In the high school graduation thread over in the corral, a lot of people talked about their home towns "not being what they used to be." What did they used to be? What happened? Example.. I didn't grow up in Enid, but both sides of my family are from there. My grandparents used to talk about the "city fathers" screwing everything up. I'm not sure what they meant, maybe they taxed everyone out of town? Any others? Lawton, Ponca, Bartlesville?
What happened to your home town?
- Thread starter csh
- Start date
I was born in Houston. I hear it's still there.
I did half my growing up in Stillwater. It got bigger and they got better at football but worse at basketball... until this year.
I did half my growing up in Stillwater. It got bigger and they got better at football but worse at basketball... until this year.
Halliburton went from having 7,000 employees to 1,200 employees. Duncan and Bartlesville are the same town.
Midwest City was mainly populated by veterans or those who had some association with TAFB. When I was a kid, there was a lot of pride in upkeep of the homes, lawns, etc. and a lot of neighbors coming out on summer evenings walking up and down the streets socializing.
As those folks began to age and move away, for a near 20 yr spell, it starting turning to sh*t. A brand new hotel was built to service the traffic on I-40 and within 5 yrs, it was nothing more than a bordello and drug dealer central. (It was eventually declared a nuisance and destroyed.) Crips and Bloods actually established "bases" in MWC and the schools had to ban colors associated with the two gangs. Houses started getting rundown and it was not uncommon to see old cars parked on lawns or up on blocks for months/years at a time. The local mall, which once thrived, closed down as did lots of other businesses and a lot of "welcome" businesses were replaced by pawn shops, predatory pay day lenders, and other unsavory businesses of that nature.
Now, the city seems to be turning around for the better. With the new development and the redevelopment of older shopping centers the business core of the city is on the uptick. Warren Theater has announced they will be building a new large upscale place in town, near where the new Academy and Hobby Lobby are located. The drug/gang issue is not completely gone, but it's not really much of an issue anymore. The city cracked down on code enforcement and the trash/junk vehicles, run down houses, and related property issues are now nearly dealt with.
The city seems to have a newer generation moving in and there's been some land developed on the eastern half of the city that is comprised of fairly up-scale homes. There's also talk that there will be some upscale shopping to accommodate those new residents are in the works.
Is it a great place? No, but it's certainly working it's way to above average at this point and there's still a lot of room for improvement that is coming to fruition in the near future.
As those folks began to age and move away, for a near 20 yr spell, it starting turning to sh*t. A brand new hotel was built to service the traffic on I-40 and within 5 yrs, it was nothing more than a bordello and drug dealer central. (It was eventually declared a nuisance and destroyed.) Crips and Bloods actually established "bases" in MWC and the schools had to ban colors associated with the two gangs. Houses started getting rundown and it was not uncommon to see old cars parked on lawns or up on blocks for months/years at a time. The local mall, which once thrived, closed down as did lots of other businesses and a lot of "welcome" businesses were replaced by pawn shops, predatory pay day lenders, and other unsavory businesses of that nature.
Now, the city seems to be turning around for the better. With the new development and the redevelopment of older shopping centers the business core of the city is on the uptick. Warren Theater has announced they will be building a new large upscale place in town, near where the new Academy and Hobby Lobby are located. The drug/gang issue is not completely gone, but it's not really much of an issue anymore. The city cracked down on code enforcement and the trash/junk vehicles, run down houses, and related property issues are now nearly dealt with.
The city seems to have a newer generation moving in and there's been some land developed on the eastern half of the city that is comprised of fairly up-scale homes. There's also talk that there will be some upscale shopping to accommodate those new residents are in the works.
Is it a great place? No, but it's certainly working it's way to above average at this point and there's still a lot of room for improvement that is coming to fruition in the near future.
My hometown has gotten slightly bigger. Instead of two tee ball teams in 1986 there are now five or six. Perkins has all of the perks of being a small rural town without all the hustle and bustle and traffic issues Stillwater has. But if you need to get fancy there is an Olive Garden right up the road.
I love it here.
I love it here.
Interesting stuff, thanks for writing that up. I've worked in the area since 2001, had an apartment there early on, when Heritage Park still had all its stores, and even a Hastings down the street. I had no idea about the new developments coming in. The overhaul on 29th Street has been fairly impressive, and I wonder if the BRAC was in the back of the city's mind when they started cleaning that area up. Where was that hotel you mentioned, the one that got torn down?
Sapulpa sucked in the 80's and 90's. Been back 3 times since 2002 and it still appears to suck. Will be back this year. Maybe it kicks *** now.
Graduated from Morris in 1983. A tornado destroyed my town in 1984 killing 7 people. We had some very good football teams in the 80's winning two state championships. We also had some good basketball teams 6 to 10 years ago. Unfortunately our football teams have gone 1-29 the last three years and I think our boys basketball team has only won 5 games the last two years. Needless to say our athletic program has gone down hill considerably.
I grew up in Shattuck. Since we live way out of town, when I go "home" I rarely go to town. Last few times were pretty depressing though. The hospital employed a bunch of the town ... it's barely open now. Small towns have it really tough right now, unless there is some sort of an employment hub.
I don't know really which one is my hometown. I was born in Stillwater, moved to S. Florida when I was 4, moved to Arkansas when I was 12.
Stillwater has gotten much bigger than what my brain can remember, I lived off Jardot and tons of those neighborhoods were not there. The part of Sunrise, FL I lived in has dilapidated a ton since I moved and it is not a nice place anymore. And, I never really enjoyed living in central Arkansas, I hate the swine and it's just a bland, boring place to be. Lived in Tulsa a few years and now living in Lafayette, IN.
I usually say Stillwater when asked, but I add all my extra crap.
Stillwater has gotten much bigger than what my brain can remember, I lived off Jardot and tons of those neighborhoods were not there. The part of Sunrise, FL I lived in has dilapidated a ton since I moved and it is not a nice place anymore. And, I never really enjoyed living in central Arkansas, I hate the swine and it's just a bland, boring place to be. Lived in Tulsa a few years and now living in Lafayette, IN.
I usually say Stillwater when asked, but I add all my extra crap.
Do you have access to high speed? Only reason I ask, if the wife ends up back at OSU, this is a place we will look at to move.
Here's a question I've never been able to fully wrap my head around: why are most small to medium size towns/cities in Texas so much more vibrant economically than those in Oklahoma of similar size and why have many of them been able to preserve a goo chunk of their CBD/Downtown better?
I obviously have some ideas, but its so prevalent, it sometimes amazes me.
I obviously have some ideas, but its so prevalent, it sometimes amazes me.
It was on 29th street just a bit west of Midwest Blvd. It actually looked pretty nice when it opened and was drawing a decent amount of customers off of I-40. I believe it was only open about 5 yrs or so, when the owner was convicted of running a "bawdy house" and the place condemned. The insides were in such poor shape that whoever bought in bankruptcy auction tore it down rather than try to fix it up.
BTW, the City just entered into an agreement with a development consulting company out of Dallas to try and come up with a use for Heritage Park Mall. The only two things there currently are the Sears on the East end and LifeChurch.tv on the West end. My understanding is that both of those spaces are actually owned individually apart from the mall. The guy who bought the mall paid something like $1 Million for it before shuttering it 8 yrs ago or so. (Makes me feel old when I remember we were let out of school the day the place had its grand opening. The MC was Ed McMahon and the "special" guest was Billy Carter! Big Bicentennial themed event with the usual bands, balloons, etc.)
The city is also engaged in a fairly big road and infrastructure project to repair/replace lots of neighborhood streets, install new curbs and ramp up the storm drainage capacity. Currently, all of 15th Street, and all the intersections starting a bit East of Midwest Blvd up to Sooner is getting a massive overhaul. They are digging out all of the existing pavement and roadway down to the dirt. Just started a week ago and it's a huge PITA, trying to go north/south and accessing the MWCHS parking lot.
I'm out in the country so I have a giant pole on top of my house for pro value net service. They have a lot of speeds. My wife works from home sometimes and the speed we have works for her. AT and T has something but I'm in between the Stillwater service and the perkins service.
Oil field dried up, so people stopped moving in. More graduates started going to college, and few returned back home. A school (Class A) that was known for staff continuity and coaches that never wanted to leave, and were really damn successful, has seen 9 coaches and 10+ teachers be fired/resign in the last 3 years thanks to a superintendent who has no business holding the position and a school board made of a bunch of yes men.
My parents moved to Owasso in 1976 right before I was born. Lived there my whole life except for a spell in El Reno from 1979-1980. Mother moved back with us kids after the divorce. Graduated in '96. Owasso wasn't exactly the nicest town until MCI WorldCom and Whirlpool moved in. Then it was like a completely different town and is still growing. I don't even recognize it anymore.
I remember now. I always assumed it was an apartment complex that went under. It sounds like MWC has some people taking initiative to turn things around.
I grew up 6 miles from the nearest town, but 12 miles from Enid.
Story goes that the Cessna brothers wanted to build their first small factory in Enid, where one of them lived. The town fathers dismissed them and went out of their way to distance themselves and undermine the cockamamie notion of the fad of 'flying machines.' They went to Wichita and the rest is history, or so the story goes. And that's just one instance of Enidite conventional wisdom.
Other odd Enid legends and tales:
-had a fence downtown that literally separated the west side from the east side rabble
-awful racial history, dirt streets in "The Ville" at least through my youth maybe even today
-city bailed out Phillips Univ once with a sales tax, then let it die
-subsidized a mall that decimated downtown, now wants to "de-mall" it and bring business back downtown, less than a generation later
-Champlain refinery, a toxic wasteland in the middle of the east side. When it closed, 1/3 of my class moved away within three months
Last edited:
We moved to Edmond in 1972, I left in '89. Seems like it is on a different planet now.
My graduating class @ Deer Creek had 43 people in it in 1982 and less than 600 total in K-12. The high school now has 1,400.
My graduating class @ Deer Creek had 43 people in it in 1982 and less than 600 total in K-12. The high school now has 1,400.
Thanks, I hadn't heard any of that. The only thing I can remember my grandparents talking about was a Whirlpool plant closing, IIRC. I don't know if it was alleged to have been run out of town, or if it just closed up in favor of overseas manufacturing, which I'm sure happened to a lot of towns. Any idea on what the Cessna bros wanted? If all they wanted was some cheap infrastructure, then I'm sure it was hard to live that down.
Northwest OKC is basically the same as it was 40 years ago. More neighborhoods for sure but it feels the same.
Big Oil more or less moved out of Bartlesville, correct? It always seemed like a nice town the couple times I've driven through.