November 16, 2007 The Oklahoma Capitol Complex and Centennial Commemoration Commission was formed in 1998 to plan the state’s celebration of its 100th year. Nearly 1,000 projects were completed through the Centennial Commission’s $31 million in funding, including decorating downtown Oklahoma City with almost 100 uniquely painted buffalo statues, helping fund a USS Oklahoma memorial…
April 19, 1995 On the morning of April 19, 1995, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City was destroyed in a terrorist attack when a bomb exploded, killing 168 people. The Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum was created to remember those who were killed, those who survived, and those changed forever. To…
May 9, 1978 The Spiro Mounds Archaeological State Park opened to the public on May 9, 1978. It is the first and only prehistoric American Indian archaeological site in Oklahoma open to the public. Between 850 and 1450 A. D., a Caddoan-speaking Mississippian culture stretched from the Atlantic coast to the Rocky Mountains. The land…
February 20, 1971 The Tulsa Port of Catoosa officially opened on February 20, 1971 on Verdigris River, which is a part of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. The navigation system is connected to the Mississippi River and the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway. The port is a foreign trade zone that imports and exports goods for…
January 21, 1971 Carl Albert began his post as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives on January 21, 1971, the highest elected public office held by an Oklahoman. Albert served as Speaker from 1971 to 1976, and he presided over Congress during the Watergate scandal. Twice during the proceedings Albert was second in…
August 19, 1969 Black sanitation workers went on strike on the morning of August 19, 1969. The strikers demanded that they be allowed to be drivers and supervisors as well as increased pay. The strike was organized in the Freedom Center in northeast Oklahoma City by workers, Clara Luper, local pastors, and other activists. The…
November 14, 1959 Oklahoma’s sixteenth governor (1959-1963), J. Howard Edmondson, and his wife, Jeanette Edmondson, were personal friends of the Kennedys. In November 1959, John and Jackie visited Oklahoma to attend a football game and the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner with the Edmondsons. Original correspondence from the Kennedys about this trip is available on Digital Prairie….
April 7, 1959 Oklahoma, a dry state since the beginning, included the prohibition of alcohol in its original 1907 Constitution. Oklahoma’s first governor, Charles N. Haskell, and several subsequent governors were strong supporters of prohibition. However, Oklahomans voted on April 7, 1959 to repeal prohibition and create the Alcohol Control Board (later renamed the Alcohol…
August 19, 1958 Renowned civil rights activist and teacher Clara Luper, advisor for the Oklahoma City National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), led her students into the segregated Katz drugstore. The group sat at the lunch counter and staged one of the first sit-ins in the United States. The protests lasted only…
September 5, 1953 After the popularity of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway musical Oklahoma!, Oklahoma State Representative George Nigh (later the 22nd governor of Oklahoma) introduced a bill to change the state song to the main title from the musical. Governor Johnston Murray approved the bill on September 5, 1953. Prior to this, the official state…
January 12, 1948 The United States Supreme Court ruled on January 12, 1948 in Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma that Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher must have the same opportunities as other Oklahomans to earn a legal education in Oklahoma. Fisher became the first black student admitted to the University of Oklahoma’s College of…
March 31, 1943 Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma! premiered at the St. James Theater in New York City on March 31, 1943. The wildly popular musical was made into a movie by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1955. According to Dianna Everett in the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, “general consensus remains that the musical has done…
September 1, 1939 After the success of the Native American code talkers in World War I, the United States army recruited seventeen Comanches from Oklahoma to develop an unbreakable Comanche language code. This code was used to transmit messages through telephone and radio transmissions on Utah Beach during the Normandy invasion in France. The code…
December 22, 1938 Workers that were part of the Oil Workers’ International Union in Tulsa, voted to strike on December 22, 1938 against the Mid-Continent Petroleum Corporation over the lack of negotiations about seniority, vacation, and using the union to bargain for workers. Violence in Tulsa broke out, with the police using tear gas and…
May 6, 1935 In response to the prolonged Great Depression, the U. S. Congress created the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Their aim was to employ as many people as possible to build lasting projects that would benefit local communities. The WPA was especially impactful in Oklahoma- 119,000 of 166,000 Oklahomans certified for the program was…
April 14, 1935 The Dust Bowl is considered the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history. In the 1930s, a severe drought combined with poor farming practices and economic depression, led to severe wind erosion of the topsoil, affecting portions of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. By 1938, 5 inches of topsoil was…
November 11, 1926 Construction began on U.S. Route 66. Often called, “The Main Street of America,” the highway was meant to link towns and people across America. The highway served as a primary route for those who migrated west, especially during the Dust Bowl. It holds a significant place in American popular culture, memorialized in…
April 2, 1925 The Oklahoma State Legislature adopted a new design for the state flag on April 2, 1925. Depicting an Osage shield with a calumet (peace pipe), olive branch, crosses, and eagle feathers, artist Louise Funk Fluke created the design to symbolize a people united by peace. The word Oklahoma was added in 1941….
May 31, 1921 The Tulsa Race Massacre occurred on May 31 – June 1, 1921, when mobs of white people attacked and destroyed the Greenwood residential and business district, a prospering black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Massacre occurred when a black man was accused of assaulting a white woman in a downtown elevator. The…
November 5, 1918 The 19th Amendment guaranteed all American women the right to vote in all elections in the United States. It was ratified on August 20, 1920. On November 5, 1918, Oklahoma voters ratified a universal woman suffrage amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution. Passing by 25,428 votes, Oklahoma was the 21st state to grant women…
September 26, 1918 In 1918, a deadly outbreak of influenza, known as the “Spanish flu”, had made it’s way from army camps in Europe to the United States of America. Fall saw Oklahoma hit especially hard, forcing the closure of schools, churches, and gatherings. In Oklahoma, state officials reported the first cases of the influenza in Tulsa and…
August 2, 1917 As the United States entered World War I, Germany began closing off European markets to United States exports. The resulting recession in prices exacerbated existing problems between poor tenant farmers and wealthy landowners in rural Oklahoma. These tensions mixed with anti-war sentiment and came to a head in 1917 when tenant farmers…
July 28, 1914 World War I had a profound impact on the people of Oklahoma. Agriculturalists experienced a steep drop in prices for their goods, followed by a sharp increase as the Allies relied on their crops. Anti-war sentiment most prominent in the Green Corn Rebellion gave way to enthusiastic patriotism. Oklahoma Native Americans were…
June 11, 1910 Governor Charles Haskell called a special election on June 11, 1910 to determine where the state capital should be located. The public overwhelmingly voted for Oklahoma City (96,261 votes), with Guthrie coming in second (31,301 votes) and Shawnee last (8,402 votes). The Huckins Hotel was the temporary offices for state government until…
November 16, 1907 Oklahoma became the 46th state following several acts that incorporated more and more Indian tribal land into U.S. territory. “Oklahoma is now a state,” declared Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, as he signed Presidential Proclamation 780 at 10:16 on the morning of November 16, 1907. Housed in the historical records…