Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Falls School, district 31

Now that the weather has turned nice, my first photo essay will be here, Falls School, district 31 in Cleveland county.

Rootsweb has this to say about it:(http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~okccogs/schools/schooldistricts-legals.htm)

"FALLS SCHOOL DISTRICT 31: Northeast corner of Section 29-9N-1W. Now 1130 84th Ave NE, Norman. Name taken from the Little River Falls which were nearby."



Here's a picture of it at night.



And right across the road is a path or road to the inlet for the City of Norman's supply pipeline from Lake Thunderbird. Norman's water treatment plant is at 3000 E Robinson, literally just a few miles east of Falls School.

Look for the pictures to be up later this weekend or early next week.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Spring Creative Craft Festival

Spring Creative Craft Festival

Saturday, mar27, 9am - 4 pm

Free Parking & Admission, concessions available.

90+ Craft booths

Cleveland County Fairgrounds
615 E. Robinson, Norman
360-4721

www.clevelandcountyfair.org

Cole Announces Town Hall Meetings

(from the 3/21/10 Norman Transcript p. A3)

U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, will hold 10 town hall meetings over the next few weeks. Cole will be available to answer questions and address concerns about federal legislation. members of Cole's staff also will be available to assist residents with federal casework.

"These town hall meetings are a great opportunity to get feedback from Fourth District residents, and I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's ideas and concerns," Cole said.

"With everything that's going on in Washington these days, these forums play a valuable role in shaping debate. I invite everyone to participate and share their views."

More information is available from Cole's Norman office 329-6500 for more information about the town hall meetings. The meetings include 5:30 p.m. March 31 at the Moore Norman Technology Center, Franklin Road Campus, in Norman; noon March 30 at the Murray County Expo Center, 4000 W Highway 7 in Sulphur; 5:30 p.m. April 1 in Lawton at the Comanche County Fairgrounds Annex; 5:30 p.m. April 5 at the Mustang Town Center in Mustang; noon April 6 at the Pauls Valley High School Auditorium; 5:30 p.m. April 7 at the McSwain Theatre in Adal; noon April 8 at the First Baptist Church in Madill; 5:30 p.m. April 8 in Ardmore; noon April 9 in Waurika and 5:30 p.m. April 12 at Rose State College in Midwest City.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Late Season Winter Storm Possible




Looks like Cleveland County may get one last bit of cold and wet weather before springtime.




Saturday, March 13, 2010

Oklahoma Railway Through Moore To Norman



I took this from a 1947 map of the State of Oklahoma available at http://www.odot.org/hqdiv/p-r-div/maps/state-maps/pdfs/1947.pdf. In it you can see a) Robinson Ave in Norman is OK highway 74, and b) the path of the Oklahoma Railway Company (interurban) as opposed to the Santa Fe's track.

Something that I think is really neat in this also is the Farm to Market road just to the east of Moore. It's the road running due north from US-77 to US-270 and has "FM" in a diamond with an arrow pointing to it. Is that Sunylane? sooner? Bryant? I almost want to say it's Eastern. Thoughts anyone?

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