00:00:00This is Wednesday, November 17, 1976, the time is twelve o'clock noon. I've
had several people ask how Bob and I got into the Pinehill research and history
writing. And I thought that I would tape my reasons at least.
In May of 1972 Oma Head (ph) was at decorations at 44 Cemetery when I took my
mom McCarty out there and she told me that she and Donnie Johnson were going to
have a Pinehill community reunion that August. When I came home I told Bob and
he was pleased. In July he contacted Oma (ph) and she said, "Oh, we just talked
about it, we haven't done anything about it," so Bob got busy and he and I
contacted a lot of people. We had 82 people present at the Pinehill reunion on
August 20, 1972 at Rocky Point. Everyone had a good time and vowed to hold a
00:01:00reunion each year on the third Sunday in August. We elected Chester Wilson as
president and a committee of five to assist the president, with Lenora Darnell
as secretary. The committee of five were Mildred Kerley (ph) in Tulsa, Frankie
McKinzie (ph) Oklahoma City, Chester Wilson Sapulpa, Neiman Mark (ph) Drumright,
and Lenora Darnell and Eva Carson (ph) of Bristow.
The second annual reunion was held August 19, 1973 at Shepherd Point with 136
present. We said we had a better time. The reunion was growing each year, we
held them each year the third Sunday in August, and we intend to keep on holding
them. We have new ones that comes each year and some of the older people can't
00:02:00make it and some just don't care for them. Of course, some of them are quite old
and illness and death is taking away them each year.
I would sit and listen to people talk and different ones would say, Well, the
first school was a stockade school, or The first school was a log school, and I
found no one who really knew.
In 1974 I started taking notes and interviewing people along in October. Leo
Bruce is the only one that I found then, or I find now, that remembers the first
school. He wasn't to school age when they were building it and he was watching
them build it. He said he got chased home from the site many a time from getting
in the carpenter's way. It was built about a quarter of a mile east of the
00:03:00section line that we call the Pinehill Road on the Leo Pinehill original Indian allotment.
Then Leo Bruce started to school there in the school term of 1903 along with
several of the other children. He told us the name of the first teacher and then
the second and Clarence Myers remembered a bunch of the early teachers, Bob's
mother started to school in the 1907-1908 and Della Brake (ph) was the teacher
that year. She remembered and I was taking the notes very well.
We've had different opinions. We know the first school was built on the Leo
00:04:00Pinehill allotment. It burned in 1909. The controversy was the second school and
where this schoolhouse was, but it would--if it was the second school we heard
about was built a quarter of a mile west of the first on the section line
corners, and it was there only three years. In 1912 they moved the school one
mile north and about a quarter of a mile west on the Phoebe Perryman allotment
and it burned in 1918. Then in the year 1918 the school records show that the
00:05:00final school was built a quarter of a mile east from that school on the corner
and it is the Pinehill School on the Eunice Perryman property, and that is the
school most people remember and know as the Pinehill School. All of them were
the Pinehill School, buildings burned or changed but the school itself remained
the Pinehill School.
During research and getting the county records from J.L. Darnell who was county
superintendent when I was doing the research, he told me about a map of Oklahoma
that hangs--a four, five foot, I would say, map hangs in the courthouse in
Sapulpa. It's either 1902 or 1903 map of the original Indian allotments. I--the
00:06:00names and the figures and the map fascinated me but I didn't do any--I looked at
it and I've looked at it several times since and thought how to copy it. We
thought of photography and different ways. The people at the courthouse would
not let us take the map off the wall to do anything with it because it's old and
it's fragile. So I got busy with other things.
So in this fall of 1976 I went over to the courthouse and stood and copied the
allotments off the map, section 17-9 -- township, I might say, 17-9, off from
this map because I didn't know very much about maps. I started at the site of
00:07:00the last Pinehill School and just went in a circle around it 'til my paper was
gone, which was a very foolish way to make a map, I should've just copied the
section of 17-9. I did not get hardly far enough south, so Bob went back and
copied them, and somehow in copying and recopying the map was several points
incorrect. Kathy Thompson is making a good map for us for the use in the
Pinehill stuff.
So we just couldn't bear to put an incorrect map out for people to see, so we
contacted the map companies in Tulsa to see if we could get a map of the
original allotments for that section and they put us in touch with Augustine
00:08:00Kelly. She is the wife of the maker of this original map. We drove to Tulsa. I
called her and then I drove to Tulsa and got the copy--twelve-inch square this
section. It's made from an obsolete process now and she's very old and ill and
when she dies this map will be gone. The newer map makers do not use the process
of using these old maps, but I was very fortunate, I bought the
copy--twelve-inch square copy of the original map, so Kathy's using it so the
map will be entirely correct.
My notetaking was very unsatisfactory. I use a brand of shorthand only I can
read, so we bought the tape and now we have quite a number of tapes of the
00:09:00people. Oddly enough we found out that people would say things to us for the
taking notes that they won't say on the tape. I heard several stories in the
tape that some of them, if I thought I would embarrass or hurt the descendants
of the original people in the stories that I didn't write down. Some of them I
wrote down for Bob and I. And some at the time I wrote down hoping to make a
history in booklet form for the people that cared about it.
I showed the map to one of the farmers and to Iva Rossander and she said, 'Well,
what are you going to do with the map when Kathy makes it for you, the teacher
makes it for you?' I told her, 'Well, I'm going to frame it and hang it on the
00:10:00wall for Bob.' And she said, 'Well, it's just a shame to do the map that way, to
put it in a private place that way when it would belong to the community of
Pinehill and the people.' Bob and I next day drove to Oklahoma City and talked
to the state parks and recreation division and they told us there that since it
was a--the community did join Heyburn Lake, the school district and it was
history local and people were still interested in it that they didn't see why
that we shouldn't be able to erect an information shelter at the Heyburn Lake to
put the map and the condensed history and different articles of history for
people to see. We drove--they sent us to the park planning division and we drove
00:11:00to North Lincoln and talked to Rick Cane (ph) there about the map, possibility
of putting this information shelter at the lake. They told us if we wanted it at
the Y at Shepherd's Point that they would build a shelter for us because of the
value to us at least of the articles that were to be put in it, we would prefer
it to be put at the Ranger Station and if not there at the picnic shelter on
Shepherd's Point at Heyburn Lake. Our plans at this time call for the map, a
list of all the people that have ever lived in the community--the township of
00:12:0017-9, and a key to the map where they can find the area they lived in, or their
ancestors, their family lived in. There would also have the plaques that shows
all the teachers that ever taught in the school, the main community builders,
and the committee that's working on the historical information shelter.
Taping these people, older people, and getting their personalities in them has
been a wonderful thing. And to get the feel of community is interesting also.
What we found out is this: In 1885 the Bruces, the first white settlers, came
00:13:00into Pinehill community. In 1896 the W.O. Baker came in--family came in. We
really have no dates on the people as they came in after that. In 1897, as far
as our history can tell, Leo Bruce was the white, first white child born in the
community. They were five of the Bruce brothers that came into the community.
And some people says it's a Bruce history--it's not. They were just the first
there, and a lot of people and the ones that Bob and his family knew best--and
that most people knew best. They were workers, they were builders. The thing
that kept the community alive was the rich bottomlands and then the oil and gas
wells--mostly gas wells, of the oil industry. The people in the oilfields moved
00:14:00so often that we really have no history on persons of the oilfield, but the oil
industry was one of the team that kept the community alive.
The early crops were corn, maize, and the grains. In 1909, cotton came in as the
money-making industry. They always raised horses and cattle on the hillsides and
in the early years they killed quails and shipped them to Kansas City. There
00:15:00were some game, they used to game, but it was still--needed the money crop of
cotton terribly bad.
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--there were many other public buildings in the community at one time for a
couple years. Leo Bruce ran a small concession-stand-like store. The school was
their schoolhouse, it was their church house, it was their voting precinct, it
stood for every--it was used for all community purposes. Their pie suppers,
their Christmas trees, the literaries. When I first heard--I'd never heard the
00:16:00word until they were talking about it, it fascinated me. They were--people were
[indecipherable] and they sang, read poetry, whatever they wanted to do to
entertain each other during the winter season. In the early days the school was
only three months--November, December, and January, and then later years it was,
they had school then during June, July, and August, and then the winter months
were lengthened out a little. The early school was a subscription school. The
parents each paid so much toward the teacher's salary and they boarded in their
homes. The salary was about $17 a month. Della Brake (ph) was the first teacher
hired by the state as that. [Indecipherable] looking at the Creek Indian
00:17:00Nations, and they called the schools a bootleg school. It was never registered
with the Creek Nation, or Creek Indian Tribe as a school. If it'd been done so,
the early history would be written history. The way it is, the state has a list
of the teachers from 1916 through 1954. No record was kept either in the state
or the county offices of the pupils in the school. We did borrow and copy the
census books, the school census books that showed all the school age children
and young people that lived in the community--but that doesn't necessarily mean
00:18:00they went to the school. Everyone that we've asked in the state or county
offices has been cooperative, they just didn't keep the records.
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When the government surveyors surveyed the railroad for the line between Tulsa
and Oklahoma City, one of the surveys--surveyors, Dr. Fath, surveyed the area
for oil and gas. He must've been a very remarkable man, and we have--were kindly
given some photostatic copies of one of Dr. Fath's books by George Krumme.
He--his records called the area the Bristow Quadrangle. The Pinehill community
00:19:00were--was included in it. The second successful well in the Bristow Quadrangle
was drilled close to Wild Horse Prairie in section 17-9 in 1911. 'Producing
well,' they called it. There had been others drilled but that was the second
producing well. It was a gas well and it was drilled at depths of 990 to 1,010
feet. And it produced seven million cubic foot of gas a day. It was turned into
the big pipeline, eleven-inch line that went from the Glenpool area to Oklahoma
City. Oil and gas drilling were prominent in the community from about 1911 on up
00:20:00until recent times--a major part of the community.
In 1948 when they bought up the land for Heyburn Lake, they bought--the
government bought the bottomlands and it caused a number of families to move out
when they bought it. At the same time, the oilfields were dying down, so the
community died. The community reached such a low point that it could no longer
support the school. Part of the children went to Olive, part to Bristow, and
00:21:00part to Kellyville. I for one watched them build Heyburn Lake and we've used it
for recreational purposes every year since it was built. All the--all the time
since it was built. To some of the older families it was such a heartbreak. It
tore up their farms, it took out the productive land, and they didn't want the
school to go. I can see that very well.
pause in recording
Incidentally, the first school was a frame school. All the schools were frame
schools, as we know them, there were no log schools involved and I had the
00:22:00Krummes to research and as near as they could tell, the Bristow Quadrangle was
an area of sixteen square miles, as the term was used in Dr. Fath's book.
pause in recording
This is Wednesday, November 17, 1976. The time is twelve noon. I've been asked
by several people why Bob and I started the Pinehill research and history and so
I thought I would tape it today. In May of 1972 at decoration at 44 Cemetery,
Oma Head (ph) told me that she and Bonnie Johnson were going to have a reunion
00:23:00for the Pinehill Community in 1972 in August. So long in July, Bob contacted Oma
(ph) and she said, 'Oh, they had talked about it but had done nothing about it
so Bob and I got busy and contacted various people. We had the reunion August
20, 1972 at Rocky Point. Eight-two people were present. Everyone had a good time
and voted to hold the reunions each year the third Sunday in August. We elected
Chester Wilson as president and a committee of five to assist the president with
Lenora Darnell as secretary. The committee of five were Mildred Kerley (ph) in
Tulsa, Frankie McKinzie (ph) Oklahoma City, Chester Wilson Sapulpa, Lehman Mark
(ph) Drumright, Lenora Darnell and Eva Patterson (ph) of Bristow. The second
00:24:00annual reunion was held August 19, 1973 at Shepherd's Point. We had 136 present.
Chester just wouldn't--did not work at being the president so he just told me,
'Well, Bob did the work this year, I didn't, I just accepted the position,' so
since then Bob has been officially president of the Pinehill Reunion and I have
been the--assisting him.
Sitting at the reunions, I did not go to Pinehill School so sitting at the
reunions listening to other people talk of Bristow--
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