Oklahoma History Museum, Oklahoma City

May 4, 2018

We enjoyed many of the Oklahoma History Museum’s diverse exhibits [epecially after the hundred fourth-graders and their 25 chaperones left].  The Museum didn’t try to tie the exhibits together, so we won’t either.  Instead, we’ll share the things we thought were fun to learn about.

The Winnie Mae

The Museum exhibits a replica of the Winnie Mae, a specifically modified Lockheed Vega in which aviator Wiley Post became the first person to fly around the world.  The 1933 trip took seven days and 19 hours.  Post helped develop one of the first pressure suits and discovered the jet stream.  He was killed with fellow Oklahoman Will Rogers when their plane crashed on take-off near Point Barrow, Alaska in 1935.

Tribes of Oklahoma

Between 1830 and 1884, Native Americans were systematically gathered and shipped to “Indian Territory”. The Museum explains that the “dominant culture” wanted to clear land for settlement and agricultural use.

Each circle represents a tribe forced to locate in Oklahoma.

“Indian” moccasins may not be a very meaningful description as the differences in these two pairs shows.

The Heroine

The Heroine was built in 1832.  It was 136 feet long and 20 feet wide and weighed 160 tons.  It hit a snag and sank on the Red River (the border between Oklahoma and Texas) while carrying supplies to Fort Towson, Oklahoma in 1838.  Its remains were exposed by a flood in 1999.  It is the oldest steamboat excavated and studied by archeologists.  Exhibits included the frame of the ship, other artifacts found with it, how steamships worked and what life was like on board.

Model of the Heroine

Contemporary painting showing how the Heroine might have looked before it hit the snag which caused it to sink.

Boot recovered with the remains of the Heroine.

Pork the cargo of the Heroine. Other items on the contract included 500 barrels of flour, 220 barrels of beans, 3500 pounds of soap,1600 pounds of tallow candles, and 80 bushels of salt.

When this box was found, it was complete and decorated and held 44 iron nails.

Cotton

Cotton was being grown as early as 1908 in Oklahoma and it became a banner crop in 1922.  It was Oklahoma’s most valuable cash crop in 1928.

Oklahoma Products

Companies headquartered in Oklahoma include Sonic, Casa Bonita, Spartan Aircraft, Hobby Lobby, Crane Carrier, Ditch Witch and the three represented by the following pictures.

Romper Room was not produced in our respective hometowns, unless we grew up in Oklahoma City. Who knew?

Oklahoma and Space

Thomas Stafford from Weatherford, Oklahoma piloted Gemini 6A which, with Gemini 7, performed the first rendezvous in space.

Gemini 6A cockpit

The small case toward the top of this photo contains moon rocks from the first trip to the moon presented to Oklahoma by President Richard Nixon in 1969. The flag was carried on Apollo 11.

This Oklahoma flag was carried by Tom Stafford on Apollo 10. It was the first state flag to be flown around the moon. As a result, all subsequent flights that carried flags had to carry a sample of every state flag.