Curt Gillaspie

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EC: Your name is Curt Gillaspie?

CG: Yeah.

EC: And when did you come to Bristow?

CG: 1901

EC: Did your parents bring you?

CG: Oh yeah.

EC: Where did they come from?

CG: Harrisonville, Missouri.

EC: Why did they come to Bristow? Do you know?

CG: Well, they didn't want [inaudible] that's where we lived, a German settlement and they drank quite a bit and mother didn't want us to drink.

EC: Ah. What kind of business was he in? Was he--

CG: He was a blacksmith and a they had a general mercantile store and a [indecipherable] grist mill.

EC: You were born here, when?

CG: Oh no.

EC: Oh no. You came--

CG: When I was about three-years-old.

EC: What are some of your earliest memories of growing up in Bristow?

CG: Oh, there was cotton wagons that had main street blocked. Everybody raised cotton. They didn't have much money.

EC: Did you go to school here in Bristow?

CG: Oh yes.

EC: What do you remember about the school?

CG: Well, Mrs. West was my first teacher. She was the sister to Mrs. Joe Abraham. She had one son and his name is Van (ph) West, and he hadn't seen me in 00:02:0025 years. He came the other day and paid me a visit and took me out to dinner. We went over to Cotton's for dinner.

EC: Did you ever get in any trouble while you were in school?

CG: Oh yeah, we had some little fist fights. We had some boys that could whoop every boy in town, and if one of them couldn't do it, then two of them would jump on them.

EC: Yeah.

CG: When we was coming one night from school, one of the boys was a fellow by the name of Walter Reed (ph) and he had a gallon dinner bucket with some dishes in it that he carried for his dinner bucket. One of these boys keeps pushing one 00:03:00of them up on him and he eased over to me and said, "You keep that one off of me and I'll whoop that fellow." I said, "Well, I'll try." I got back and got me a pop bottle with a short neck, it was about that long. Old Walter, he was giving him a dinner bucket massage, and the blood was running. The other fellow, he run up there, McKay (ph) was his name, and he started to get into the fight. I pushed him back, and I hit him right between the ears with that pop bottle and it went about three foot high. And that old boy got me down, and Walter had to 00:04:00come over and give him a little massage and then I could handle him. So, we both got a lickin' from the professor for that.

EC: Did you work any as a kid in town?

CG: Oh yeah. My father had a store, and I had to work unloading cars. They'd sell a car load of feed, and, oh, I don't know, bunch of wheat in the spring of the year. And then they had the delivery team and I had to drive that.

EC: These were box cars coming in?

CG: Oh yeah.

EC: Trains?

EC: Well, let's see, you worked as a, what, fire station? Chief of the fire 00:05:00station, weren't you?

CG: Oh yeah.

EC: What was that like? What kind of equipment did you start out with?

CG: Oh, we started out with an old Model T Ford. Then we got an American LeFrance. We had it for years. Then we got a Chevrolet fire truck in '38, and it's still down there. Now they got them Fords and Chevrolets.

[Inaudible]

EC: Was this a volunteer fire department at one time?

CG: Yeah, we had 15 members, and we had three paid men. And then after it got, 00:06:00let's see, '33, it became partially paid and partially volunteer and it's still that way.

EC: What were some of the biggest fires or emergencies that happened while you were working there?

CG: Well, the old Pickton (ph) Lumber Yard was pretty bad. You just don't put them lumber yard fires out.

EC: When did you start with the fire station?

CG: Well, I started when I was 20, I think. 1920.

EC: Okay, 1920. So, you were there during at least part of the oil boom?

CG: Oh yeah.

EC: How far out of town did the fire station operate?

CG: Oh, we didn't really go out of town. We didn't take the fire trucks because it would take so long out of duty and didn't [indecipherable] come back in service.

EC: Well, who were some of the most interesting people that have lived in Bristow over these years that you remember?

CG: Oh, George Carman (ph), Old Man Stone--

EC: What was interesting about George Carman (ph)?

CG: Well, he was a hardware man. He built the first brick building in Bristow. 00:08:00And [indecipherable] there was another brick building. They made the brick down there on 7th Street and burned them with wood, cured them with wood.

EC: Who else do you think of?

CG: Uncle Billy Freshour, he was the old United States Marshal. He was 80-years-old and they appointed him Chief of Police during the oil boom because they was having so much trouble of putting people in jail. Ben Greenwood was the mayor. He said that, my goodness, said the whole police force can't do nothing 00:09:00but put them in jail. Said then "How's that 80-year-old man?" Ben Greenwood said, "Well, I'd like to put him on and try him." So he wasn't on very long, so they had a big street fight down there on 7th and Main. He told the desk sergeant, he said, "Johnny, take care of the desk, and I'll bring the boys up." So he went down there and slapped one of them old big boys on the shoulder and said, "You'll have to go up to the station." He said, "You couldn't take me anywhere." And he hauled off and slapped Uncle Bill down and he just rolled over on his belly and pulled out the little .38. When the smoke cleared away there was two of them laying on the pavement. And he got up and said, "Now boys, if 00:10:00you don't want to see some strange faces in hell, get to walking towards the police station. I'll be behind you with the little gun."

EC: Oh my. Were you around at the time of either of the big bank robberies that I heard about?

CG: Oh yeah.

EC: Did you see any of it?

CG: I heard it. I was standing on the corner of 8th and Main. [Indecipherable] was the first one, I think, at the Community State, and then the [indecipherable] held the other one up.

EC: Speaking of Indians, since you were here earlier than most, what do you 00:11:00remember about the relationship between the, I guess, the full bloods and the people in Bristow?

CG: Well, the full bloods wouldn't talk to you. They'd have an Indian girl, she'd be an interpreter, but they could talk, speak English. Hannah Brown (ph) was an interpreter. She'd come in the shop, and she'd say so-in-so wants his horse shot. And father would ask her, [indecipherable]. She'd ask the Indians, 00:12:00do you want [indecipherable] and then she'd turn around and tell my father. When he'd get through, why the Indian, he would speak a little Indian. He would turn his back to my father. He'd say, "How much do you owe me?" And he had his money in a tobacco sack and he'd open it up and he'd get out some money. Then when he'd get ready to put it back in the sack, he'd turn the sack from my father and put it back in.

EC: Where did most of the Indians that came into Bristow live?

CG: Well, they had allotments. You'd take, uh, you had some Creek Freedmens here. Creek Freedmen is a slave for the Creek Indians back east where they came 00:13:00from. And they got allotments, too, the Creek Freedmen. Oh, I don't, can't remember who all was Creek Freedmens that I knew. I forgot. [inaudible] Well, he was the United States Marshal under [inaudible]. He was the leader of the Indians. Well, we had old Billy Vann (ph) down in Newby. He kind looked after 00:14:00that bunch of colored boys down there. And we had, oh, there's three or four around. And some white fellow had trouble with some of those colored boys. My dad would go tell them, "Now boys we'd like to have you around here as neighbors. Let's straighten up and fly right or the little black wagon will back up and get ya." I know one that said, "Deal." Young colored boy knocked an old man down. Old man Scanlon (ph), he was a share cropper. The old man Scanlon (ph) 00:15:00he let his crop grow up in grass. The old man Scanlon (ph) told him, said "You'll have to clean this crop up or I'll have to put some teams over here to clean it up." So he didn't clean it up and Scanlon (ph) went over with a team and got into it again and knocked him down and went over to Billy Vann's (ph) house and he told one of those share croppers of his, he said, "Here's some money. I wished you'd go get some liquor and put on a dance down at your house on Saturday night, and we don't want that nigger around here. That was your normal [indecipherable].

EC: You said dance, that reminds me of something I haven't heard from anyone else. There was a dance hall back of, what, the Bristow Drug Store during the oil boom?

CG: Oh yeah.

[Inaudible]

CG: Oh that's where Kemp's is. That little drug store. [Inaudible] Us boys over there in the little alley way between us. There was some windows in the dance hall and the boys would get to dancing real big. Then they'd take a little snuff and put it in a pipe and blow it over into the dance hall, and everybody would be a sneezing and going on.

EC: Were there any other places like that in Bristow? Dance halls or?

CG: Yeah. [Inaudible]

CG: Oh [indecipherable] down there just this side of Johnny's [indecipherable]. And he carried a billy club and give them a massage if they got unruly.

EC: Where was this Dick Cahill (ph) name?

JC: He had a pool hall, you know, down here, and he got [indecipherable] because of letting kids in there to play pool, you see. So he put a bunch of these old hats in the back table, and when we played pool we had to put on eof those hats on so the women folk looked back there and see--Wound up owning 80 or 90 houses 00:18:00here in town. He was a drug store--

CG: Yeah and on top of that he was a Jew, and his brother was a [indecipherable].

EC: You're how old?

CG: 82.

EC: 82.

CG: I was three-years-old. Father brought mother and us children from Harrisonville, Missouri in a covered wagon and we had to ferry the Arkansas River [indecipherable] and it had taken us fifteen days to come that 300 miles. 00:19:00We'd have to stop and put--[inaudible].

JC: This is off the record, maybe. Jack Abraham, you remember him [inaudible]?

EC: I haven't met him, but I know who he is.

JC: You know who he is?

EC: Yeah.

JC: Well, he and I were trapping together. You know, we had steel traps everywhere and we'd run them [indecipherable] over there on the creek about eight blocks. Then we'd beat 'em right after school, you know, and go home. One morning, we caught a opossum in a trap, but he died in the trap. Old Jack was just a little bit smarter than I was; a cotton farmer. He said, "God damn, they always die in the trap." Well, they're hide's no good, you know, when they die in the trap. I said, "Well, what are we going to do with him?" He said, "Oh, I'm going to throw him right here in the weeds." So he threw him over there, and we went on to school. He got out of school, at that time, a little earlier than I 00:20:00did. He went down and got this opossum and skinned him and sold him to Curt's dad and he had little gristmill down there and [indecipherable]. So we [indecipherable] down there a lot, you know. We had corn cob pile back there where, you know, they shell corn and have corn cob fight. That evening, I went by there, you know, kind of had a few words with Curt's dad, visited a little while, he says, "Well, I see you boys caught a opossum last night." And I said, "Yeah, but he died in the trap and the hides no good." He had to tell him it was a different because Jack had already been there and sold him the hide. [Indecipherable] I haven't brought that up to old Jack in years. I don't know if he would like it or not.

EC: Curt, you were here at the time when Oklahoma became a state then?

CG: Yeah 1907.

EC: Do you recall anything about it? Were there big celebrations?

CG: Well, they had an election. They closed the polls before time to close them. They had one election and then they was afraid it wouldn't go over?

EC: Oh?

CG: So they just closed the polls in all of Oklahoma.

EC: I see.

CG: Years ago, mother used get letters from Missouri, and they was marked I.T., Indian Territory. But, before that, before the Indian Territory, it was Indian 00:22:00Nation. The first grocery store that was ever here was right back of the printing office up there. It was about 20x20, I guess. A fellow by the name of Tom Flynn [indecipherable].

JC: My dad and his dad was hunting with the superintendent at school. We were all hunting together a lot, you know. Curt was just a whole lot better shot than my dad or the superintendent. And they go out and practice, you know, before they'd go hunting. My dad would shoot a target way off, you know, have me down there and bring back the score, you see. Dad would shoot way off one side of the 00:23:00target and wouldn't even put a hole in it. When they got ready to bring the shots back [indecipherable] right close there'd just be blistering marks, just a little bit. I'm a better shot than you thought. I don't know what's a happening.

CG: Oh yeah my father back of Jack's old home back there, they had some pictures [indecipherable]. I'll go get them. There in the house, there.