Southwest 2003 Week 1

Fordyce Bath House now park visitors center	Deep bath tub - Fordyce Bathhouse	Steam Box - Fordyce Bathhouse	They don't want you to do that here also.	Fordyce - Music Salon
Gymnasium - Fordyce Bathhouse	Hubbard Tub - Fordyce Bathhouse	Natural Hot Spring - the water is steaming hot	Lake behind Nimrod Dam	Nimrod Dam - on Scenic Route 7 in Arkansas

Day 05 - Friday, October 10, 2003,  VanBuren, AK to Oklahoma City, OK, 261 miles driven

Our day started with a drive over to Fort Smith to see the sights over there.  We found out that the visitors center is called Miss Laura's house and that it occupies a former sporting palace run by Laura Ziegler a madam from Vermont. She had come to Fort Smith and worked in a few other houses and earned enough money to start up on her own with help from a local bank. She had repaid the loan very quickly. Sporting palaces were legal in Fort Smith until 1924 when they were outlawed. We got a tour of the house from a kindly lady who was on her first day on the job as a volunteer guide. She had to read everything from a typed sheet. The house was decorated back to the turn of the 19th century as it was when it was in operation. The stained glass windows are magnificent. After the tour of the visitors center we took a trolley ride around the historic district which lasted about 40 minutes. Most of the houses in the historic district date back to the late 1850 to 1900 period and most of these are in the Victorian style. One of the notable houses the Darby House was the home  of the leader of Darby's Rangers who fought in WWII in the North African and Sicilian and Italian Campaign's. Darby was a very courageous leader and was killed in one of the Italian battles.

After the Trolley Tour we went to the Fort Smith National Historic Site which is on the site of the second Fort Smith. The visitors center here is housed in a former military building which was converted to a courthouse for the Western Arkansas District Federal Court. The court held jurisdiction over the Indian territory in future Oklahoma and also Western Arkansas. The courthouse here was a very busy place as Judge Isaac Parker tried in excess of 13000 cases in his 20 - 22 year tenure here. I think this testifies to the lawlessness that was present on the frontier. Judge Parker was known as the "Hanging Judge". Capital crimes were defined as murder and rape and Judge Parker sentenced 160 including 4 women to hang. Of this amount about half were hung with the rest of the sentences pardoned or commuted including all the women. Judge Parker was said to be opposed to the death penalty but he was dedicated to following the law in capital crimes. At times he would write recommendations of clemency or pardon for the prisoner he had sentenced to death. Judge Parker did not witness any hangings himself. His hangman was one George Maledon who invented the modern hangman's knot which guaranteed a quick death. His famous quote was that "No-one ever came back to complain about the job that he did". He would re-assure the condemned man by saying "Don't worry, I am a professional."  The hangman was an interesting individual. He prepared all of his ropes at home and when he walked from his house to the courthouse with a rope under his arm, a crowd would soon follow him to his job. He also fathered 11 children and had to enlarge his originally small home.

The reconstructed gallows stand on the original site for display. The trap doors are sealed but at one time, ropes with nooses hung at all times on the display. The ranger said that they had to discontinue the full time display of the ropes as last year a tourist a little shorter than the noose placed the noose around his neck and strained a few neck muscles. Now ropes with nooses are hung for display only on the anniversary dates of actual hangings. Today was such a day. There were two ropes hanging on display. On this day in 1873 two Cherokee Indians, Tuni and Young Wolf were hung for the murder of two trappers. Frontier Justice was swift. The crime had been committed in January of 1873, the trial had been in July and in October they were hung. The park ranger talked about the case and read the confession of one of the killers. He admitted the crime and pleaded for no mercy. He knew he had done a terrible wrong and was ready to settle his debt. On two occasions, 6 men were hung on the same day. On one of these occasions Judge Parker had sentenced 9 men to be hung but three had been pardoned by the time of the hanging. Hangings generally drew large crowds. Before Judge Parker, the gallows had been in full display but the Judge had hated the carnival atmosphere and ordered a high fence around the gallows. Still visible but restricting the crowd. To get inside the enclosure you needed a ticket which was issued by the court. The basement floor of the courthouse consisted of two cells that held the condemned as well as other prisoners serving terms. There were no individual cells and straw mats served as bedding. Toilet facilities were primitive. As many as 75 men occupied the two large cells at one time. Prisoners termed this jail as "Hell on the Border". The Clint Eastwood film "Hang them High" is a loose attempt to describe the Fort Smith Jail.

We also tried to visit the Fort Smith Historical Museum but aborted because of time constraints. We wanted to get back to VanBuren for the fall festival and then get going to Oklahoma City by evening. The fall festival turned out to be a bust - nothing going on until later in the day, so we could have stayed in Fort Smith. We headed towards Oklahoma City and stopped at the cabin of Sequoyia. Sequoyia was the Cherokee chief who created the Cherokee Alphabet which could be used for written communication. The first newspaper in the Indian Territory was published in Cherokee using Sequoyia's alphabet. Sequoyia was highly regarded by the "Whites" as well as the other Cherokee Chiefs. A statue of Sequoyia is in the US Capitol in DC and also the Sequoia trees in California are named after him. The cabin is a very simple building with the interesting feature that in the 1930's the cabin while remaining on its original site was enclosed and covered by a building. Part of the depression WPA. We arrived in Oklahoma City around 6:00 PM.

Stained Glass at Miss Laura's	One of the Game Rooms at Miss Laura's	Laura's Bed Room	The Darby Home	Hell on the Border Cell
Judge Parker's Courthouse on far end, jail addition on near end	Fort Smith gallows	Judge Parker's Courtroom	Drug Store display at Fort Smith Museum	Sequoyia's Cabin

 Day 06 - Saturday, October 11, 2003,  Oklahoma City, OK, 50 miles driven

Today we had planned as a no-major drive day in Oklahoma City. We basically relaxed by going to the Oklahoma Western Heritage Center and the Cowboy Hall of Fame. This complex is one huge museum with large displays of western art including large collections by Russell and also Remington. There is a Native American Heritage section as well as displays on cowboy and ranch life, military life, hunting and the rodeo. There was also a collection of 37 buildings which resemble a western town. The museum has a no photo policy in the art section and a no flash policy in others. The one place where flash photography was permitted, the space was so dark that any pictures I took, the space just swallowed the light. The displays in the no-flash area were so dark that good pictures were not available. This was the only disappointment in the day. The museum is absolutely fantastic and I would recommend it to anyone. We spent 5 hours in there. After the museum we drove to the Bricktown  area of Oklahoma City. It is a area with small shops, restaurants and evening entertainment places along the Bricktown Canal. There is a minor league baseball stadium there and one of the streets is named Mickey Mantle boulevard, as the Mick was from Oklahoma.

After a little rest we decided to drive over to the Oklahoma National Monument which commemorates the 168 victims of the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. It is a sad site to see. Each of the victims is symbolized by an empty chair set in a grassy field. The seats are arranged in the order of the floor that the killed person was occupying in the building. Within the site is a reflecting pool which is between the East and West entrances of the site. These gates are called the Gates of Time, as the gates frame the time of the explosion. The east gate has 9:01 and the west gate has 9:03 on it. The explosion took place at 9:02. The site also contains the Survivor Tree. This is a 80 year old American Elm which was in a parking lot. Many of the cars in this lot burned and were destroyed  but this tree survived.

Indian Statue in Lobby of Heritage Center	Mural in the Ballroom	Marble Mountain Lion	From the Military Life Section
A Charles M. Russel (from a postcard)	The Drummers- From Postcard	West Gate of Oklahoma National Monument at night.	Field of Empty Chairs - Oklahoma National Monument

Day 07 - Sunday, October 12, 2003,  Oklahoma City, OK to Amarillo, TX  388 miles driven

Being Sunday we were lazy in getting up and getting going. We found a church fairly close to the motel but the next service was an hour and a half away so we drove around Oklahoma City and wound up finding a Catholic Church in the Capitol/Medical Center district that had a service in about 40 minutes. Waiting in the parking lot we surmised that we had wandered into an Afro-American Catholic congregation and once we entered the church our opinion was verified. We could not have been more welcome anywhere. The two priests were white but the greater majority of the choir and congregation were Afro-American. However we were not the only whites in the congregation. The service was a  wonder to behold. The "Sign of Peace" ceremony was held fairly early in the service rather than right after the "Our Father" and at this point the service took a 5 to 10 minute break. The parishioners got out of the pews and wandered all over the church shaking hands and hugging. The choir was excellent and hand clapping could be heard in the church. A lively group to be sure.

It was about 12:30 pm when we got on to I-40 to head towards Amarillo, TX. Beyond Oklahoma City, Oklahoma turns into a basically flat countryside which looks suited for the cattle that occupy the land.  Between Oklahoma City and the Texas border there are three towns that advertise the home of a Route 66 Museum. The famous road has been replaced by by I-40 in this part of the US but the romance of the old road lives on. After crossing into Texas we came upon a rest area that had a lot of history about the Texas Panhandle and the huge ranches that occupied this part of Texas. The Goodnight Ranch at one time was the biggest but there was no comparison made with the King Ranch down on the Gulf Coast. I was looking to get a map at the rest area but the girl at the counter said they were all out of the Texas maps. I inquired about Palo Duro Canyon and was advised that there was still plenty of time to get there (it being about 3:30pm). When I asked for the best way to get there she handed me a beat-up Rand McNally atlas and said that they were not allowed to give directions as they were not a tourist information center. She said that they had once given erroneous directions and had been called to task. I guess there is a difference between a rest area and a tourist information center. In other states they are in the same location. As it turned out the first tourist information center is 90 miles inside Texas from the Oklahoma border at Amarillo. Strange.

After the second info stop we headed for the Palo Duro Canyon which is about 25 miles Southeast of Amarillo. Palo Duro is second only to the Grand Canyon for depth and length in the US. It has a 16 mile loop road which is spectacular. The sun was going down and the colors that were splashing on the east side of the canyon were awesome. After spending about an hour and a half in the canyon we headed back to Amarillo to visit the "Big Texan Restaurant". I should have brought my camera to the restaurant. The restaurant has advertisements that state that if you order the 72 oz steak and meal and you finish it in under an hour then the meal is free. The tourist booklets state that 35000 have tried it in the 40+ years of operation and out of this about 7000 had made it. The rules require that you finish the whole meal which consists of a shrimp cocktail, garden salad, three side dishes, the 72 oz. steak and desert. We were seated at a table which was directly in front of a platform where a "Pilgrim" was making an attempt at the big one. On the menu, dinners include your choice of two sides and one of these can be a salad. The contestant has to have three sides, one of which must be a baked potato plus the salad. The Odds are on the houses side to be sure but one Cincinnati Reds player ate the meal in 9.5 minutes in the 1980's and Klondike Bill (a professional wrestler) ate two of the meals in under an hour. I remember Klondike Bill from bygone days. The current contestant was about 40 minutes into his meal when we sat down and he looked like he was not having fun. We asked the waitress what the cost would be if he didn't make it and she said $54.13. People were cheering the contestant on but he did not make it. His family or friends could be seen handing him money to help defray the costs when it was over.

If it looks like this it could be Texas	The rest area with no information	Palo Duro Canyon from first viewing area	Inside Palo Duro	Palo Duro Canyon
Don't step here - Palo Duro Canyon	Palo Duro Canyon	Palo Duro Canyon	Palo Duro Canyon	Texas sky at sunset in Amarillo

  

  

 

 

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