A livery stable in “downtown” Claremore? Radium water, all you can drink or take a curing bath? A meat market, boarding houses (that’s where you can pay to sleep and eat – now we call them bed and breakfast), ice plant and would you believe railroad depots?
Those are all in Claremore’s past, but lest we forget, Dorothy Kizer-Dennis and April Churchill, a mother and daughter who live in Claremore and share a passion for preserving history, have compiled a postcard history of Rogers County, primarily Claremore.
Their book “Postcard History Series – Claremore” is a trip from before statehood when Claremore was a part of Indian Territory.
The mother-daughter pair, from a family of history and genealogy buffs will be at the Will Rogers Museum from 2-3:30 p.m. Sept. 29 to autograph the book. Visitors are welcome to come meet them, bring a book for signing or books will be available at $19.99 each. They are available now in the Museum shop, open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.
The book is the outcome of a postcard collection the two decided was too good to keep to themselves. April saw a “Postcard History Series” book about St. Louis and contacted the publisher — Arcadia Publishing. Now the 127-page book of photos and information — featuring Claremore’s main street (it was Third Street back then) crowded with horsedrawn buggies and horses on the cover — is on store shelves.
From early-day street scenes and businesses to planes, trains and automobiles and personalities, the authors feature a pictorial past of Claremore and Rogers County.
Movies were 10 to 25 cents, coal oil (few even know what that is, now we buy scented lamp oil for our antique oil lamps) was 13 cents a gallon, suits ran from $19.75 to the high end $ 98.50, dresses from $15 to $45, a laundry soap special was six bars for a quarter and imagine “men’s linen collars”.
As the book documents, some things never change or change little. There are still J.M. Davis’ guns. The guns and his great collection of steins and statuary have been moved from Mr. Davis’ hotel to a spacious museum operated by the state.
The Will Rogers Museum, which opened in 1938, just three years after Will’s death, still tells the story of his birth and life in Indian Territory, on stage and big screen unto his death Aug. 15, 1935. It has been enlarged to include a theatre and more exhibit space — and a children’s museum.
Up the road, just a few miles from Oologah is the house where Will was born. Moved from the Verdigris River bottoms to make way for Oologah Lake, the room where he was born remains the same, as it was Nov. 4, 1879.
And there’s Route 66. While many travelers skirt the famous road, part of which was called Will Rogers Highway, it is still one of the best-known as well as best-kept secrets for tourists.
April and Dorothy sandwiched writing and research between their other jobs. April works at Centrilift, where she has been 10 years. The busy mother of Rebecca, who is at Oklahoma Baptist University, and Ryan, a high school senior, she also handles the sound for husband, Robert, perhaps better known as “Elvis.” His day job is at Centrilift Cable.
Dorothy worked several years for Wilbur Corley, who did upholstering and created bow fishing equipment. Now she shares her time with her husband, Jack; father, Tillman Kizer; and eight-month-old granddaughter, Makenna Dennis, daughter of her son. She has two other granddaughters and three grandsons.
