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Why keeping an eye on Tulsa’s past—the pioneers and risk takers who built it—inspires confidence in the city’s future.
By Michael Wallis
Photos by Brian Gomsak

I discovered Tulsa in the course of a trek through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma in June of 1980. I encountered familiar places and saw old friends as I passed through country I knew well. But I took my time when I got to Oklahoma, sticking to the back roads, driving past wheat fields and ranch lands and along rivers and lakes. I went up and down Oklahoma’s favorite highway and America’s Main Street—Route 66. I met blue bloods, rednecks, busted-up cowboys, beauty queens, and American Indian elders whose quiet eloquence spoke volumes. I saw towering art deco palaces and beautiful tallgrass prairie. As I would later write, I came to Oklahoma expecting to find bland hamburger. Instead, I discovered a rich chili made of filet mignon and loaded with spice.

It was a good trip. One of my best ever. And the highlight of the entire journey was my time in Tulsa. I toured the Gilcrease Museum, filled with treasures by Remington, Russell, Moran, and other world-class artists; the Philbrook Museum of Art with its manicured gardens; and the downhome charm of Cain’s Ballroom, where Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys invented western swing.

That was just for openers. I also devoured barbecue so succulent that I purred like a cat, listened to jazz and blues that was out of this world, cheered myself hoarse at a rodeo, and viewed the largest collection of ceremonial and aesthetic Judaica in the Southwest at the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art.

Within two years my wife, Suzanne, and I packed up and moved to Tulsa.

Tulsey Town
Between the edge of the Great Plains and the foot of the Ozarks on the Arkansas River in northeastern Oklahoma—a land of lakes, rolling hills, and lush quarter-horse ranches—Tulsa lies like an oasis of culture and commerce.

Forget the stereotypes of tornadoes, dust storms, fire-and-brimstone evangelists, and broken oil-patch dreams. In truth, Tulsa is a city that has paid its dues and then some. The result is a place that combines the hospitality of the South, the charm of the Southwest, sophistication of the East, and solid Midwestern values.

Yet too often, Tulsa, like the rest of the state, falls victim to something of an identity crisis. Visitors driving the shaded residential streets that criss-cross Tulsa’s orderly neighborhoods often comment that it feels as if they are in Connecticut or a city in the upper Midwest. So where does this city fit in the scheme of things?

To tell people about the city I now call home, I like to start with its heritage, which traces back to 1836. That was when a band of Creek Indians, uprooted by the federal government from their ancestral homeland in Alabama, trudged up a low rise overlooking the east bank of the Arkansas River.

Mercifully, their journey of sorrow had come to an end in Indian Territory. Beneath the boughs of a sturdy post oak, the Creeks deposited the ashes they had carried from their last campfire on their native soil. As darkness fell, they kindled a new council fire. At that instant, with long shadows dancing in the glow of fresh flames sparked from the ashes and coals, the settlement was born that eventually came to be known as Tulsa—from the Creek word Talassi, meaning old town or meeting place.

“It was a strange beginning for a modern city—the flickering fire, the silent valley, the dark intent faces, and the wild cadence of ritual,” wrote historian Angie Debo many years later. By the late 1800s, the Creek settlement grew into Tulsey Town, a cow town on the prairie with dirt streets and false-front buildings. But shortly after the turn of the century, that all changed when oil was discovered at nearby Red Fork and Glenn Pool, one of the largest oil fields of its time. The boom was on.

Oil made Tulsa. Promoters championed Tulsa as the proper headquarters for oil captains to conduct financial business and establish their offices and homes. The lure of “black gold” swelled the city’s population as the influx of new Tulsans built schools, hotels, and even an opera house. By 1912, the city was becoming known as the “Oil Capital of the World.”

The excitement of oil discoveries in the region quickly gave birth to great community pride and spirit. Highly productive oil fields lubricated and drove the city as bold risk-takers and daring entrepreneurs from across the nation flocked to the area and left their marks.

There were considerable growing pains and problems to surmount. Some were acts of God and some acts of men. Yet even the horrific racial conflict of 1921, stirred by elements of the Ku Klux Klan, could not smother the aspirations of the majority of Tulsans, regardless of race or religion.

For the most part, residents were filled with a sense of purpose. The 1920s became a time for elegance, mischief, and magic. America was between wars, on the wagon, and ready for something new. This was especially apparent in a city with as much moxie as Tulsa. By the time the ’20s really started to roar, the city was sure of its future. A downtown building boom changed the skyline. Tulsa’s prosperity and the drive to erect corporate palaces and grand homes coincided with the birth of a distinctive style of architecture and design, art deco, that was fresh and daring. Some of the nation’s most talented architects—including Bruce Goff, Barry Byrne, and Frank Lloyd Wright—created office buildings, opulent residences, and grand churches.

True to Our Roots
Every day those of us who live in Tulsa bear witness to what the energy industry has wrought in our city. Folks who were not allergic to hard work built Tulsa. They were people from all walks of life who pushed up their sleeves, spit in their hands, and rolled the dice. Some of them lost big. But all of them, winners and losers, left us so much by risking big money on big notions.

The true legacy of those dream merchants is much more than bricks and mortar. This year Oklahoma—still young and precocious—reaches its 100th anniversary of statehood. I’d sum up Tulsa’s history in a single word: energy. Not the kinetic stuff that results from oil and gas and the refined products reaped from the earth, but another sort—the human variety. It’s what powered the flamboyant fraternity of early oil discoverers and wildcatters. It’s the same thing that stirred the determined Creeks, Tulsa’s first citizens, and inspired cattlemen, railroaders, roustabouts, and all the rest who used muscle and mind to make this state grow.

When the oil industry declined, farsighted Tulsans helped us get through the recession and oil bust that started in 1982, when gas prices went into a free fall and many oil firms pulled out of Tulsa. Instead of turning tail or wringing their hands, Tulsans worked hard to diversify the city’s economy by attracting more aviation, telecommunications, health care, and technology businesses to the city.

Still, we needed a plan. As one pundit put it: “It is time to pitch in a penny or turn out the lights, and Tulsans are not the fleeing kind.” True to form, the citizenry did not flinch. In 2003, following lengthy debate and public hearings, Tulsa County voters overwhelmingly approved a one-penny, 13-year increase in the sales tax for four initiatives that covered a wide range of economic development and capital improvements for the region.

This package—called Vision 2025—has stimulated new jobs and opportunities, created educational programs, and encouraged private investment in Tulsa’s downtown. Foundations and the private sector stepped up and offered millions in matching funds. Several municipalities began construction of community centers, recreational facilities, and other infrastructure projects. Funds were also earmarked for construction of health care, research, and higher educational facilities, the Tulsa Air and Space Museum, Oklahoma Aquarium, Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, American Indian Cultural Center, neighborhood and park beautification, and the preservation of the historic Route 66 corridor.

In downtown Tulsa, the emerging 18,000-seat BOK Center arena (named after the Bank of Oklahoma) has been described as “the crown jewel” of the Vision 2025 program with the promise of drawing tens of thousands of people for cultural and sporting events. All around it, investors are buying up any available property in downtown Tulsa and recycling historic buildings for business and residential use. Locals and visitors frequent the restaurants, galleries, and shops in the Brady, Blue Dome, Cherry Street, and Brookside districts.

Picked as one of “America’s most livable large cities” in 2005, Tulsa also earned a place on the Forbes magazine 2006 list of the best 50 cities to do business in the country and was second in the nation in job income growth. Tulsa often has been fortunate to find strong leaders. Since taking office as Tulsa’s 38th mayor in 2006, Kathy Taylor has recruited a fresh crop of civic and business leaders who keep a keen eye on their role models from the past. They understand the importance of tapping human energy in order to guide Tulsa into the future.

That is why I remain optimistic about my adopted city and its citizens, and why I have no regrets about moving here so many years ago. For me there is no better place to be right now than Tulsa, where every day I see the results of the significant economic development and investment surge that fuels and invigorates the city. Risk takers—thought to be an endangered species—are making a comeback.

Our energy level is high and our watches are set on Tulsa time. That time is now.

Michael Wallis is a historian and biographer of the American West. His 15 books include Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride (W. W. Norton), Route 66: The Mother Road (St. Martin’s Press), and Pretty Boy: The Life and Times of Charles Arthur Floyd (St. Martin’s Griffin). The Oklahoma Center for the Book presented Wallis its lifetime achievement award in 1999.

Live
Choose from high-rise lofts, neighborhoods with mixed generations, or room to roam.
—Chris Gigley

Living in Tulsa can mean two entirely different things.

It can mean being at the center of the city’s downtown revitalization, which is gaining momentum as the sleek Bank of Oklahoma Center takes shape. Downtown residential spaces range from the oil-era luxury of Philtower high-rise lofts to artsy reuse projects, such as the Tribune Lofts and the Georgetown-inspired townhouses in the Village at Central Park. Tulsa living can also mean getting away from it all without leaving the city limits. Tulsa’s suburbs are booming because they don’t look or feel like typical suburbs.

“Beautiful neighborhoods are popping up where people can live minutes away from downtown and have lots of acres,” says Tyra Palmer, a vice president at Hillcrest HealthCare System. Palmer, her husband, and their three children live on 26 acres near a Tulsa suburb called Sand Springs. Her commute downtown takes just nine minutes every morning, but her home seems a world away.

“When people come over, they always comment that it feels so far away from everything. We get to see beautiful stars at night. Our house is on rolling hills plush with trees. I see deer every morning and every night.”

Work
Manufacturers, engineers, and healthcare providers are discovering how affordable it is to do business in Tulsa.

Even when the U.S. economy sputters, Tulsa’s economy revs like a jet engine. The low costs of living and doing business here steady the city’s fortunes. Tulsa’s employment growth rate outpaces the U.S. largely because of strong gains in manufacturing and health care, says Bob Ball, economic research manager at the Tulsa Metro Chamber.

“We account for about a third of all manufacturing employment in Oklahoma,” says Ball. “Aerospace is a big part of that. We have a closeknit and strong industry cluster, with companies that make or refurbish aircraft and businesses that provide anything that goes into helping aerospace companies in the manufacturing and refurbishing process.”

Tulsa’s prominence in aerospace has led to growth in other manufacturing sectors, including equipment for the oil and gas industry. “We still have a strong presence in energy, which people forget since that industry’s downturn in the mid-’90s,” says Ball.

A domino effect is well under way. Tulsa’s health-care industry has expanded with the city’s population and now serves people in rural Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas. A finance community has emerged to help fund the growth in manufacturing, health care, and other industries.

At the root of Tulsa’s economic health is its favorable business climate. “Tulsa’s per-capita income is 12 percent above the U.S. average,” says Ball. “And the cost of doing business, which is a huge factor in attracting new business and encouraging existing business to expand, is 8 percent below the national average.” It’s hard to argue with numbers like those. That’s why many businesses don’t.

Play
The city’s distinct districts offer entertainment, fine dining, and parks to get your kicks.
—Lisa Watts

If you tell them you’re in town just to visit, not on business, Tulsans can get flustered. It’s better to get to the point and ask where to grab a bite or have some fun. They’ll point you to everything from barbecue joints to fine dining, from live blues downtown to lake-country getaways an hour out of town—everything they like to do but didn’t realize others might, too.

It’s that unpretentious sense of a good time that makes Tulsa so intriguing. Sprinkled around the city are a handful of entertainment districts buzzing with restaurants, bars, concert halls, and shops. The Blue Dome and Brady districts are Tulsa’s SoHo, with artists’ lofts, funky shops, and eclectic dining, not to mention the iconic Cain’s Ballroom and the Brady Theater, long-time concert venues. Brookside has a chic, fun vibe with upscale shops, restaurants, and a sushi spot just right for being seen. Cherry Street hosts good restaurants, a pizza joint or two, and a Saturday morning farmer’s market. Utica Square boasts more than 60 high-end retailers, such as Williams-Sonoma and Saks Fifth Avenue, mixed in among fine restaurants and parklike landscaping that encourages visitors to linger.

Don’t forget the Drillers minor league baseball team; they play in the shadow of the giant namesake Golden Driller, a 76-foot-tall statue of an oil worker (see page 185). Or follow the River Parks walkway along the Arkansas to the pedestrian bridge to visit the Oklahoma Aquarium and River Walk Crossing.

Kathy Taylor
Mayor, city of Tulsa 
—Interview by Lisa Watts

My back ground is in business, not politics, so when I spent one summer vacation attending the Women’s Campaign School at Yale, I came home and said, “I will never run for office.” In January 2006, as Oklahoma Secretary of Commerce, I attended a meeting with one of the largest employers in the city. I didn’t feel that the city was moving in the right direction; the city council and the mayor were squabbling. I walked out of that meeting, called my husband and said, “I’m going to run for mayor.”

I f inished my first year in office this past April. I’ve reorganized the professional management team around my three priorities: public safety, economic development, and education. I developed a technology advisory council and hired a technology adviser. I really believe that technology drives change.

Tulsa is experienci ng a new kind of energy. We are investing in ourselves and awakening our pride.

When I tell people about Tulsa, I always start with our history, of how the energy industry built much of this city. If I start with how we have two world-class museums, an opera, a ballet that tours internationally . . . people look at me like I’m making it up.

My daught er and my husband’s two kids all live in the area, and we have five grandchildren. I have fabulous family support.

The generosit y and support in this community is amazing. But people are understated. Oklahomans are humble. I have a speech I’ve given several times. I say, when you meet someone in the airport who asks where you’re from, you have two choices. You can say (apologetically), “I’m from Tulsa, but I travel a lot.” Or you can say, “I’m from the best-kept secret in the whole country, a city where people work together to solve problems and make a difference.’”

Robert Howard
Professor of Chemistry, University of Tulsa
—Interview by Martha-Page Ransdell

My discipline is chemistry, with an emphasis on theoretical chemistry, which uses computers to make predictions about chemical reactions. I’ve been teaching here at the University of Tulsa for 25 years. T.U. has really changed incredibly. When I first arrived, it was a private school. But it was an access point for all of Tulsa. Now, it’s undergoing a lot of changes, especially with residential life and the construction of a lot of new apartments for students.

One of the courses I teach is for elementary education majors. This is my favorite course to teach. We study, discuss, and think about three big ideas: atoms and molecules, solutions, and acids and bases. These teachers can take these ideas and teach them to their elementary students. It’s a great science course to teach, and it’s great to take too. For one thing, you don’t get bogged down with the details. And unlike some other courses, the big ideas stand out.

I grew up in Tulsa, but I couldn’t wait to get out of here when I graduated high school. I lived here for 17 years, was gone for 17 years, and now I’ve been back for 25. My wife and I were really surprised to come back. We both grew up here, met in high school. Things had changed incredibly, both Tulsa and the university.

We lived in San Francisco and New York. There are lots of fun things to do in places like that. But in Tulsa, you get access to a lot of the great things as in the big city, but without the hassles. In Tulsa, you can actually drive to work.

The numb er of undergraduates at the University of Tulsa is about the same as the number of students at some of the large area high schools. We know our students very, very well, and we know a lot of other faculty. I have good friends across the board, and we’re not just confined to our discipline. There’s a community spirit here that you don’t get at a really big place.

As a privat e university, we pull in a lot of people to Tulsa. We have a diverse group of students. It adds to the richness of the city. We have a big population of international students, many of whom are involved in T.U.’s petroleum program. We have students from the Middle East, Norway, Turkey, and Indonesia.

A sur prising numb er of students stay here after graduation. I was talking with a few students who plan to go to medical school, and they’d like to apply to schools in Oklahoma. As I get older, it’s nice to know that I have medical care I can trust.

We ha d an organic chemist here for 25 years. He was the barrier between students and medical school. When he was in his late 50s, he had to have knee surgery. He went in to the operating room, looked up, and the anesthesiologist was one of his former students. The last words he said before he went under were, “What grade did I give you?” That’s the ultimate chance for revenge.

Marnie Ducato
Vice president, Rex Public Relations
—Interview by Chris Gigley

I moved here from the Dallas–Fort Worth area in 2002. I’m an Oklahoma native, but when I moved to Texas, I thought I’d be there forever. I loved living and working there. I wasn’t excited about moving to Tulsa. Now I don’t want to live anywhere else. That’s true with a lot of people who move here. Once you see what a cool city it is, you don’t want to leave.

People are very welcoming. I was amazed at how quickly I got plugged into the community. Tulsa is on the tipping point of so many things. It’s got so much potential, with the development of the riverfront and all the things going on downtown. I wanted to be a part of that.

I helped start Tulsa’s Young Professionals, which is part of the Tulsa Metro Chamber. We’re a work-force attraction initiative that launched two years ago, and we’ve already grown to more than 3,000 members. We’re getting behind initiatives where we can make a difference and make the city a more vibrant place for young professionals. We’ve established quarterly meetings with the city council, and we’re trying to meet regularly with the mayor so we can help make decisions that will affect us.

We Do a really good job of educating people here, but not a good job at retaining them. All our college graduates were moving to Dallas or Kansas City, but we’re slowly starting to recruit them back. They boomerang back because this is such a great place to raise a family. We want Tulsa to become known as a great place for young professionals, so they don’t leave in the first place.

We need engineers. Aerospace is so huge right now that we’re having to go outside the state and recruit from all over. Technology is starting to reemerge, too. We’re also one of the top places for entrepreneurs because we have such a low cost of doing business. We’re looking at putting together think tanks, research centers, and incubators so we can foster more of the entrepreneurial spirit that we already have.

Dr. Leimbach
Director, cardiac and interventional laboratories, Hillcrest Medical Center
—Interview by Chris Gigley

I do in vasive procedures—heart catherizations, angioplasties, biopsies of the heart—as opposed to a surgeon who cuts you open. I use a needle to puncture through the skin and go into the artery. We put a wire through the needle, put a catheter over the needle and put the catheter up through the vessel. Then, we put a little Band- Aid over the puncture mark and the patient goes home the next day.

As good as our invasive procedures are, we know that the best thing is not to come see me in the catheter lab in the first place. About 18 years ago, we started the Lipid and Wellness Clinic at the Oklahoma Heart Institute to promote healthy lifestyle changes. More than 70 percent of heart disease cases are preventable just by hitting the risk factors we know how to treat.

Oklahoma has the fifth highest rate of heart disease in the nation. It’s a major problem here. On the other hand, I have the chance to do a lot of good in an area of the country that needs it. Part of that requires a paradigm shift. Current medical theory is letting people become diabetic or get high blood pressure, then trying to prevent all the terrible things resulting from that. Maybe the future is all about preventing people from getting diabetes or high blood pressure.

The people wh o recruited me to work in Tulsa couldn’t get me to come look for about a year. I was expecting tumbleweeds and dust, but it’s not like that at all. This is a very lush and green area. It’s also a very easy city to live in. It’s big enough to have everything you want but small enough that you don’t have giant traffic jams every day.

Art Deco
Tulsa’s skyline shows off the wealth and success of the 1920s, which resulted in one of the largest collections of art deco architecture in the country.

Stunning examples include the lobby of the Mid-Continent building, the city’s first skyscraper (below), and the namesake on the Atlas Life building (below) on South Boston Avenue.

Eat
Hungry? No need to every order a burger by the numbers in this town. 
—Chris Gigley

Good luck getting consensus on the best hamburger in Tulsa. People feel strongly about their personal favorites, each worthy. We like Claud’s Hamburgers on Peoria Avenue in Brookside. The whitewashed brick restaurant is tiny, with a single row of stools at the counter and a row of chairs a few feet behind, where you wait for a spot to open up.

Get there early, because Claud’s starts to fill up as soon as it opens at 11 a.m. But don’t bother on Sunday or Monday, when the place is closed.

Once you grab a seat, skip the fries and drink. Instead, gorge on a double cheeseburger. With meat as juicy and flavorful as this, one patty isn’t enough. Claud’s doesn’t skimp on the cheese, either.

Then head across the street to Weber’s, another popular burger joint. But you’re here for the homemade root beer. Order a large and savor every sip. The drink starts smooth and creamy and ends with a bite on the tongue. It’s the only proper way to wash down that double cheeseburger.

Sleep
Planning a visit? Try on one of these Tulsa jewels. 
—Martha-Page Ransdell

Built in 1929 to house the oil tycoons who were building mansions in the Maple Ridge area of Tulsa, the Hotel Ambassador continues its history of catering to an affluent crowd.

The redbrick building, a few blocks from the art deco Boston Avenue church, was closed in 1987 because of financial difficulties. But new owners gave the Ambassador a $5.5 million renovation and reopened it in 1999. The plush atmosphere offers a different twist on Tulsa’s hotel scene. “We’re a boutique hotel,” says hotel manager Michael Frimel, “not your standard, out-of-the-box hotel.”

Coming to town for business? Spacious guestrooms are equipped for productivity, with built-in desks and wireless Internet. Here for a leisurely visit? No problem. “We target the luxury traveler,” says Frimel. “I like to say we’re a ‘quiet refuge,’ and a very comfortable place to stay.”

With only seven rooms on each floor, sleeping soundly isn’t a problem. Pillow-top mattresses and soft bathrobes are among the welcoming touches. Check out the ninth-floor fitness room, first-rate bistro, and the library on the hotel’s mezzanine level, not to mention the complimentary shuttles to the airport and downtown entertainment districts. You’ll travel in style in a Cadillac Escalade or Lincoln Town Car. Rooms from $180. hotelambassador-tulsa.com

Tulsa to Me
Michelle Barnes’ fifth-graders at Eisenhower International School know why their hometown is special.
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• Meet Tulsa
• Live, Work, and Play
• Tulsans
• Art Deco
• Eat and Sleep
• Tulsa to Me