May 2018 Archives

Exciting news! Yesterday, Tulsa County Clerk Michael Willis announced that subdivision plats for Tulsa County are now online. You no longer have to subject yourself to downtown parking and courthouse metal detectors to access this fascinating trove of Tulsa history.

We have a pretty big deal launching in the Tulsa County Clerk's Office. After a lot of work, we have placed all the plats in Tulsa County on our website for free. I'm fortunate to have a great team that has worked hard to keep adding content to our website. If you're looking for a plat or some historical documents, you might check my website at http://www.countyclerk.tulsacounty.org/Home/Land and click one of the links near the top.

There are three categories of new content, each with its own index page:

Subdivision plats: A plat subdivides a large parcel of land into blocks and lots, which then become the fundamental unit of land ownership. Plats will also show public streets, common areas and private streets (typical for gated communities), easements, and covenants. Each city or town in the county has an original townsite -- Tulsa's consists of the tilted grid that runs parallel and perpendicular to the Frisco tracks -- and you will also find plats for towns like Red Fork, West Tulsa, Carbondale, Garden City, Dawson, Alsuma, and Highland Park that were ultimately annexed into the City of Tulsa.

Townsite plats, along with the plats of many older subdivisions, have the original street names, before they were renamed and renumbered to conform to Tulsa's grid. For example, the plat for the Orcutt Addition shows that what we know now as 15th Street between Peoria and Victor Avenues was originally called Cherry Street, and what we now know as Peoria was called Pine, and there's now a coffee house at the corner of Cherry and Jasmine.

Some of the plats show other interesting features. For example, the Park Hill Addition (just west of Owen Park) shows the route of the Oklahoma Union Traction Co. street railway (the company that also ran the electric interurban to Sapulpa), with a branch that terminates in Owen Park and another that continues along Easton Street. A proposed "subway" (underpass) is shown on Brady Street, which presumably would have replaced the streetcar's at-grade crossing of the MK&T railroad line. The plat for Irving Place shows the OUT line continuing west and around the Washington Irving Monument, which commemorates his visit to the area in 1832, as recorded in his book A Tour on the Prairies. The Owen Place addition shows a branch of the rival Tulsa Street Railway on Nogales Avenue terminating in a loop north of the MK&T tracks.

The plats page also includes the Comprehensive 1955 Zoning Map for the City of Tulsa, from the brief period when the city had extra-territorial zoning power within a five-mile radius of the city limits, a power that the courts nullified as the result of a lawsuit brought by the owner of Jamil's Steakhouse.

Platted indexes: The County Clerk logs deeds and other real-estate-related instruments (e.g., easements, condemnations, mortgages, lien releases, mortgage assignments, oil and gas leases) sequentially in books, but how do you find everything that might pertain to a specific lot? It's done with computers now, but previously paper indexes were used. The indexes are organized into a page (or more) for each subdivision and block, as each new deed is recorded. These books are now scanned and posted by subdivision and block. For example, on September 12, 1940, Ira D. and Ruth Crews sold Lot 1 and the north 2 feet of Lot 2 of Lamb Addition (southwest corner of Archer and Louisville) to a certain J. Robert Wills (a bandleader with a new hit record and a new bride). About a month later, Wills and his wife mortgaged the home with First National Bank of Anadarko for $3200, and a few days later the mortgage was assigned to Federal National Mortgage. He and his wife sold the property on February 13, 1946, to Mr. & Mrs. Robert E. Berry.

From the index for Johansen Acres Amended Block 3, we learn that James R. and Betty L. Wills bought lot 11 on May 23, 1958, and sold it on March 17, 1960. This would have been during the period that Bob returned to Tulsa and reunited with brother Johnnie Lee's band at Cain's Ballroom from roughly 1957 to 1959.

Unplatted indexes: What about land that isn't part of a subdivision? This land is usually described in terms of fractions of a section (square mile) within one of the statewide grid of 6-mile by 6-mile townships, e.g., the E 1/2 of the NW 1/4 of the SE 1/4 of Section 16, Township 17N, Range 5E. Unplatted indexes are organized by township and section, with markings to show which quarter-quarter sections are affected by a given instrument. While land can be divvied up in ways other than quarters and halves, the index provides a quick guide to which instruments might affect a given parcel, which then has to be confirmed by looking up the documents themselves. This is where you'd look to find the history of a currently platted parcel before it was platted. The index for Section 19, Township 19N, Range 13E -- 31st to 41st, Peoria to Lewis -- begins with a long list of allotments from the Creek Nation to various members of the Perryman family and others. O. Davis received an allotment deed for 2.5 acres on August 16, 1905, and on September 16 and 17, 1912, the Creek Nation removed restrictions on O. Davis's property. Using the index to read the original documents (or typed transcriptions) might tell an interesting story.

You can use these tools to trace your own family's history, too. I learned that in a little over a month's time will be the 40th anniversary of my parents buying our home -- I was in high school at the time.

I am grateful to Tulsa County Clerk Michael Willis for devoting his office's resources to making this happen and to the Tulsa County Republican voters who were wise enough two years ago to nominate Willis and end the 32-year reign of the Hastings-Wilson-Key-Rothman dynasty, a succession of County Clerks that stood in the way of greater public access to public records. Sometimes your vote actually makes a practical difference. We look forward to the results of Willis's ongoing efforts to make County Clerk records easily accessible to the public.

MORE: Historical Map Works has land ownership maps of the Creek Nation from 1910, Creek Nation 1910 Township Plats by Hastain and Model Printing Company. You can view and zoom the maps online, but you have to pay to download them.

It's a little strange to see Creek Nation boundaries being used as an organizing principle for maps made after statehood in 1907, but 1910 is soon enough that these maps may show Dawes Commission allotments to Muscogee Creek Indians and Freedmen. Surplus land would have been purchased by the U. S. Government from the Creek Nation and sold to other interested parties. I'm not sure if the color code (yellow or white) or notation (C or F followed by a four-digit number) indicates whether the land was allotted to an enrolled Creek or sold to a non-Creek. The maps show familiar Creek family names like Perryman, Tiger, Harjo, Yahola, Fixico, Rentie, Bible, and McIntosh, and family names that would be used for creek and park and subdivision names, like Berryhill, Woodward, Clinton, Childers, Hodge, Orcutt, Crowell, Fry, and Haikey.

The NW 1/4 of the SE 1/4 of Section 22, Township 19 North, Range 12 East, was Sue A. Bland's allotment. That's roughly between 36th Street, 38th Street, Yukon Ave, and 25th West Ave., and that's where oil was first struck in Tulsa County in 1901.

Three women named Glenn, Mabel C., Gracie, and Ida E., had 160-acre allotments in Township 17 North, Range 12 East. In 1905, Ida E. Glenn's allotment in the SE 1/4 of Section 10 was the site of the first well in the Glenn Pool, a massive discovery that would make Tulsa the Oil Capital of the World. The deed index for that section shows that I. E. Glenn received her allotment from the Creek Nation on August 28, 1903, and an oil and gas lease with W. S. Guthrie et al. was recorded on January 12, 1906, and renewed on March 9, 1908. The index for this square mile of land records oil and gas leases, pipeline right of way and conveyance, mineral rights, and many other transactions involving dozens of oil and gas companies over nine decades.

Lecture 24 from Doug Allen's History of Urban Form course describes Savannah's unique plan of wards, squares, blocks, and lots, originally developed for a small British outpost not far from Spanish territory, but replicated to enlarge the historic city. Allen shows how the dimensions and arrangement of streets and lots has facilitated adaptation and reuse in ways that the Gen. Oglethorpe could not have foreseen.

UPDATED: Gov. Fallin signed SB1140 on Friday evening, May 11, 2018.

The Oklahoma legislature has approved (UPDATE: and Gov. Fallin has signed) a bill, SB1140, protecting the rights of an adoption agency to use its own judgment and principles in finding the best home for a child. That seems like a common-sense measure, but common sense is not so common these days.

The bill is on Gov. Fallin's desk. Because the Legislature has adjourned, she must sign the bill before it becomes law. If she opts not to sign within 10 days of adjournment, the bill is effectively vetoes, a "pocket veto." She is under pressure from fascists inside and outside Oklahoma to veto the bill. The belief that children are better off with a mother and father qualifies as hate speech in the minds of the totalitarian vanguard of the Sexual Revolution. The welfare of children is not as important as protecting "sexual minorities" against any hint of any attitude about their habits and lusts that falls short of celebration.

I sent an email through the Governor's website. In addition to emailing, you can phone the governor's office and leave a message 24 hours a day at 405-522-8857 (press 6 to leave a message), or speak to someone during office hours at 405-521-2342. (UPDATE: You can now phone to thank her for her signature.)

I am writing to urge you to sign SB1140 into law. This bill is an important protection for adoption agencies, parents giving up their children for adoption, and of course the children themselves. Agencies should be allowed to use their best judgment, informed by what their faith teaches them about families, parenting, and human nature, to provide the best possible home for children, without second-guessing from outsiders who are more interested in attacking conservative views of family and marriage than helping kids.

I've heard there's a great deal of pressure to veto this bill. Please remember that the people complaining the loudest about this bill are the same Leftists who trash-talk Oklahoma continually. They hate Oklahoma's conservatism, and they hate that Oklahomans elect Republicans like yourself to office. They won't suddenly start loving Oklahoma if you veto this bill. The Leftists won't rest until Oklahoma has been turned into another failed leftist state like California.

(When I posted this on Facebook, someone pointed out that California has a massive economy and shouldn't be considered a failed state. I pointed out the massive outward migration from California and massive income inequality. California is increasingly unaffordable for those who are neither a tech or entertainment mogul nor on the government payroll (either as an employee or a dependent) thanks to high taxes for leftist boondoggles and regulations that stifle home construction and business formation and retention. Farmers in the fertile Central Valley suffer from policies that divert water from agriculture for the benefit of cities and environmentalists. If it weren't for California's natural beauty and mild climate, the exodus would be more rapid than it is. It's hardly an example for other states to follow.)

Oklahomans for Life have issued this statement about SB1140:

This vitally important legislation promotes life by encouraging adoption. Adoption is a positive alternative to abortion for a mother who feels unable to raise a child. Senate Bill 1140 will result in more, rather than fewer, groups being able to assist in facilitating adoptions, and that will result in fewer babies being aborted.

Many women considering abortion wind up choosing life due to encouragement on religious grounds. Faith-based adoption organizations often provide that added encouragement to choose life. SB 1140 is a conscience-protection law which would protect the religious freedom of non-profit groups to facilitate adoptions consistent with their faith.

Attorney David French, writing for National Review, explains what's at stake:

...the issue is whether religious adoption agencies can be forced to place children in family arrangements that violate the agency's "religious or moral convictions or policies." In other words, if she signs the bill, then Oklahoma can't force a Catholic or Protestant adoption agency to place adopted children with, say, single parents or same-sex families. It does not prohibit or interfere with the right of any other adoption agency to implement contrary policies. It does not ban same-sex adoption in the state. Here's the key language of the statute:

To the extent allowed by federal law, no private childplacing agency shall be required to perform, assist, counsel, recommend, consent to, refer, or participate in any placement of a child for foster care or adoption when the proposed placement would violate the agency's written religious or moral convictions or policies.

In the real world, this bill would have the effect of increasing child placement options in the state. Many religious adoption agencies would rather shut down than violate their religious purpose. The statute allows them to stay open, and it of course allows different agencies with different policies to place children in the homes of their choice. It's a win/win . . . Unless, of course, you seek to use the power of the state to force religious organizations to join the sexual revolution....

French speaks from experience that religious agencies close if the law won't allow them to operate according to their religious convictions, and he links to a list of places where this has already happened -- Massachusetts, California, Illinois, and the District of Columbia. This is not a phantom menace but a real threat faced by faith-based adoption agencies.

French says that Fallin's action on the bill will have an even greater impact beyond its help for adoption agencies.

Each governor who capitulates grants the [corporate and activist] bullies greater power. Each governor who resists diminishes the threat. As red states one-by-one choose to protect religious freedom, corporations will face a real cost if they choose to prioritize extremist conceptions of "social justice" over genuine tolerance and genuine diversity. In short, the best way to end corporate boycotts is to resist corporate boycotts.

French has confidence that Gov. Fallin will do the right thing. Let's do what we can to encourage her in that direction. (UPDATE: She did the right thing. Let's thank Gov. Fallin for her wise decision.)

RELATED: Them Before Us is an organization advocating for "children's rights before adult desires." (That's their graphic up above in this article.)

"I want my mom and dad to love me, and I want them to love each other." -- Jocie, age 7

Josie's statement illustrates the universal human longing to be known and loved by the two people responsible for one's existence. Those longings should inform how we talk about marriage and family because children have the most at stake in these conversations. If children could order their own world, it would be one where their mother and father loved them and loved each other throughout their childhood. Children crave both maternal and paternal love, and they feel secure when they see their parents loving each other. It's what they're made for. It's what they long for. And yet, you will seldom hear Jocie's perspective in discussions on marriage or family. Adults dominate these conversations because they hold all of the power.

Them Before Us is changing that.

We focus the discussion on family structure around those who are hit hardest by non-marital childbearing, who are the casualties of no-fault divorce and the redefinition of marriage, or who are intentionally subjected to motherlessness or fatherlessness through reproductive technologies - the children. Kids can't organize, advocate, or defend their own interests. But we can. Them Before Us is here to advocate for children by focusing on the child's perspective through stories and studies. We'll view questions about family from their perspective through their own words.

Children deserve to be heard. Them Before Us is listening.

In their position statement on adoption, Them Before Us says the process must be about the child's needs, not adult "rights":

Them Before Us supports adoption, when it is properly understood. Adoption must always be viewed as a child-centric institution, not simply as a means for adults to have children.

No adult - heterosexual, homosexual, or single- has a "right" to adopt.

Rather, every child has a right to parents.

In adoption, the intended parents are not the clients. The child is the client....

We support adoption agencies who prioritize placing children with married heterosexual couples, especially when those couples also fulfill other needed criteria [detailed in the linked statement]. We therefore reject the assertion that gay couples or singles should have "equal access" to adopted children. Adoption agencies need the freedom to evaluate all factors when placing a child, including the gender and marital status of the adoptive family.

I have a confession to make. I've become a soap opera addict.

At least I can indulge my habit without plopping myself on the sofa for hours. I can catch up on the latest episode while running errands.

This addiction has its roots in a five-week business trip to London in February and March 1989. I was there on behalf of a long-defunct company called Burtek, to integrate a Flight Management System into a 737 Ground Maintenance Simulator, which ran on a PDP 11/70. The work was done at the British Airways maintenance training facility at Viscount House, on the southeast side of Heathrow Airport, near Hatton Cross station. After a long flight with little sleep, following a bomb scare at Atlanta, I arrived at Gatwick Airport with my luggage and a 10 MB removable disk pack the size of a large pizza (the DEC RL02), got in my Vauxhall rental from Avis and drove an hour on the "wrong" side of the M25 to my hotel, the Berkeley Arms in Cranford near Heathrow.

The hotel room had two skinny twin beds, tea-making facilities (hot water kettle, cups, saucers, teabags, and packaged chocolate chip "biscuits"), and a radio system with speakers in the bedroom and bathroom. You could push a button to select between BBC Radio 1 (pop music), Radio 4 (news and spoken word programming), and Capital Radio (local commercial radio).

I tended to listen to Radio 4 in the car. It was an interesting mix: This Day in Parliament, the Daily Service (a short worship service live from All Souls Church, Langham Place, next door to the BBC's Broadcasting House), dramatizations of classic literature (Tolstoy and Trollope's), new dramas, international rugby matches, Alistair Cooke's Letter from America, panel quiz shows (long-running programs like "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" and "Just a Minute," in which a group of entertainers compete for laughs as much as points), and, late at night, the Shipping Forecast.

I worked every weekday evening from 2 pm to 10 pm. The schedule allowed me mornings to explore London, weekends to travel out of town. Often I would be in the car on the way to work when I'd hear a jaunty folk tune announcing the beginning the afternoon rebroadcast of a daily BBC serial called The Archers.

The Archers has been running on a daily basis since 1951, over 18,500 episodes as of this writing. One of the original actors, Norman Painting, played lead character Phil Archer from the series start until his death in 2009. Patricia Greene, who plays Phil's widow Jill, joined the series in 1957 and is still a cast regular 61 years later, holding the record for longest serving actor in a soap opera.

Set in the fictional village of Ambridge in the fictional West Midlands county of Borsetshire, the program was created jointly by the BBC and the government's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food as a stealthy way to educate farmers about modern farming practices. In the mid-'70s the program was modernized, and story lines were shifted to modern social issues, with the odd bit of farming advice still included. A 1960 spoof on Beyond Our Ken, imagining The Archers refashioned as an American-style police procedural, (think Dragnet), turned out to be somewhat prophetic.

There are six 12.5 minute episodes each week, and a 75-minute omnibus edition, concatenating all six episodes, goes out on Sundays. Each episode weaves together three or four ongoing story lines, with scenes separated by a couple of seconds of silence.

When I first heard the program in 1989 (here's the Radio 4 schedule from a day during that period), I was amused to hear that one of the characters, the daughter of Phil and Jill Archer, was named Shula. The only Shula I knew was the coach of the Miami Dolphins. When I rediscovered the show earlier this year, Shula was the center of one of the main plot threads, about her decision to end her marriage to Alistair the veterinarian, apparently out of boredom, notwithstanding her professed strong Anglican faith. The view that "for better, for worse... as long as we both shall live" actually means something is represented, but mainly by Shula's elderly mother. The village vicar seems to believe that falling out of love and abandoning your marriage is like a no-fault car accident; it just happens, no one's to blame, and you just have to haul off the wrecked vehicle to the salvage yard and go buy a new one.

The social perspective is relentlessly progressive: Another current story line involves a homosexual couple trying to have a child by means of an immigrant surrogate mother. In 2012, the BBC hired the former producer of the TV soap Eastenders to serve as acting editor of the Archers; he promised to make the story lines "darker and bigger," leading to a fall in audience numbers and complaints about sexed-up plots.

I hadn't planned on getting hooked on The Archers again. I could have been keeping up with the show from abroad via the BBC iPlayer, which I use to listen to old comedy and history programs, but I hadn't.

Then on a sunny and windy Sunday morning this past February, as I was driving to the tiny Kent village of Lydd to attend church, I was listening to Radio 4 when the weekly omnibus edition came on. I only caught the first 15 minutes before it was time to park the car, but I had to find out what happened. I caught up with the previous month's worth of shows online and have been keeping up with it ever since, notwithstanding the fact that I don't like any of the characters and hate the fact nothing good ever seems to happen to anyone in Ambridge.

Since I started listening again, one young woman scratched her arm on a nail, then died a few days later of sepsis, leaving behind three children and a husband whose grieving, recriminations, and wishful thinking are driving everyone around him crazy. Poor William couldn't even catch a break when he was brought as an emergency substitute for the Ambridge cricket XI -- out for a duck. The unexpected death was ranked by one article as the second most cry-worthy moment in Archers history.

I'm not the only one who listens regularly in spite of the annoyance. Listeners complain about the latest episode in real time via the Twitter hashtag #TheArchers. There are podcasts DumTeeDum (named in honor of the theme tune) and Shambridge, and spoof Twitter accounts like @AmbridgeAnalytica. The Ambridge Observer runs spoof news articles inspired by the latest story lines.

One attempt at fan commiseration made news when the BBC shut down an Archers message board that was dominated by "silver surfers."

In the couple of months since I began listening again, I cannot recall a single moment of joy or levity. And yet I listen. Maybe it's the comforting familiarity of "Barwick Green," the jaunty maypole tune that opens and closes each episode. Maybe it's hope that Shula will going to get her comeuppance for telling everyone that the divorce was a mutual decision, when in fact she dumped poor, boring old Alistair. Maybe it's wondering if Brian Aldridge will succeed in keeping his culpability for the toxic waste dump at Low Mead secret from the environmental inspectors. Or maybe it's just a sense of wonder that the show is still on the air after 67 years, playing in your local "theater of the mind" and part of a diverse lineup of newly produced spoken-word programming and a massive archive unmatched by any broadcaster in the world.

MORE:

Radio 4 Extra, a digital and online radio service, runs deep tracks from the BBC archive, including weekly episodes of Hancock's Half Hour, The Goon Show, and I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again.

Tony Hancock did a send-up of the show in 1961, called The Bowmans, in his final TV series for the BBC (written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson). Hancock spoofs homespun herdsman Walter Gabriel, a fan favorite in the first three decades of the show, in an extended death scene involving a half-dozen distinct accents. (Set the playback speed to 0.75.) The still above is from the episode.

From John Fennimore's Souvenir Programme: How The Archers sounds to people who do not listen to The Archers.

Here's that theme tune: