Showing posts with label Norman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Norman. Show all posts

Monday, February 22, 2010

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."

Grown-Up Games Night at the Norman Library

(From the 2/22/10 Norman Transcript, Front Page)

The Norman Library is having Grown-Up Games nights (i.e. Rock Band, Wii Sports, Halo, Left 4 Dead). The next one is April 23.

http://normantranscript.com/headlines/x568428266/Grown-up-games

Friday, January 29, 2010

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

2nd Friday Art Walk On Downtown Main

Reposting from Nompton's blog.

"The Norman Arts Council presents the first 2nd Friday Circuit of Art, 6-10 p.m., Feb. 13. Beginning at the parking lot at University St. and Main St. near Copelands, Oklahoma wineries will offer wine samples while CART will carry patrons to multiple stops in the Downtown and Campus Arts Districts for a night on the town. For more information, contact 405.360.1162."

Thursday, January 21, 2010

"The Lost Ogle" On Why They Think Norman Sucks

The Lost Ogle lists out what they both like and don't like about Norman. It's a good read, they have good points, and the comments are thoughtful.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Norman To Become A Smart Grid Community

OG&E sent me a letter this past week announcing that Norman "will be one of the first comprehensive smart grid communities in America!"

They're going to replace out current meters with new ones featuring wireless communication to them which will allow:

- automatic notification to OG&E of a power outage
- remote meter reading
- remote connection and disconnection

There's also a link where we can sign up to be "part of a ground-breaking study" about energy usage. Enrollment in that part is limited, and there's a separate web site to go to for signing up to be in it. I'm guessing that they're going to have a program where you can see real-time how much electricity you're using or something along those lines.

I signed up to enroll in the program.

I would never have guessed somewhere in Oklahoma would be one of the pilot cities in the Nation.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Monday, January 4, 2010

2009 Regional Snow Routes - OCARTS Area

Snow routes in the Oklahoma City Area Regional Transportation Study area, courtesy of the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

City of Norman Hosts Public Forum Series On Sustainable Water Resources

I'm glad to see them getting ahead of the curve at least some.

"The City of Norman will host a public forum series on sustainable water resources beginning 6 p.m. Thursday inside the Norman City Council Chambers, 201 W. Gray St.
(...)
"In 2009, the City of Norman joined other regional municipalities in the development of the 2009 Regional Water Supply Plan for Central Oklahoma. As part of the study, the City of Norman updated the annual average day water demand projections for the current service area to determine the necessary raw water supply augmentation for the entire region.

"The city says the study revealed that projected water demands for the region exceeded the sustainable yields of the potential source waters in Central Oklahoma."

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

City of Norman Emergency Operations Plans

An interesting read. Lists things like City warning siren locations, number of hospital beds available in Norman and the OKC area, and police and fire department structure and org charts.

City of Norman Daily Police Department Activity Logs

The City of Norman has their police daily activity logs on the web as PDFs. Dry reading but I think an excellent example of transparency and openness in government with public records.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

I-35 Aesthetics Design

As part of the I-35 widening project there will be a re-do all of the bridges in Norman over I-35, either as new bridges/intersection or as re-work of existing ones, each bridge having its own theme.

US-77 - Prairie
Tecumseh Road - Tecumseh and the Shawnee
Rock Creek Road - Horses in Motion
Robinson Street - Railroad
Main Street - Land Run of 1889
Lindsey Street - University of Oklahoma
SH-9 E - Lake Thunderbird
SH-9 W - Agriculture and the Chickasaw

The City has a page (http://www.normanok.gov/content/i-35-aesthetics-design) up with a ZIP file (~13.5 meg) containing two PDFs showing the design proposals and an email for anyone who wants to comment on the designs.

There are some really cool designs being considered. Really cool. Worth a read.

Cattle Foraging After The Blizzard



Looking westward at cattle foraging in the field north of W Robinson and west of 48th Ave NW in Norman.

Where Robinson Street Gets Its Name?

I don't know if this is from where Robinson Street in Norman gets its name or not, but an Engineer on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe RR who worked on the railroad through Oklahoma Territory was named Robinson.

http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1912/r3/robinson_albert_alonzo.html

This article in The Oklahoman says that's where Robinson Ave in OKC gets its name.

http://blog.newsok.com/archivist/2009/11/05/meet-mr-robinson/

And I'm guessing that's why the theme for the Robinson Street bridge over I-35 is Railroad says this City of Norman newsletter (p. 5, lower right-hand side).

http://www.normanok.gov/sites/default/files/WebFM/Norman/Community%20Resources/Inside%20Norman%20Newsletter.pdf

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Future Site of Ruby Grant Park, Norman, OK

Norman's looking at developing this park in the future. On their web site at http://www.ci.norman.ok.us/sites/default/files/Parks/PDF_Files/RubyGrantPark.pdf you can see the development concepts for the park so far. It's looking pretty cool.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

How Norman's Camp became Norman

Also from Wikipedia

"A federal survey of the empty lands along the Arbuckle Trail was undertaken in the early 1870s, headed by 23 year old Abner Norman. Norman’s work crew set up camp at what is today the corner of Classen and Lindsey streets; it was there that the men, perhaps jokingly, carved a sign on an elm tree that read "Norman’s Camp," in honor of their young surveyor.[9] In 1887, when the Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad began service to the area, the railroad continued the use of this name for their station site. The area was opened to settlement as part of the Land Run of April 1889; early settlers decided to keep the name "Norman.""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman,_ok