Oklahoma Railway Co Route ("Interurban") Through Moore And Norman

These are photos I took of reproduction UGSG maps I have.



Overview of the route between Moore and Norman. To me the path taken by the Interurban looks a lot like the path taken by I-35 to the US-77 junction and then the path taken by US-77 down towards Robinson Ave. Note there's no Lake Draper or Thunderbird.





Close up of path of Interurban and AT&SF RR through Moore. The dark line at "T.10 N." is S 4th St. The one above it just about the horizontally written word "AND" is N 12th St. And the one below it where the dark line, US-77, makes an S-curve is S 19th St. See the smaller RR line cutting through the left side of Moore? That's the Oklahoma Railway Co line. The path of the Interurban. Note how it's the path of current-day I-35? It's just slightly to the W of Telephone Ave. north of 12th, and about 1/4 mile E of Telephone Ave. by the time it get to S 4th St.





Path of Interurban and AT&SF RR just south of Moore. Here a few more things become visible. That Broadway Ave. used to be US-77 becomes obvious, for instance. Again though please follow the route of the Interurban. It stays 1/4 mile e of Telephone Ave for a few miles, between S 34th. and what would be S. 49th (S. 164th and S. 179th in OKC street names) it veers off to the east. S 179th. is Indian Hill Rd in Norman, and that's right before Indian Hill Rd is where I-35 veers east. The school name I have highlighted in yellow is where a school was located at that time. Going further south we see that by Franklin Rd. the path has moved almost all the way to the next section line road east (12th Ave NW in Norman in current terms), and that the AT&SF RR bisects the intersection of 12th Ave NE and Franklin Rd. It is between Indian Hill Rd and Franklin Rd where I-35 heads straight south, but where Flood Ave keeps going diagonal.





Closeup of Norman showing termination of the Interurban line and continuation of AT&SF RR through Norman. You can see there were a few more runways at Westheimer Field back then. See how Robinson Ave. is OK-74? It comes in from the west, and then turns south on 24th Ave W and goes down to cross the river, with OK-74A a spur off on Lindsey St to go to OU. Look up by North Campus and you see where the AT&SF RR and Interurban lines runs, but if you look closely you can see a spur off to the west Westheimer Airport. It looks like it continues to run alongside the AT&SF RR for a bit more down to just north of Acres St and current day Andrews Park in Norman. If you think about it the RR right-of-way north of Acres seems wider than south of it, no?





Finally here's info about when the originals of these maps were made. This is from the map showing Moore. The one showing Norman is from 1936 with "1951 corrections."

---