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- Texas Flyer wanted
- Just a Year Too Soon
- WWII -- Replacing men with women at the railroad crossing.
- Yes, Icing
- You kids drive me nuts!
- NOT An Easy Job
- I wonder
- Just add window boxes
- Icing Platform?
- Indiana Harbor Belt abides
- Freezing haze
- Corrections (for those who care)
- C&NW at Nelson
- Fallen Flags
- A dangerous job made worse
- Water Stop
- Passenger trains have right of way over freights?
- Coal
- Never ceases to amaze me.
- Still chuggin' (in model form)
- Great shot
- Westerly Breeze
- For the men, a trapeze
- Tickled
- Sense of loneliness ...
- 2 cents
- Charm City
- What an Outrage
- Brighton Park
- Catenary Supports
Photos submitted by Shorpy members!
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The Oil Patch: 1939
August 1939. "Independent refinery. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma." Last seen here. Photo by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
Links to the Past
I believe this location is just south of the former Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, on the east side of Oklahoma City, where Douglass High School now stands. Which would put the refinery southeast of the intersection of NE Fourth Street and North Martin Luther King Avenue (former Eastern Avenue). A number of paddock buildings are visible to the southeast of the track. The body of water between the racetrack and the refinery is now part of James E. Stewart Golf Course.
The round building
Is for walking and training horses. It is not a railroad roundhouse.
Oil Patch
The roundhouse is probably for indoor horse-training. Notice the really big, long building top right of center. That's an aerodrome if ever I've seen one.
[Actually that's the Stockyards Coliseum, aka the Oklahoma City Ice Palace, built in 1922, destroyed by fire in 1930, and then rebuilt with a similar design. - Dave]
Back 'a the Patch
Looks like a horse racing track in the background, center, with stables in the background, right.
What's the roundish large building in the background left, with cupola? Railroad roundhouse? Indoor fairgrounds?
[Whatever it is, it is not the same building as the fairgrounds carousel. - Dave]
Legal History
The only oil company in Oklahoma at the time with "Producing & Refining Co." in their name was the Denver Producing and Refining Company. Most of the remaining information on the company is in the form of lawsuits that were lodged against it in the '30s and '40s.
[This all looks like secondhand equipment, which would explain why the DENVER (Acme, or whatever) was removed from the tank. - Dave]
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