Download or read book Boom Town written by Sam Anderson and published by Crown. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant, kaleidoscopic narrative of Oklahoma City—a great American story of civics, basketball, and destiny, from award-winning journalist Sam Anderson NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Chicago Tribune • San Francisco Chronicle • The Economist • Deadspin Oklahoma City was born from chaos. It was founded in a bizarre but momentous “Land Run” in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims. Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsized ambitions, and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress. Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game. Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”—the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness—kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed. Boom Town announces the arrival of an exciting literary voice. Sam Anderson, former book critic for New York magazine and now a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment. Filled with characters ranging from NBA superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; to Flaming Lips oddball frontman Wayne Coyne; to legendary Great Plains meteorologist Gary England; to Stanley Draper, Oklahoma City's would-be Robert Moses; to civil rights activist Clara Luper; to the citizens and public servants who survived the notorious 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, Boom Town offers a remarkable look at the urban tapestry woven from control and chaos, sports and civics.

Download or read book It Happened in Oklahoma written by Robert L. Dorman and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an inside look at over 30 interesting and unusual episodes that shaped the history of the Sooner State. Read all about the Trail of Tears in Tahlequah. Find out why George W. McLaurin was denied admission to the University of Oklahoma in 1950. Try to solve the mystery of Karen Silkwood's suspicious death in 1974.

Download or read book An Oklahoma Tragedy written by Shirley Chandler Anderson and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2015-05-20 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a 1939 true story about a seventy-three-year-old Navina, Oklahoma, widowed farmer who was missing when his married daughter and her husband came to his house to fix Sunday dinner, as had been arranged the day before. The sheriff is called who starts questioning local neighbors about the missing farmer to find out when he was last seen or if anything suspicious had been seen in the area. The entire Navina farming community came together for two days to hunt for the farmer and to determine what had happened to him. The actual town of Navina’s business buildings no longer exist, which the book includes several pictures of those buildings during the time before the town of Navina became nonexistent in the 1940s.

Download or read book It Happened in Oklahoma written by Robert L. Dorman and published by . This book was released on 2011-12-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an inside look at over 30 interesting and unusual episodes that shaped the history of the Sooner State. Read all about the Trail of Tears in Tahlequah. Find out why George W. McLaurin was denied admission to the University of Oklahoma in 1950. Try to solve the mystery of Karen Silkwood's suspicious death in 1974.

Download or read book All of a Sudden and Forever written by Chris Barton and published by Millbrook Press. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A profoundly moving nonfiction picture book about tragedy, hope, and healing from award-winning author Chris Barton. Sometimes bad things happen, and you have to tell everyone. Sometimes terrible things happen, and everybody knows. On April 19, 1995, something terrible happened in Oklahoma City: a bomb exploded, and people were hurt and killed. But that was not the end of the story. Those who survived—and those who were forever changed—shared their stories and began to heal. Near the site of the bomb blast, an American elm tree began to heal as well. People took care of the tree just as they took care of each other. The tree and its seedlings now offer solace to people around the world grappling with tragedy and loss. Released to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, this book commemorates what was lost and offers hope for the future.

Download or read book Oklahoma Unforgettable written by and published by Farcountry Press. This book was released on 2014-10 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Oklahoma Unforgettable, Kim Baker and John Jernigan capture Oklahoma’s allure in 143 outstanding color photographs. The beautiful images are accompanied by an insightful foreword by Donald W. Reeves, the McCasland Chair of Cowboy Culture at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Baker and Jernigan’s travels have taken the two photographers from the swirls of activity in Oklahoma City and Tulsa to the charming towns that make up America’s heartland. The images reveal a land of contrasts—wild prairies and thick forests, soaring mesas and mountain trails, sandy deserts and numerous lakes—that inspires the imagination. Take a drive with Baker and Jernigan down Route 66 and beyond and discover the Sooner State all over again. Whether lifelong Oklahomans or visitors to the state, readers will treasure Oklahoma Unforgettable for years to come.

Download or read book An Oklahoma I Had Never Seen Before written by Davis D. Joyce and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Davis D. Joyce presents fourteen essays that interpret Oklahoma's unique populist past and address current political and social issues ranging from gender, race, and religion to popular music, the energy industry, and economics.

Download or read book Oklahoma written by W. David Baird and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-08-04 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The product of two of Oklahoma’s foremost authorities on the history of the 46th state, Oklahoma: A History is the first comprehensive narrative to bring the story of the Sooner State to the threshold of its centennial. From the tectonic formation of Oklahoma’s varied landscape to the recovery and renewal following the Oklahoma City bombing, this readable book includes both the well-known and the not-so-familiar of the state’s people, events, and places. W. David Baird and Danney Goble offer fresh perspectives on such widely recognized history makers as Sequoyah, the 1889 Land Run, and the Glenn Pool oil strike. But they also give due attention to Black Seminole John Horse, Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Coach Bertha Frank Teague’s 40-year winning streak with the Byng Lady Pirates, and other lesser-known but equally important milestones. The result is a rousing, often surprising, and ever-fascinating story. Oklahoma history is an intricate tapestry of themes, stories, and perspectives, including those of the state’s diverse population of American Indians, the land’s original human occupants. An appendix provides suggestions for trips to Oklahoma’s historic places and for further reading. Enhanced by more than 40 illustrations, including 11 maps, this definitive history of the state ensures that experiences shared by Oklahomans of the past will be passed on to future generations.

Download or read book The Great Oklahoma Swindle written by Russell Cobb and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2022-03 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russell Cobb’s The Great Oklahoma Swindle is a rousing and incisive examination of the regional culture and history of “Flyover Country” that demystifies the political conditions of the American Heartland.

Download or read book 100 Oklahoma Outlaws Gangsters Lawmen written by Laurence Yadon and published by Pelican Publishing. This book was released on 2010-09-23 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The only thing wilder than Oklahoma in the late nineteenth century are the tales that continue to surround it. In the days of the Wild West, Oklahoma was teeming with assassins, guerillas, hijackers, kidnappers, gangs, and misfits of every size and shape imaginable. Featuring such legendary characters as Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, Machine Gun Kelly, Belle Starr, and Pretty Boy Floyd, this book combines recorded fact with romanticized legend, allowing the reader to decide how much to believe. Violent and out of control, the figures covered in 100 Oklahoma Outlaws, Gangsters, and Lawmen often left behind numerous victims, grisly accounts, and unforgettable stories. Included are criminals like James Deacon Miller, the devout Methodist and hired assassin. Righteous and devious, he often avoided the gallows by convincing others to admit to his murders. Rufus Buck, a man of Native American descent, targeted white settlers. His crimes against them became so heinous as to cause the Creek nation to take up arms against him. The answer to criminals such as these came in the form of Hanging Judge Parker and other officers of the law. Although they were greatly outnumbered, they provided some balance to the chaos. This historical compilation covers every memorable outlaw and lawman who passed through Oklahoma.

Download or read book The Oklahomans The Story of Oklahoma and Its People Volume I Ancient Statehood written by John J. Dwyer and published by Red River Press. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unforgettable saga of America's last frontier-the Oklahoma Country. Never has the story of this great land and people been told like John J. Dwyer does it. Storybook, history book, coffee table book. Featuring the same colorful and readable format that has helped make his "The War Between the States: America's Uncivil War" a success, "The Oklahomans (Volume 1, Ancient-Statehood)," chronicles the saga of the winning-and losing-of a land. Some of the most famous cowboys, Indians, lawmen, outlaws, and explorers in American history stride across the pages of this unforgettable story. So do some of the country's greatest entrepreneurs, statesmen, Christian ministers, social pioneers, and athletes.

Download or read book Oklahoma City written by Andrew Gumbel and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early morning of April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh drove into downtown Oklahoma City in a rented Ryder truck containing a deadly fertilizer bomb that he and his army buddy Terry Nichols had made the previous day. He parked in a handicapped-parking zone, hopped out of the truck, and walked away into a series of alleys and streets. Shortly after 9:00 A.M., the bomb obliterated one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people, including 19 infants and toddlers. McVeigh claimed he'd worked only with Nichols, and at least officially, the government believed him. But McVeigh's was just one version of events. And much of it was wrong. In Oklahoma City, veteran investigative journalists Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles puncture the myth about what happened on that day—one that has persisted in the minds of the American public for nearly two decades. Working with unprecedented access to government documents, a voluminous correspondence with Terry Nichols, and more than 150 interviews with those immediately involved, Gumbel and Charles demonstrate how much was missed beyond the guilt of the two principal defendants: in particular, the dysfunction within the country's law enforcement agencies, which squandered opportunities to penetrate the radical right and prevent the bombing, and the unanswered question of who inspired the plot and who else might have been involved. To this day, the FBI heralds the Oklahoma City investigation as one of its great triumphs. In reality, though, its handling of the bombing foreshadowed many of the problems that made the country vulnerable to attack again on 9/11. Law enforcement agencies could not see past their own rivalries and underestimated the seriousness of the deadly rhetoric coming from the radical far right. In Oklahoma City, Gumbel and Charles give the fullest, most honest account to date of both the plot and the investigation, drawing a vivid portrait of the unfailingly compelling—driven, eccentric, fractious, funny, and wildly paranoid—characters involved.

Download or read book I Heart Oklahoma written by Roy Scranton and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roy Scranton, controversial and critically-acclaimed, brings us a formally daring road trip into the heart of present-day America. When Suzie is offered the chance to work with a maverick cinematographer on his road-trip movie about Donald Trump’s America, she’s pretty sure it’s a bad idea. But she signs up anyway, hoping it might help her start over and find something she’s lost: a sense of the future. A provocative, genderqueer, shapeshifting musical romp through the brain-eating nightmare of contemporary America, I ❤ Oklahoma! moves from our bleeding-edge present to a furious Faulknerian retelling of the Charlie Starkweather killings in the 1950s, capturing in its fragmented, mesmerizing form the violence at the heart of the American dream.

Download or read book Oklalusa written by Eddie Jackson and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oklalusa, which means home of the black people, is about the true story of a U.S. Territory becoming a state run by men and women with fleecy locks and dark complexions. The black state movement begins in Indian Territory as the black Indians battle fears that allotment will displace them and the loss of land to farm would leave them bereft. J. Milton Turner, a black diplomat from Missouri has President Rutherford B. Hayes's ear. Turner and his able team of attorneys and accountants raise significant funds to support a home for the black Indians in the neighboring two million acres referred to as the unassigned lands. APRIL 22, 1889 is the most important day in Oklahoma history. That celebrated day the Federal Government surrendered legal possession of the unassigned lands. The lush lands of the "fair gods" fell into human hands, white human hands. But the romance dimmed when the weather turned rough and the ground proved hard. Absent black hands, plows stood idle, mules went unfed and cotton remained unchopped -causing half of the fifty thousand ne'er do wells who made the famed '89 run to abandon dreams of ease and wealth and move on. The Langston Herald newspaper, owned and edited by two mullato men kept a tally of abandoned claims. They hired agents in southern cities to distribute the Herald and exhort the industrious class among the five million former slaves to come to Oklahoma Territory, get a free farm, and live in a place where colored Sheriffs and colored government officials rule. When the number of blacks in Oklahoma Territory equals the whites, there is pressure on President Benjamin Harrison to appoint Edwin McCabe, a man called the Bright Jewel of the colored race, the first governor of Oklahoma Territory. The black state movement crescents in the second Oklahoma run of 1891. Blacks fight to put half the nearly one million acres available into skilled dark hands. What really happened in the run of 1891 and its aftermath is largely unknown until now.

Download or read book A Tour on the Prairies written by Washington Irving and published by London : J. Murray. This book was released on 1835 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Account of an expedition in Oct. and Nov. 1832 through a part of the unorganized Indian country now the state of Oklahoma.

Download or read book The Red River Bridge War written by Rusty Williams and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-20 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, 2017 Oklahoma Book Award, sponsored by the Oklahoma Center for the Book Winner, 2016 Outstanding Book on Oklahoma History, sponsored by the Oklahoma Historical Society At the beginning of America’s Great Depression, Texas and Oklahoma armed up and went to war over a 75-cent toll bridge that connected their states across the Red River. It was a two-week affair marked by the presence of National Guardsmen with field artillery, Texas Rangers with itchy trigger fingers, angry mobs, Model T blockade runners, and even a costumed Native American peace delegation. Traffic backed up for miles, cutting off travel between the states. This conflict entertained newspaper readers nationwide during the summer of 1931, but the Red River Bridge War was a deadly serious affair for many rural Americans at a time when free bridges and passable roads could mean the difference between survival and starvation. The confrontation had national consequences, too: it marked an end to public acceptance of the privately owned ferries, toll bridges, and turnpikes that threatened to strangle American transportation in the automobile age. The Red River Bridge War: A Texas-Oklahoma Border Battle documents the day-to-day skirmishes of this unlikely conflict between two sovereign states, each struggling to help citizens get goods to market at a time of reduced tax revenue and little federal assistance. It also serves as a cautionary tale, providing historical context to the current trend of re-privatizing our nation’s highway infrastructure.

Download or read book Oklahoma City Bombing written by Jon Rappoport and published by Book Tree. This book was released on 1997 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The truck bomb didn't cause the real damage to the Federal Building. Couldn't, didn't. Not ever. The truth about death in Oklahoma City has been covered up since 9:02 AM on April 19, 1995. And no politician will keep that truth from coming out. --Jon Rappoport, author, Oklahoma City Bombing.