Book Award in Nonfiction A brilliant, haunting and unforgettable memoir from a stunning new talent about the inexorable pull of home and family, set in a shotgun house in New Orleans East. Red House:  Being a Mostly Accurate Account of New England's Oldest Continuously Lived-In House by Sarah Messer Sarah Messer explores America’s fascination with history, family, and Great Houses. Her Massachusetts childhood home had sheltered the Hatch family for 325 years when her parents bought it in 1965. The will of the house’s original owner, Walter Hatch—which stipulated Red House was to be passed down, "never to be sold or mortgaged from my children and grandchildren forever"—still hung...

  East Dial Building Telephone technology has evolved exponentially such that, chances are, you may even be reading this on your phone.  A concept that would have been inconceivable for those living and working in 1929 when Southwestern Bell Telephone Company designed and built the East Dial Building in what we now call the Renaissance Neighborhood.   The elegant two-story building at 1204 S. Harvard Avenue features buff brick with ivory terracotta trim.   T he double front doors facing Harvard on the south end of the building are flanked by large lighted sconces and a large ornate awning above.    The motif lining the awning is of small robed human figures, hands connected, heads tilting down as if gazing on those who pass below.    Above the awning the ornate terracotta decoration continues consisting of more human figures, scrollwork, flowers, and a pair of shield wielding lions.    These are all classic art deco designs whi...

Dorothy McCormick Dorothy McCormick moved into her home on Gary Avenue in 1936 at 7 years old.  P. Casey Morgan and I interviewed her about the house, neighborhood, events and her life.   As many of her stories were personal and she continued to live independently, it wasn’t possible to share them before now.  I’m sharing them now.  Dorothy passed away in 2021 and her home belongs to someone new.  In this blog post I am paraphrasing and organizing her words for chronology, flow and ease for the reader.  However, I have decided to share the recording of the original conversation with her, that took place in her home in October of 2019.    (See link at end of the post.)  Let’s make sure her 85 years on Gary Avenue isn’t forgotten. ***** Dorothy’s parents were William and Phoebe (Moulder) McCormick.  The McCormick’s would have been a family of five, but their first born son died in infancy.   Another son, Don was born an...