Howard Fugate

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WN: This is Wanda Newton. Bill and I are at the home of Howard Fugate on south Poplar and--

BN: Poplar and Pueblo.

WN: Yeah. Poplar and Pueblo. Mr. Fugate is 89 years young.

HF: Right.

WN: And he's just given us a tour of his neat garden that he has planted. And I've looked at his great workshop that's all very neat.

BN: This is May the 24th.

WN: Yeah, this is May the 24th 1993, he is sharing some pictures of his family and of his horses and he's told us some tales and he was starting to tell me about a contractor who used to have mules here down where the housing development is. So he's gonna tell us about that contractor that didn't treat his mules very nice.

HF: I had a hundred mules.

WN: He had a hundred mules and he didn't put shoes on their feet. Half the time.

HF: And at one time we went out, we were going out to the cemetery. We went out 00:01:00there with a load of pipe, see, and we had ice shoes on our horses. And this contractor had 10 teams on one big wagon, see? And had a mud hog on.

WN: What's a mud hog?

HF: It's what they pump mud into these wells and [indecipherable].

WN: Oh, okay.

HF: And I was in the lead and I drove up behind them and they, half the mules was down, see on that ice.

BN: Yeah.

HF: And I just pulled off in the bar ditch and drove right on around. We was loaded. Had one team load on each wagon--

BN: and had ice shoes.

HF: Yeah.

BN: On your mules?

HF: Yeah, on our horses and mules. We had some mules.

BN: Yeah.

HF: I liked horses better in the oil field than I do mules. You can't work from a mule around a steam engine very good.

WN: How come?

HF: Too scary?

WN: Oh, too scary. Well, tell me about the early oil field days.

HF: The early ones.

WN: Yeah. Uhhuh.

HF: Well, the early days when we first started, we come in into Bristow here, well, we moved the boiler off of a flat car, down by Slick, the first heavy step we ever hauled. And dad made it for old man Richardson, had a sawmill down there, old JS Richardson, just right out this side of Slick . And dad reinforced that bridge out there, Sand Creek Bridge to haul that boiler across. And we hauled that down. We have, we come in here with one team to move it and we was getting three, three more teams or two more teams left. No, it's three. You had to have four teams on a boiler, see, then you could put, and we hauled some 00:03:00stuff. There used to be a big tank out there right across this road from where, where McAdams (ph) place is right in front McAdams (ph), right in the little curve, right in the creek. We hauled some stuff out there, just light stuff on a wagon, bed [indecipherable]. And then we got these teams and we moved out down there and they put it in the boiler house, take it, drug it in there, you know, with teams after unload off the wagon, drug it in there, and set it up in that big building. We started in about '22, see, when we started in. We had seven teams most of the time, so--

WN: That's you and your father combined?

HF: My brothers.

WN: And your brothers?

HF: Yeah. And [indecipherable]. You work for $8 a day. See, team, wagon, horse.

BN: Yeah.

HF: I'll bet, I bet you this, see, this is what you call a housing, see? That there.

WN: Oh, Uhhuh.

HF: That's the decoration on on. See here, dad. He didn't care anything about, see, he didn't have nothing on his team, see.

WN: Yeah.

HF: And them rings, every time I'd get two or three dollars extra, I'd buy--

WN: Something fancy for your horse?

HF: Yeah.

WN: Whatever happened to that contractor with all of these mules?

HF: Well, I don't know. He course they was, I bet they was 25 or 30 contractors here. Old doc Jones was, I forget now, what was there where seven, I mean Super H is now.

WN: Oh, Uhhuh.

HF: All that block in there, there was teams out there on Seventh Street, facing Seventh Street. You remember old Grassy (ph) that stayed at the police station, all the time?

WN: Oh, lopsided. Yeah.

HF: He worked, he was what called a barn dog. He stayed around and looked after the barn--

WN: And took care of the--

HF: Well, he didn't take care of all of 'em, so he couldn't, John Roberts was his name, that he had a bunch of good teams and, but this [indecipherable], Scott, he's the one that had the the old poor mules and everything and he, he got just as much as we did, but he couldn't get so much done.

BN: So, yeah.

WN: Well, did you do you remember anything exciting that happened during the, when you were working in the oil fields, when the wells came in? How was it? And people get excited. Did they come out or?

HF: Well, see, I wasn't around too much then when the well come in. But yeah, they got excited and, just like, did you remember reading, oh, what was the old oil man that died a couple years ago? Back...

WN: Frierson? Kirschner?

HF: Kirschner.

BN: Brick.

HF: You read that? Do you remember reading that?

WN: Yes, I remember seeing that.

HF: I kept that for a long while. See, he, he worked out of Slick now when he first started and he's talking about coming, getting by them teams a lot of times. We went out here one time dad sent us up here to the oil well supply there on Sixth Street.

WN: Uhhuh.

BN: Yeah.

HF: To get a, a boiler, move it out just right this side of the bridge. And well up there on the south side of the road, we had to pull out there and turn up that hillside. And I was driving this team right here then I was working these horses. I had them in the lead. We only had three teams on that boiler there, but hit at a [indecipherable] in the middle and I'd never handled up one up. I'm 00:07:00saving my life.

WN: But you made it up the hill and everything?

HF: Well, I did we had trouble loading it. We broke every chain we had jumping them horses into the you can push it back a little bit to get 'em to the face and push 'em back. And then step back and holler, come here or here. And they just said anything. Just like a--

BN: [indecipherable].

HF: Yeah.

BN: But did you know about J Paul Getty?

HF: He was an oilfield man.

BN: Yeah.

HF: Yeah.

WN: Did you ever encounter Tom Slick or anything?

HF: Well, I remember him seeing when he was here.

WN: Well, one time I was talking to John Bishop and he said he was over there making money off of Tom Slick and all of 'em selling them groceries.

HF: Yeah he, well, that he had that store there with the mules was right there by him, see..

WN: Oh yeah.

BN: John did. Yeah.

WN: Well, I asked him one time about the depression, how the depression affected him, and was he poor? And he said, no, I never was poor.

BN: He said, I worked and made money.

WN: He said, I always made money off of somebody else.

HF: Oh, I guess he's he didn't make any off me. He wouldn't loan me any money. He loaned Mack (ph) money.

BN: Yeah.

HF: And I thought maybe I borrowed $8,500 one time to buy [indecipherable] in Virginia.

WN: Yeah.

HF: They was in with me there on that steamer. And he told me he didn't have that kind of money, and anytime he wanted to buy a car or anything he'd go and tell them.

WN: He had charm. Huh?

HF: He'd say, tell go around and tell [indecipherable] to give you so and so.

BN: Yeah.

WN: Shoot. Oh. When did you all move out here?

HF: 25 years ago.

WN: 25 years. I mean, where did you live in Bristow before you, when you first came?

HF: Oh. I was born right out here, east of Bristow.

WN: Yeah, I know.

HF: And I worked in the oil field about all my life and I never lived in Bristow very much, see.

WN: You just lived east of town then.

HF: Lived and on the, I lived right over here when our baby, she'll be this fall, she'll be 60 years old and she was born about, about three miles east of here on a lease, see. Hazel (Lorene Fugate Smith) and Virginia, you know, both of them.

WN: Yes. Yeah.

HF: And they was born just a mile east of Bristow here, out there where we had our team see.

WN: Yeah.

HF: And

WN: Do you rem, do you remember anything about the Main Street or any special people or stores down on Main Street? Do you remember when the Conger Opera House burned or? Do you remember an opera house down on Main Street?

BN: It's on east sixth street.

WN: Or a livery stable? I've been trying to find the names of some livery stables that were here. Do you remember the names of any liv, livery?

HF: One of 'em was the Star.

WN: One of 'em was the Star.

HF: Star.

BN: And where was it? Do you remember?

HF: Huh? It was on Fourth Street right off of right there, out where the Oklahoma, I mean the Goodyear Tire is now.

BN: Oh yeah. On west fourth.

HF: And there was one up there right on Fifth Street, right on the corner. Where that filling station on Fifth and Main.

BN: Yeah.

HF: There's one there. And the, and they was, there was, yeah. I remember when that they had board sidewalks here.

WN: Oh, you do?

HF: And when and right there where you come off of the board sidewalk, there was two steps, from down on to sixth street.

WN: Uhhuh.

HF: And all them streets was muddy, you know, and I remember when they used to spray, spray them streets, you know, with a wagon and team.

WN: Oh, to keep the dust down?

HF: Yeah. I, yeah. When we first started going to town well we lived on, in the 00:11:00country on a farm, we never got to go to town very often and, and that, but dad went to town about every Saturday. See, he'd haul [indecipherable] back. We called him [indecipherable].

BN: Yeah.

WN: Sack of candy. Well then where did you go to school? Did you go to school? Did you go?

HF: Did they have any school back then. I graduated out here at the Lovett School house.

WN: Oh shoot.

BN: Is that where you got your brick out of?

WN: Is that where you got your brick?

BN: No, I mean our brick.

WN: Our brick from the Lovett School.

BN: The [indecipherable] get that out of the Lovett School?

WN: I don't think so. I, one time Mr. OF Kane, did you know him at Slick?

HF: Yeah. Yeah.

WN: Anyway, he had a bunch of old brick to sell, and so I went over to buy that 00:12:00old brick so I could make a patio back behind my house, and I'd get up before the store open and go over to Slick.

BN: And she'd use a pickup from the store?

WN: I'd use the pickup from the store, and I, it'd be 5:30 or 6:00 early in the morning and I'd be throwing that brick in the bed of the pickup, you know, and it'd clunk, clunk. And finally, some of the people in Slick came and told me not to come early in the morning anymore. I was waking up the town.

HF: [Indecipherable] when Slick was first started. It was on a farm out there and I had traded a horse and saddle for a pair of old mules, old mules, and a steel wheel wagon. And we had a dump, dump bed on the wagon. And you didn't raise it up like you do these trucks. You, it was built out of 2x4s. And you'd sharpen each end see it just so you get a hold of it and you put the end gate in when you get to the location, you just pull the end gate up out each end and 00:13:00start pulling that 2x4 outta one side and you could, that gravel would just run.

WN: And just run right on.

HF: And I went down there, my uncle was down there he had a contract moving blocks out of and coal cars and hauling to build houses down there. And I went down there and worked two or three days when I was just a kid with him, you know, hauling bricks and stuff and built that and, you know, where, oh, have you, was you out at the rest home while when Mabel (Mary Fugate) was in there? She was in the room there with an old lady that her husband was raised, they worked at Slick and had a whole bunch of big old boys. What was their name? He died there. Several years before she did see I, Sam Gaskins.

WN: Oh, Gaskins.

HF: Know where the Gaskins, you know where they live there?

WN: Yes.

HF: I hauled brick and stuff there to that building and one, right, right, west of us now or east of us.

WN: Do you remember a brick factory being in Bristow? Do you remember any brick factory ever being in Bristow? You remember a glass plant?

HF: Yeah.

WN: You remember the glass plant?

HF: Yeah.

WN: Where was it exactly? Do you remember?

HF: I think it, I thought it was over there pretty close to where [indecipherable] on East Fifth.

WN: Oh, where the [indecipherable].

HF: I think it was.

WN: Over in that area.

HF: I believe that's where it was.

WN: Okay. And another thing, do you remember where all the cotton gins were? Exactly?

HF: Oh yeah, most of them.

WN: Okay. Can tell me where you think they were?

HF: Well, there's, you know, over there where on Eighth Street, north Eighth Street, there's one there.

BN: John, where John Bishop's was.

WN: Where John Bishop's was.

HF: Where John Bishop, that there was a scale house, where his office was.

WN: Yeah.

HF: Where you weighed your cotton and there was, they was one down there by the railroad, right north of the ice plant, see.

WN: Where Root's kind of have their--

BN: You're about third street then.

HF: Huh? Between--

WN: Fourth and Fifth.

HF: Between Third and Fourth.

BN: Third and Fourth.

WN: Between Third. Oh yeah.

HF: And then there's one, there was two right across there, right across the there from, oh, on, on south Main there. And on Second Street, you know.

BN: Where the old peanut lady in there.

HF: Yeah. Where the peanut plant.

WN: Oh, well there was a,

HF: There's a, there was seven here at one time.

WN: Wow.

HF: There's Epps and Jones. Jones had one, and Abraham.

BN: Does [indecipherable] have one then?

WN: Or Bishop or?

HF: I don't think Bishop had it.

BN: Maybe the only one they had was down there by Newby.

HF: Yeah, they had that one at Newby.

BN: Newby, yeah.

HF: And yeah, we've hauled cotton. I've hauled cotton up there and seen a lot of 00:16:00them. Lemme go out there and get that other picture. You might get.

WN: Calendars that Eddie Strong used to.

HF: Yeah.

WN: Used to Eddie do that.

HF: Two or three years ago.

WN: Well, now I don't know that he did the calendars. I believe Shamases did the calendars and he saved them. I remember reading one time where Shamases says were,

HF: Yeah.

WN: Collecting pictures or people would bring pictures in and then they'd make 'em into calendars.

HF: Yeah.

WN: You know, and this is a,

HF: If you wanna take that and put it up there.

WN: Alright I'll take this. This is September the 10th, 1916 of the [indecipherable].

HF: See we, we still live down there by Slick. We raised cotton and corn, some corn. [Inaudible] Who's them drugstores [indecipherable]? Actually, let's see. See if I can see. [Inaudible]

WN: Is there a Humes Drugstore one that, was there a Humes Drugstore or a Duncan?

HF: I wouldn't see.

WN: Cahill was, how about Cahill?

BN: Well, Cahill been up here in this middle block, middle of this block.

WN: I don't know when Cahill came, but he was one of our town characters, wasn't he?

BN: We can put this under our magnifying glass.

WN: Yeah, maybe.

BN: See a little bit more.

WN: Yeah we'll take it and see. Well, is there anything that you remember, particularly in your life as you were growing up or anything about coming to Bristow for any celebrations, like I read in the paper where they had big celebrations in the park and had big picnics.

HF: At where?

WN: At? Out in the Park.

BN: City Park.

HF: You know where it was?

WN: No. Where was it?

HF: It was right north of 12th Street.

BN: Out there at Sand Pipe Hill.

HF: Where that standpipe is.

WN: Oh.

BN: That was the park then.

HF: Let's see, the picture there of my mother and dad, of course, she didn't have that then. Where that, well, the one you got right on top.

BN: This one.

HF: Lemme see that. I remember, of course, I couldn't then, see, I went after, 00:18:00long after this. Well, I had it before 17. Now she died in 17. So,

WN: Yeah.

HF: I remember going to picnic, Fourth of July picnic, right there by the standpipe. And some kid, dad said, had a one of them cap pistols.

WN: Uhhuh.

HF: And they were around there cutting up and this and that, and he just said, let me have your pistol, wanting to shoot his wife. And he put it up in her face and powder burned her face. She died with that.

BN: Oh.

HF: Yeah, she passed.

BN: Is that right?

HF: He did it. That cap was an extra, a larger one, or something wanted come through there.

WN: Oh, my word.

HF: Just powder burned her face.

WN: Oh my word. But what did you do at the picnics?

HF: What did we do?

WN: Yeah.

HF: Well, you drink lemonade and.

WN: Did you take your own lunch and everything?

HF: Yeah. Yeah.

WN: And put your food all out together or did you eat it?

HF: Well, I dunno whether we put it all together or just eat it. I imagine they 00:19:00did, see.

WN: And you had ball games or what did you do?

HF: Just pitch horseshoes and stuff like that. And us kids just run and played and all we know to do.

WN: Did you get--

BN: Well, you was wondering about the drugstore while ago. Here's what you was wondering about, wasn't it? That'd be the S&M Drugstore. I bet.

WN: Okay.

HF: Is that a S&M? Was that Smith? There used to be a

WN: Smith's Drugstore on the corner.

HF: Yeah.

WN: Well, let me go back to the

BN: [Indecipherable]

WN: Yeah.

BN: [Indecipherable].

WN: Well, let me go back to the picnic stuff a minute. Did you did, were there any tables there or anything, or was just a field?

HF: No. No, you just had to put her on the ground or bring your own....

WN: What about chiggars and ticks and stuff like that?

HF: All, I don't never remember them bothering, bothering anything like they do now.

BN: [Indecipherable]

HF: We could left them home, see, instead of taking them with us.

BN: Yes.

WN: Well, lemme ask you Mrs. Harjo, you know Winey Harjo? But she told me there 00:20:00used to be

HF: Winey, wasn't it?

WN: Yeah. Is it Winey? I always call her Winey.

BN: Winey.

WN: I know it's Winey.

BN: She calls it Winey.

WN: I don't know.

HF: I don't know. Yeah. Is she still living?

WN: Uhhuh?

BN: Yeah.

WN: Yeah. She's 90 something.

BN: Out north of town.

HF: Huh

WN: She's

HF: Out there. Yeah, I know where she lives.

WN: Yeah. Well she was telling me there used to be lots of trees and everything. Do you remember trees being...

HF: Oh yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of trees out there and all that down in there and big rocks and this and that.

WN: And she'd play in the creek sometimes down there.

HF: Well, the creek was half mile east of town here, see, where

BN: You in the same creek?

HF: Yeah. I can remember when I was that small, my uncle and aunt by the name of Charlie Brown, and dad's sister lived up here pretty close to the corner of Oak and first up there, you know,

WN: Uhhuh.

HF: Yeah. And they was raised in town. We was raised in the country. I never 00:21:00lived in town when I was growing up. We'd go down there, come in there and a bunch of them and old these other city boys would take us down out that creek and we'd climb up them long willow trees and bend them over and load 'em down and they'd keep, I know, keep a edge in this little fell to get up on my head, see, and then they, the old big boys would jump off. Tree would be way over here, see, and the water was way over there.

WN: Oh man. [Indecipherable] It's a wonder you lived to tell the tale.

HF: It was, it was fun, it was rough, see. Momma'd, get after us and she'd [indecipherable] every boy [indecipherable].

WN: What kind of relationship did y'all have? Did you have any Indian neighbors or anything like that?

HF: Yeah, we had the old Uncle Jesse Allen out there when we was growing up down there by Slick. Well, they had a, he had cattle over this country, see, white-faced cattle. And he would, and owned a lot of land. He would, would he put them cattle in them stalk field and feed 'em out, you know, after they gathered the crop, and if they got into anybody else's crop, well, back in them days you'd charge, it was a customary, you'd charge someone a dollar a head for anything that you caught up, you know?

BN: Yeah.

HF: And I remember a place dad owned up there north of the eight-mile corner, one mile on top of that hill. He bought that in 1910, and he had a couple of sharecroppers up there, see. And we lived down there by where Lucy Johnson lived.

WN: Oh, Uhhuh.

HF: That's where my youngest brother was born there.

WN: Oh.

HF: Then he had a field right close to them up there, and they got into them old, that old people's field and just eat the food outta that cotton and corn. And he, they put 'em in the lot and he went up there and kicked the gate down and drove them out had Winchester shotguns and he and my dad bought a Johnny. Fair (ph). Fair (ph), I guess it was two of them boys, they used to work for them. Married one of them married Lucy's sister.

WN: Uhhuh.

HF: Ella, did you ever know that?

WN: I've heard Ms. Johnson speak of Ella.

HF: And dad bought a load of corn on off 'em about 1910. Her brothers and them that is Joe's half-brothers.

WN: Uhhuh.

HF: They proceeded to come get that corn. Dad, dad used to go on these [indecipherable], hunting these bank robbers and horse thieves. When they'd call him, well, he'd always go. We lived up there in the holler between here and the Wyatt School House on the, see, the old road didn't used to come from Sapulpa down here. It didn't follow the section line like it is now.

WN: Uhhuh.

HF: It cut across. It crossed out here, oh, I can remember where it crossed the road 66 out there. And come in, we used to come into town from out east of town, back northeast, down in, in what we called nigger town, across down of the railroad bridge.

WN: Oh, Uhhuh.

HF: We come in down across there [indecipherable]. That's where the old trail went.

WN: And what trail was that? What was it called?

HF: OT.

WN: Oklahoma Territory.

HF: And they come over there to get that corn one night and we did have some hard hands was we had an old long log house there and they built that another lumber house down in the valley, like it is. It was about far from my garage street out here, down on the hill. And I remember she went to the, my mother went to the door with a shotgun and she'd shoot the first one that test that wagon. He pulled it in that wagon shed there at the barn and had to unload it. And he went on this [indecipherable] and they was going to take that wagon and all.

WN: She was a pretty brave soul then, wasn't she?

BN: Eight-mile corner one you were talking about [indecipherable].

WN: Yeah.

HF: And you know, what when we lived down there by Slick, he put his cattle in there where on Lucy's place. He'd [indecipherable], one day and when they'd owe 00:26:00us a bunch of the nights we would, even when we had cattle in, we'd we'd bunch 'em, you know, all night and try to bed them down before we leave 'em, and he had a we called 'em niggers then see he had a nigger of

BN: Were they slaves?

HF: Huh?

WN: No.

HF: No, there wasn't. No, I don't remember any slaves around there.

WN: They were freed people.

BN: Yeah. Freedmen.

HF: Yeah. They was and, but that we had crank phones, you know? And he went and ran, he called him Uncle Jesse

WN: Uhhuh.

HF: And he said Uncle Jesse said, I heard him talk to him. I remember just, well, he said that, damn nigger of yours bunch them cattle up in my field down there and said, and the sand had washed down off that hillside we live on. And that fence wasn't much over that high.

WN: Uhhuh.

HF: And that's the only year that I ever remember his farm. So, he farmed here 00:27:00in 20, the last time he farmed down in around Oklahoma. But he said, I've got corn and cotton in that field. And he said, I, he said the old man hung up on him, see. And said, I got a man looking after the cattle. The next morning there was 101 of 'em in our field.

WN: Oh!

BN: That right?

HF: And Emmett, my old brother and a hard hand, and dad put 'em in the

WN: Pins.

HF: Big hole.