Enid, Oklahoma - Trivia - Facts - True & False - Enid Fun Facts - History - Enid Trivia |
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Enid Trivia
Charlie Rich (December 14, 1932 - July 25, 1995) was an American Country Music Singer/Musician. He was a Grammy Award winner that played and sang rockabilly, jazz, blues, country, and gospel. Rich actually began his professional music career while stationed at Vance, AFB in Enid! Rich spent four years (1953 - 56) in the Air Force, based in Enid, Oklahoma, where he played with a blues and jazz group called the Velvetones. He is perhaps best remembered for a pair of 1973 hits, "Behind Closed Doors" and "The Most Beautiful Girl".
Union Equity Cooperative Elevator Z, built in 1949; Union Equity Coop-erative Elevator Y, built 1953-54; Wheat Pool Terminal Elevator, 1801 N. 16th, built 1946-49; General Mills Ter-minal Elevator, 1702 N. 10th, built 1929; Union Equity Cooperative Elevator A, near North 10th between the railroad tracks and vacated portion of Hemlock, built 1931 with later additions; Southwest Terminal Elevator Fuquay and Salina Terminal Elevator, west of North 10th between the railroad tracks, built 1926-27; and Enid Terminal Elevator, 1015 N. Van Buren, 1925-26 with later additions (May 2009: The Oklahoma State Historic Preservation Office added Enid's Terminal Grain Elevators Historic District, to the National Register of Historic Places. Although grain elevators are common in Oklahoma, Enid's configuration is unique.) Did John Wilkes Booth die in Enid?? After assassinating President Abraham Lincoln, Booth was smuggled by the Confederate underground to Texas, where he began living under the name John St. Helen. In the 1870s he worked as a bartender in a saloon in Granbury, Texas, and began telling people about his past. When the Knights of the Golden Circle found out, the decision was made to silence him. Booth fled Granbury. Jesse James, along with William "Wild Bill" Lincoln (a distant cousin of President Lincoln), tracked Booth to Enid, Oklahoma, where he had assumed the name David George. In a sworn statement, "Wild Bill" Lincoln wrote: "Our branch of the Lincoln family was never satisfied with what really happened to Booth, and I spent fourteen years of my life running down the true story. Strangely enough, I learned it from Jesse W. james, head of the Confederate underground. I was present at Booth's real death." According to Lincoln, he and James crept into Booth's room and tricked him into drinking a glass of arsenic-laced lemonade. The massive amount of arsenic consumed by Booth caused his body to mummify. James arranged for the body to be exhibited on a national carnival tour. The mummy's present whereabouts are unknown.
Stars of a Discovery Channel television show were in Enid, August 2009, searching for the ghost of John Wilkes Booth. The new 13-part “Ghost Lab” will premiere 9 p.m. Oct. 6, 2009 on Discovery Channel. Remember the movie Dillinger in 1973.........
Lots of antique cars from Enid residents were used in the movie (a lot more were not as people didn't want machine gun bullet holes in their cars!) Many Enid residents landed bit parts in the movie. Cast included: Warren Oates .... John Dillinger Ben Johnson .... Melvin Purvis Michelle Phillips .... Billie Frechette Cloris Leachman .... Anna Sage Harry Dean Stanton .... Homer Van Mete Quotes from Jurassic Park III: Remember the TV show "The Rifleman"?  In the eipisode "The Guest" (season five) they named the hometown of Lucas McCain as Enid, Oklahoma. And another mention was: The old Dunlop place was burned and replaced with the house we came to know & love. If you remember, the rebuilt house was the same house Lucas had back in Enid, Oklahoma. As Luke said to Mark...."same house, same barn and except for the cross that bears your Mother's grave at the create of that hill, same hills". The first woman to command a Space Shuttle mission, Commander Eileen Marie Collins. Collins graduated in 1979 from Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance AFB, Oklahoma, where she was a T-38 instructor pilot until 1982. OK Pilot Picked as First Female for New Aircraft. Second Lieutenant Sara Faibisoff a U.S. Marine pilot at Vance Air Force Base in Enid is the first female assigned to fly the new V-22 Osprey. Oklahoma has produced more astronauts than any other state. These include Major General Thomas P. Stafford (Weatherford); Gordon Cooper (Shawnee);  Owen Garriott (Enid); Shannon Lucid (Oklahoma City) and William Reid Pogue (Okemah). The classic wooden carousel at Meadowlake Park was built in 1925 and was located in Hellum's Amusement Park, Lake Hellum's north of Enid from 1928 to 1965 when it was moved to Meadowlake Park a former Trolley Park. Carousel runs clockwise! Dr. Henry B. McKenzie arrived in Enid September 16, 1893 and immediately took care of two persons with broken legs. He also delivered the first baby born in Enid on September 30, 1893. Her name was Enid Mae McKenzie Hungate. Dr. McKenzie had a long beard extending almost to his knees. However, he usually kept his beard neatly tucked up under his chin with hair pins. It is interesting that the first Bermuda grass lawn in Enid was started by them from a shoe box of grass brought from Texas. (Photo with description was purchased from the estate sale of Darrel E. Keahey, an old-time Enid photographer, by Betty Jo Scott)
During World War II Enid Air Force Base had a baseball team called the Enid Airs. President Grover Cleveland designated September 16, 1893, as the date of the "run." On that day, an estimated 100,000 people rushed in from the borders to stake a claim. They came by horse, train, wagon, and even on foot, all trying to claim the best farmland or town lot. Many of the hopeful settlers remained Each year since 1935, the National Baseball Congress has gathered together the What was the result of the Paranormal Activity Investigation of the "Ghost of the Gaslight"? The ghost was known to be in the former home of the Gaslight Theatre (Alton Mercantile Company Building), Enid, Oklahoma. "Spirited" Stories Surrounding the Places and People of Enid's Oldest Theatres. CESSNA AIRCRAFT COMPANY Inc. Clyde V. Cessna who was originally a motor mechanic, built his first aircraft at Enid, Oklahoma in the Spring of 1911, testing many of his early planes on the salt flats. In 1917 when bankers in Enid refused to loan him more money to build his planes, he moved to Wichita, Kansas.
Geronimo cars were only produced for a short time because after the plant burned, no one bothered to rebuild. Geronimo. N.d. but c. 1917. Circular board. Superlative illustration of Chief Geronimo in profile, in shield, with wreath. "...Enid, Okla." Geronimo automobile items of any description are virtually uncollectible; one of the foremost literature collectors had only one piece, torn and incomplete, in his lifelong collection. The original artwork for this logo is a remarkable item. ------- Enid News & Eagle Enid was once home to a successful car manufacturer along local hopes of being the second Detroit, according to automobile historian Bud Smith.Smith, who is president of Liberty Federal Bank, told Enid Rotary Club Monday about the Geronimo, which was manufactured in Enid from 1917 until 1920. It was a successful company until the factory was destroyed by fire in 1920, which put the company out of business. William C. Allen formed the company in 1917 and initially sold $500,000 in stock, a fortune for that time. They began production of the car at 409 S. Grand and the building still has the Geronimo name on it. There also is one Geronimo remaining, and it is owned by the Enid Region of the Antique Automobile Association of America, which restored the car after it was found in a Kansas pasture. There were two models of the Geronimo built the 6A-45 and the 4A-40. The first had a six-cylinder 230 cubic inch Rutenberg engine that reportedly obtained 45 horsepower or a 55-horsepower six-cylinder engine. The second vehicle was a four-cylinder model with a Lycoming 166 cubic-inch engine that had 37 horsepower. The four-cylinder model sold for $895, and the six-cylinder model sold for $1,295. Among the other features were a high-grade motor driven horn, a complete set of tools, a motor-driven tire pump hooked up to the transmission and the hose was enclosed in a compartment behind a small door under the fender. Because of the popularity of the car, a new and larger plant was built on the “outskirts” of Enid at Cleveland and Oklahoma. The new plant was completed in the fall of 1917. The company purchased ready-made parts from specialty companies and assembled cars of their own design. At the January 1919 stockholders meeting, Allen was re-elected president and the company reported an additional $500,000 in stock sold for a total of $1 million. Employment varied from 40 to about 125 during the peak times of the company. The plan turned out one car a day. They also manufactured cars for France under the name “Wing.” By 1919 the price had also increased to $1,955 for one model. During the production, more than 600 Geronimos were manufactured and sold. The plant burned on August 14, 1920, and insurance covered only $65,000 of the $250,000 loss and the Geronimo Motor Co. was out of business. Allen sold everything to pay the bank, but managed to survive and eventually got into the gas business founding Allen Oil Co, a wholesale fuel company. He died in Enid in 1955 at the age of 80. Smith believes most of the Geronimo cars in existence were sold during World War II for scrap metal and there did not seem to be any Geronimos left. The Enid Chapter of the Antique Auto Club of America started looking for the remains of one, and in 1972, found a Geronimo in a pasture in LaCross, Kan. It had been in an open field for many years and was in poor condition. The manufacturer’s emblem was gone, but the car still could be identified. “The wood framework had rotted, but the fenders, cowl and frame and radiator were with the car and in fairly good condition,” Smith said. The car was returned to Enid where members of the club began a painstaking process of restoring the auto and now have it in running condition. The car is featured regularly in local historical events and parades. No foundation has been created to care for the car, but Smith said there are a number of benefactors who contribute to its upkeep. “Our reward is sharing this piece of Enid history at community events and with groups that come to Enid to see it,” he said. Nathaniel Ellsworth Wyatt, alias Zip Wyatt, alias Dick Yeager, alias Wild Charlie, had come with his parents from Indiana at the time of the 1889 land opening, settling 10 miles n.e. of Guthrie on Cowboy Flat. His parents, poor and almost illiterate, but with hopes for success in this new area, didn't know the publicity their sons would soon bring to their family. One of Dick Yeager's brothers was "Six- Shooter Jack" who died in a shooting in 1891. Dick was a member of the Dalton-Doolin gang, and later formed the Wyatt-Black gang. He came to his demise in 1895 in Enid. more .... ENID, Oklahoma mentioned or described in "Tom Mix Frontier Bartender" by Sam Henderson as written up in an old western magazine covering the life of Tom Mix. The 82nd annual Academy Awards (Mar 2010) Maggie Gyllenhaal was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Crazy Heart,” a film in which she plays a shy young journalist who falls in love with a broken-down country singer, played by Best Actor Jeff Bridges. Gyllenhaal’s character, Jean Craddock, works for a New Mexico newspaper but originally hails from, yes, you guessed it, Enid. While good data is scarce at the local level, economic output is the best overall measure of economic performance. Economy.com assembles data on metropolitan economic output (MEO) annually. In 2002, the NY City region had the largest economic output, which was valued at $523 billion. The Phoenix metro area, by comparison, had a MEO of $133 billion. The Cleveland region weighed in at $88 billion. Meanwhile, Fort Wayne, IN was $17.1 billion. Finally, Enid, Ok was the smallest of the 318 ranked metro areas with a MEO of $1.6 billion. (posted by Don Iannone @ Sunday, August 03, 2003)
The Enid land office, to prove a claim, required evidence indicating that basic improvements of a permanent nature had been made, such as digging a well, or erecting a house. Many settlers satisfied this requirement by digging a dugout or erecting a sod house. One group of imaginative settlers proved their individual claims by transporting a shanty 14x16 from Kansas onto a claim, proving up, and repeating this procedure three times with the same shanty.
Freak accidents resulting in fright, blindness or death At Enid, Oklahoma T. John Ralston was sitting on a porch in front of the Glass Mountain House, smoking and enjoying the coolness of the evening. Suddenly a bat darted into his face, either designedly or by accident, and both eyeballs were punctured. Efforts at restoring his sight failed and he was blind for the rest of his life. Sherman Billingsley, who founded the famed Stork Club, grew up in Enid, Okla. In its heyday, the Stork Club was not an ordinary urban watering hole. Under Billingsley's command, the Stork Club became famous all over America. It was a key New York social institution, its owner one of the most powerful arbiters of the era's overlapping contests for status. Book excerpt: "One night in 1940, back in New York, Hemingway had grandiosely tried to pay his bar bill at the Stork with a $100,000 royalty check he had gotten for the screen rights to For Whom the Bell Tolls. (A hundred thousand dollars in 1940 would be $1.2 million today.) Billingsley shook his head; no way he could cash that check, not then. But if Hemingway could wait until closing time . . . Then, amazingly, Billingsley did cash it, although it is hard to imagine how, with the club then grossing -- officially, anyway -- by Billingsley's account, $3,500 a night. Now Billingsley needed a favor back. Could Hemingway recommend a good lawyer in Key West? There was this Stork Club there . . ." -- from the first chapter of 'Stork Club' August 12 1860- Austin, Texas- Temple Lea Houston (1860-1905), the son of Texas President and governor Sam Houston, was born. He was the first child born in the Governor's Mansion at Austin. In 1873, at the age of thirteen, he joined a cattle drive to Great Bend, Kansas. Later he worked his way east and was employed as a night clerk on a riverboat. Later he enrolled at Baylor University, where he studied law and philosophy and graduated with honors in 1880. Houston became the youngest practicing lawyer in Texas. Houston won a great reputation as a trial lawyer and as a speaker. He carried a pearl-handled pistol, wore shoulder-length hair, a white sombrero, and rattlesnake ties. Houston moved on to Oklahoma after the territory opened up to settlers.  Picture from Wikipedia. Once, while he was in Enid on business, an unknown assailant fired on him, but a copy of the Oklahoma Territorial Statutes that he was carrying stopped the bullet. Houston incorporated the firing of a six-shooter loaded with blanks into his courtroom theatrics on one occasion. After the jury scattered Houston declared them no longer sequestered. On August 15, 1905, Houston died from a brain hemorrhage at his home in Woodward. Among the several fictional characters inspired by Houston's life was that of Yancey Cravat in Edna Ferber's novel Cimarron. Remember the locomotive that used to site on the corner across the street east from Pak-a-Sak on East Maine? Chicago; Pacific 938 was the last Rock Island locomotive under steam on the railroad's official dieselization date, September 16, 1953.  Photo by R. W BuhrmasterEmployed to that date in commuter service, 938 may have been the last Rock Island steam locomotive in passenger service, since the railroad had previously dieselized its inter-city passenger service. After retirement, 938 was displayed for many years in Enid, Oklahoma, at a state hospital (now St Mary's). It was purchased by the Fort Worth & Western Railroad (AKA, the "Tarantula") and trucked to Fort Worth with the boiler separated from the frame.
Enid, Oklahoma, Jul 14, 1901 - Four blocks of business houses on the public square were destroyed in less than three hours by a fire that started after midnight this morning. Owing to the continued drought, everything burned like matchwood. At light wind blowing from the southeast saved the eastern part of the town. the total loss is estimated at more than $100,000. The insurance will be light. The firemen finally were compelled to blow up several buildings with dynamite and in this manner succeeded in checking the flames. The Post Office and the land office were saved only after a hard fight. The heaviest losers are: Gensman Brothers, $25,000; Crandall & Grugg, $30,000. In most cases the losses were almost total. Enid is a town of about 6,000 inhabitants, situated on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, and is the county seat of Garfield County. It was established at the opening of Oklahoma over ten years ago, and is one of the most prosperous towns in the territory. The New York Times, Published July 15, 19 According to the Medal of Honor Historical Society, Oklahoma now has five Civil War recipients buried in the state. Another recipient was from the Indian Wars time period. Robert M. Blair Sr., Seaman, USS Pontoosuc. He was awarded the Medal of Honor on June 22, 1865 for his actions on board the USS Pontoosuc during the capture of Fort Fisher and Wilmington from December 24, 1864 to January 22, 1865. He is buried in Lot 17 of Block E in the Enid Cemetery, Enid, Oklahoma.
We don't know when it was dammed up, but there was a manmade lake of about 40 acres which extended from South Johnson and Garriott West to Cleveland. George Mosher, a dairy farmer, dammed Boggy Creek from where it crosses South Johnson today. In those days Boggy Creek had lots more water than it does today. The lake that backed up behind the dam was a popular boating and picnicking spot for Enid residents. The dam was in the low-lying area just a couple of blocks south of Garriott on Johnson. George dynamited the dam in 1912 after one of his sons drowned in the lake. Check out Legends and Foklore for more interesting stories Enid is home to two of the 20 tallest structures in Oklahoma, according to the November/December issue of Oklahoma Today magazine. In an article in the magazine, Amber Vanderzee lists the Archer Daniels Midland terminal grain elevators, which stand 320 feet tall, as No. 13 on the list. Broadway Tower, which is 176 feet tall, is No. 20. Broadway Tower, built in the art deco style of the 1930s, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
October, 2008 Secret Service Took Psychic's Advice on Bush Assassination Plot The Secret Service changed a motorcade route for the first President George Bush based on a psychic's vision that he would be assassinated, according to a new book about the presidential protective agency. "In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect," by veteran author Ronald Kessler, evidently is stocked with such juicy items, considering the steady drip of leaks about the book over the past few weeks. It's a curious development, considering that the White House protective detail is supposed to see everything but say nothing about its main client, the President of the United States. But Kessler, a former investigative reporter at The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal and author of several "inside" books on U.S. intelligence, has obviously drilled a hole in the Secret Service's wall of silence, which began crumbling in earnest a few years back with former agents telling tales about President John K. Kennedy's mistresses. Today Kessler passed along the following anecdote about the psychic, the Secret Service and the 1992 reelection campaign of Bush, taken from his new book, scheduled for publication Aug. 4. (A Secret Service spokesman at first told SpyTalk it was "false," which he later amended to, "It doesn't make sense.") In Kessler's telling, Bush was scheduled to give a speech on September 17, 1992, at the civic auditorium in Enid, Oklahoma. "Agent Norm Jarvis was assigned to run intelligence investigations for the visit, and a detective from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation called him," Kessler said by e-mail. "He said that a woman who was a psychic had told her police contact, whom she worked with on a homicide case in Texas, that she had had a vision that President Bush was going to be assassinated by a sniper." Kessler continued: Kessler quotes Jarvis as saying: "As we got close to this one hangar, she said to slow down." The woman said, "Something is in that building right there." "What do you mean?" Jarvis asked. "Something important is in that building there." "Okay, but not the limo?" "No," the woman said. Kessler says, "As they drove past another hangar, the woman said it contained the limo. She then identified another hangar as containing something important. "Jarvis's hunch was that the limo was in the firehouse bordering the runways. As it turned out, he was wrong and the psychic was right. "Secret Service agents guard the president's limo until he steps into it. Jarvis checked with them and learned that the hangar identified by the psychic as housing the limo did indeed contain two presidential limousines. "As more details from the psychic turned out to be right, the advance leader decided the psychic could not be ignored. Never mind if anyone thought they were crazy. Better safe than sorry, he and Jarvis thought." The leader of the Secret Service advance team ordered the motorcade to take an alternate route, avoiding the overpass, Kessler says. Bush was unharmed. Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan said Kessler's story, "doesn't make sense. We don't make practice of changing a motorcade route based on a psychic." But Donovan, who spent five years on the presidential protective detail, conceded that Agent Jarvis could have told the story to Kessler. "You'll have to ask the agent," he said. Kessler said he would not make Jarvis, who is retired, available for an interview. "The Secret Service cooperated on the book, the first time it has cooperated on a book about the agency," he said in an e-mail. One result is Kessler's report that the agency's "management has been cutting corners since the agency's absorption by the Department of Homeland Security, risking the assassination of President Obama, Vice President Biden, and future presidential candidates." In an interview with Kessler for the book, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan "denied that the agency has been cutting corners," Kessler said.
Did you know that when the The Barrow's gang hid out in two tourist cabins in Great Bend, Kansas, they committed numerous robberies in Oklahoma to support Bonnie's medical needs and other financial needs of the gang? On June 26, 1933, Clyde Barrow was in Enid and stole the car of Dr. Julian Fields while it was parked outside of the hospital. He was after a medical bag that was left in the car. On July 7, 1933, while in Great Bend, Clyde and part of his gang traveled back to Enid, Oklahoma and robbed the National Guard Armory of weapons and ammunition. The Armory was then located on the campus of Philips University. Their stash of weapons was so large they didn't know what to do with them all. Soon after that, they drove to the home of Pretty Boy Floyd in Salisaw, Oklahoma to see if a safehouse could be found for Bonnie's healing. However, they never made contact with Pretty Boy Floyd, and decided to keep Bonnie in Great Bend, Kansas. Historians have estimated that at least 18 percent of the Indians that survived the Trail of Tears were Black. "History speaks of the ‘Trail of Tears’ in the past tense, and perhaps for the Indian nations it is, but for Black Indians 173 years later, they find themselves still traveling this journey," Eleanor "Gypsy" Wyatt, chairman of the Freedman Descendents of the Five Civilized Tribes told those gathered at the first annual Enid, Oklahoma, Black Indian pow wow. She was speaking of the forced march at gunpoint that thousands of Native Americans endured in the 1930s after the United States government decided that they wanted the Indian lands east of the Mississippi. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. The bill called for the removal of all Indians in the southeastern United States to the territory west of the Mississippi River. In 1838, the first groups started out on their 1,000-mile trek, which became known as the Trail of Tears because of the horrors faced, such as disease, lack of food, water and bad weather. Oral Roberts, evangelist, pastor, healer, innovator and religious icon began his career in Enid. |
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Curtis D. Tucker - Purveyor • P.O. Box 52 • Enid, Oklahoma 73702 USA • Buzz Us: 1.580.977.9947 email us at  © 2005-2009 Enid Buzz • Another Shaggy Duck™ Studios Venture Locally Owned and Operated • Not Affiliated With The City of Enid, Enid Chamber or any Enid Newspaper This site was created for entertainment purposes only. We are not responsible for omitted or outdated information. |
