Oklahoma History: July 2023 Archives

I have finally gotten around to reading Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, in anticipation of the Martin Scorsese film to be released in October. I'm about halfway through, and I was skimming ahead. (It's OK. I already knew who the bad guys were.) I was surprised to read this:

One summer day in 2012, after traveling from New York, where I live and work as a reporter, I visited Pawhuska for the first time, hoping to find information on the Osage murder cases, which, by then, were nearly a century old. Like most Americans, when I was in school, I never read about the murders in any books; it was as it these crimes had been excised from history.

The idea, even if meant in a broad sweeping way, that the Osage oil murders were excised from history struck me as strange, because I learned about the Osage murder cases 50 years ago this month, from a program that aired on KTUL-TV channel 8, on Monday, July 30, 1973, at 7:00 pm.

In the 1920's they were the richest people in the world; and since 1901 their wealth from oil bonuses and royalties exceeds 520 million dollars.

Tonight, in our continuing series on Oklahoma and its history of oil, the Osage: how they got their money and what they did with it. But there is more to it than that.

Bob Gregory will tell personal stories of suffering that oil money caused, and will recreate in detail the series of murders that became the "Osage Reign of Terror". It was this case which led indirectly to the formation of the F.B.I. And one of the principles in that murder case (life imprisonment) was Ernest Burkhart. He will talk about the case on television for the first time. All this and more on one of the most interesting periods in Oklahoma history.

Join your host for Oklahoma: July, tonight at 7:00 pm.

As I mentioned in my tribute to Bob Gregory after his death in 2019:

The book Killers of the Flower Moon has brought the Osage oil murders back to public attention, but viewers of Oil in Oklahoma learned from Bob Gregory a half century ago about the Osage Nation, their sudden oil wealth, and the murders of Osage citizens for their headrights. Two images from that episode stuck in my mind: (1) The photo of an Osage family going around town in style, in a sitting room set up in the back of a glass-sided hearse. (2) A clip of a house exploding from the 1959 Jimmy Stewart movie The FBI Story, which includes a fictionalized retelling of the Osage murders among other important early FBI cases.

The movie The FBI Story was based on the 1956 book of the same name by Don Whitehead. Chapter 13, "Murder by Proxy," discusses the Osage murders, albeit in 6 brief pages.

What I had not remembered about this "Oil and the Osage" episode was that Bob Gregory had interviewed Ernest Burkhart, who had been sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in the murders of his wife's family.

This program was an episode in a locally produced monthly series, usually airing toward the end of each month. The title was simply Oklahoma, followed by a colon and the name of the month, a collection of long-form feature stories and interviews. The series launched with Oklahoma: March at 9 pm on Friday, March 27, 1970, and the inaugural lineup had stories on Sam Houston, husband-and-wife jazz duo Susan and Sonny Gray, airline luggage, lifers at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, school busing and racial integration in Tulsa Public Schools, and Sports Director Hal O'Halloran interviewing Johnny Bench at the Cincinnati Reds spring training camp. Bob Gregory, producer of the show and writer and host of many of the episodes, was Vice President of News and Special Projects for Leake Television, a four-station chain that included KTUL. Gregory had returned to Tulsa and KTUL in 1969 after two years with CBS News in Washington.

Topical and typically Oklahoma... a new monthly news special exploring our state, its people and problems. Hosted by Bob Gregory

An item in a special 1972 fall TV preview supplement highlights the extent of KTUL's local programming including Country Music Time weekday mornings at 7, the John Chick Show weekdays at noon, Betty Boyd Show at 1, weekly coaches' shows with Arkansas head coach Frank Broyles and Oklahoma head coach Chuck Fairbanks, and the Oklahoma series.

The Oklahoma Series was originated in March 1970 as a monthly focus on area places, personalities and potpourri. In a state so comparatively new, history may be thought hard to come by but the Oklahoma Series has found this a fertile field with segments concerning "89er Day," "Memories of Sam Houston by his grandson from Woodward," "Grapes of Wrath Remembered," "Isaac Parker: Memories of the Famous Oklahoma Hanging Judge."

The famous and infamous have been highlighted with stories of "Oral Roberts: Evangelism the New Image," "Bud Wilkinson in Washington," "Anita Bryant," "J. Paschal Twyman Second Youngest University President In the US," "Whatever Happened to Tim Holt," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "Three Strikes Yer Out -- Johnny Bench and Bobby Murcer," "Life Sentence -- A Conversation With a 50-year Resident of the State Penitentiary."

Utilizing the talents of cinematographers and the effectiveness of imaginative editing' pictorial essays have become an integral part of each month's OKLAHOMA program. The scope of these essays ranges from "Stained Glass Windows" to "Flowers and Raindrops" to "Snow and Icycles[sic]."

The most compelling segments in this series were reported by Bob Gregory and focused on oil's influence on Oklahoma history, beginning in March 1973.

I couldn't say for sure what first sparked my fascination with Oklahoma history -- perhaps walking past Bartlesville's Nellie Johnstone oil well replica on the way to the Johnstone Park swings, perhaps an early family visit to Fort Gibson, perhaps the Oklahoma history unit in 3rd grade, culminating in a Land Run re-enactment. But Bob Gregory's Oil in Oklahoma series fanned the spark into a flame.

The decision to move from a potpourri of stories to a full hour on a topic from Oklahoma's oil history may have been connected with the 75th anniversary of Tulsa's incorporation. Another likely prompt was the world premiere of Oklahoma Crude at Tulsa's Southroads Mall Cinema on June 14, 1973. The movie, set in the oil fields of Osage County but filmed in California's Central Valley, was directed by Stanley Kramer, starred George C. Scott and Faye Dunaway. The film's brassy theme by Henry Mancini was used in later airings of Oil in Oklahoma.

"Oklahoma: March" introduces the Oklahoma oil history focus, with a segment on E. W. Marland, the oil man who made and lost a fortune and served as governor and congressman; the episode also featured Binger, Oklahoma, native Johnny Bench at spring training for the Cincinnati Reds.

Marland is just one of the fascinating figures in Oklahoma's great history of oil. In the months to come you'll meet Skelly, Phillips, Sinclair; you'll learn why Tulsa became oil capital of the world and what oil has done for Oklahoma; and you'll get to know a group of men unlike any other---the wildcatters. All this is coming. But tonight, as this monthly series begins, the Marland story. Bob Gregory will be your host. And you're invited to accompany him to the Burbank and Tonkawa oil fields, to Ponca City (the town Marland made), and to his two mansions (one had 55 rooms).

Here are the other episodes that aired in 1973 and 1974:

• Monday, April 30, 1973, at 7:00 pm: Oklahoma: April: Tulsa as oil capital of the world
• Wednesday, May 30, 1973, at 9:00 pm: Oklahoma: May: Frank Phillips and Waite Phillips
• Friday, June 29, 1973, at 9:00 pm: Oklahoma: June: W. G. Skelly
• Monday, July 30, 1973, at 7:00 pm: Oklahoma: July: Oil and the Osage
• Friday, August 31, 1973, at 8:30 pm: Oklahoma: August: Thomas Gilcrease (90 min special)
• Tuesday, October 30, 1973, at 6:30 pm: Oklahoma: October: Alfred Aaronson at 80
• Wednesday, December 26, 1973, at 9:00 pm: Oklahoma: December: Oklahoma City & Seminole
• Thursday, February 28, 1974, at 7:00 pm: Oklahoma Oil Philanthropies: Marland, Wentz, Phillips, Noble, Goddard, Chapman, Merrick, Mabee, Warren, LaFortune

That's the last of the episodes I found in the 1973-1974 time frame. There aren't any episodes in the TV logs for February, September, or November 1973, or January 1974. Perhaps there were production delays. According to the book Oil in Oklahoma, James C. Leake and Bob Gregory interviewed J. Paul Getty at his Sutton Place estate in Surrey, England, in the fall of 1973 and again in October and November 1974; it may be that a Getty episode was planned for the original 1973 series, but was delayed as the interviews continued. (1973 was also the year that Getty's grandson and namesake was kidnapped.)

TV logs in subsequent years show replays of the Oklahoma history segments, now repackaged under the title Oil in Oklahoma. The first such occurrence I could find was a Saturday afternoon rebroadcast of the episode on W. G. Skelly, on March 27, 1975. The entire series was rebroadcast over the course of 1975, with an episode roughly once a month. From August 7-13, 1977, KTUL ran an "encore presentation" of Oil in Oklahoma, with an episode airing every day of that week: