Kendall Separate Town Once?

[Shorlong]

Well, I am certainly impressed with the friendliness and helpfulness I recieved here and in PMs. You have no idea how much this means to me.

I had wondered about Tulsa's early history with respect to other communities and neighborhoods-most major cities today had to fight with many rival hamlets and villages to get where they are, and it was annex or be annexed. Tulsa seems to have bucked the trend because I noticed an amazing lack of information in this regard-the only name I could find that was a now-annexed neighborhood was Red Fork, and that intruiged me since the majority of Tulsa looks to be across the river from there.

As such, I wondered what early communities and neighborhoods might have been on the 'mainside' so to speak, that were once independent. A site claims Tulsa and Kendall combined in 1914 which definately implies a connection to a 1913-1914 map of Tulsa county I recieved showing Kendall as a separate community in said private message and the map pasted here showing a 'Kendall Oklahoma'-which, without 'Tulsa' in the name somewhere again implies was its own community.

Going with what Waterboy's posts, I'm willing to guess Kendall was A) an independent town, however short-lived that independence was, or B) as Waterboy proposed, Tulsa annexed the land of a separate town before it even got the chance to get off the ground in reality.

I'm focusing on such would-be places that were physically closest to historical early Tulsa, like Kendall and the apparent Brookside (though Brookside's site claims it began in 1940, which seems to go with Neptune's post of Tulsa expanding east before south).

[Neptune]

1907 Kendall College moves from Muskogee, to Tulsa
1912? Kendall Elementary opens
1914 Kendall Addition mentioned in maps. (perhaps another map?)
1917 Whittier School opens
1920 Kendall College becomes U of Tulsa
1928 Whittier Square/Circle Cinema.  (the only known structures that resemble an old town)
1938 City of Tulsa extended at a minimum, to Will Rogers High School.

http://www.tulsaschools.org/schools/kendallwhittier/Powerpoint/Kw%20History%20Web_files/frame.htm
Kendall Elementary opened 1912?

http://abandonedtulsa.blogspot.com/2005/12/whittier-elementary.html
Whittier School opened 1917?

[Neptune]

quote:Originally posted by TheArtist

How bout this... I heard that Brookside was once a small town that got swallowed up by Tulsa too.

http://www.brooksidetheplacetobe.com/about.php

"The "Brookside" name was first used by Guy Scroggs when he named his store Brookside Drug in 1940. The "brook" was presumed to be Crow Creek named for an early railroad president. Mr. Scroggs also is credited with beginning the "friendly neighboorhood atmosphere" prevailing in this area with his policy of awarding free ice cream to good students from nearby Eliot Elementary School."

[Neptune]

It should be noted though, in Oklahoma, the words "town" and "community" are not typically used to describe the same thing.  A "town" is a populated area that goes through the state process of "incorporation."  A "community" is a populated area that does not go through that process.

Dawson and Red Fork were probably "towns", Mingo was probably not.

If you look at the free maps the State gives out, the ones you can pick up at a visitors center or toll booth, you'll notice that some "towns" are represented by a square.  Those are not "towns", they are "communities."  These communities typically have no city gov't, no ability to levee city taxes, no city services.  Yet, just like "towns", they are in fact mapped.

Since I'm familiar with the area, I'd mention Frink, Nashoba, Honobia, and maybe Smithville, as examples of "communities".  Though that may have changed at some point.  The community of Frink may have been annexed by the City of McAlester by this point.

[MichaelBates]

That does look like a townsite map, but I don't know whether Kendall was ever incorporated or just one of the unincorporated communities that Neptune mentions.

(Dawson was a separate municipality, annexed by Tulsa in 1949. I'm pretty sure Red Fork, Carbondale, Garden City, and Highland Park were also separately incorporated at one time.)

That looks like the Tulsa Street Railway line running down 4th, Grant, and 7th up to the college. (When Oklahoma Took the Trolley shows the line going out of downtown on 3rd, north on Madison, east on 1st, south on Lewis, then east on 7th to College. TSR had another branch from 3rd St that went south on Madison to 5th or 5th Pl -- hard to tell -- then south on Quincy to 15th.)

The north-south street names also show up on the 1915 Sanborn city map. Starting at Lewis and going east:

Lewis
Grant (Atlanta)
Cleland (Birmingham)
McCoy (Columbia)
Gordon (Delaware)
Evans (Evanston)
College
Kerr (Florence)
Nicholson (Gary)

Kendall School was on McCoy between 7th and 8th, using the old numbering. Henry Kendall College was on College between 5th and 7th.

What TBadd's map called 9th and 10th is now 10th and 11th. Their 3rd, 4th, and 5th is now 4th Pl, 5th St, and 5th Pl.

What TBadd's map called E. Lynch and E. Scott are now 2nd and 3rd Streets.

[waterboy]

I'm still pretty sure Whittier is older than Kendall by a few years. I have a brick I saved when they demolished Kendall. If I remember right, it was from a kiln in Sapulpa and had a date on it. I'll check tomorrow.

One more interesting tidbit about Kendall. Its kindergarten was of a very different style and brick than the rest of the school. It was a blonde brick, like Wilson Jr.High nearby, where Kendall was red brick. I suspect Kindergartens were not heard of until the 1920s.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by MichaelBates

That does look like a townsite map, but I don't know whether Kendall was ever incorporated or just one of the unincorporated communities that Neptune mentions.

(Dawson was a separate municipality, annexed by Tulsa in 1949. I'm pretty sure Red Fork, Carbondale, Garden City, and Highland Park were also separately incorporated at one time.)

That looks like the Tulsa Street Railway line running down 4th, Grant, and 7th up to the college. (When Oklahoma Took the Trolley shows the line going out of downtown on 3rd, north on Madison, east on 1st, south on Lewis, then east on 7th to College. TSR had another branch from 3rd St that went south on Madison to 5th or 5th Pl -- hard to tell -- then south on Quincy to 15th.)

The north-south street names also show up on the 1915 Sanborn city map. Starting at Lewis and going east:

Lewis
Grant (Atlanta)
Cleland (Birmingham)
McCoy (Columbia)
Gordon (Delaware)
Evans (Evanston)
College
Kerr (Florence)
Nicholson (Gary)

Kendall School was on McCoy between 7th and 8th, using the old numbering. Henry Kendall College was on College between 5th and 7th.

What TBadd's map called 9th and 10th is now 10th and 11th. Their 3rd, 4th, and 5th is now 4th Pl, 5th St, and 5th Pl.

What TBadd's map called E. Lynch and E. Scott are now 2nd and 3rd Streets.

Yes, that explains alot about the map. For instance, it explains why 4th street is wider just east of Lewis up to Atlanta. The map shows a solid line that comes up 4th, turns south on Atlanta over to 7th then east to the University. Seventh is also wider than other streets in the area. That also explains why there was a cool little general store at 7th & Atlanta that we all used to visit after school. A similar one was at 5th and Columbia.

However, TU's Western boundary was, and is at Delaware. College may have been the entrance to the library but the Oval that we all played baseball & football on started at Delaware and 6th.

[sgrizzle]

As I understand it, there were a lot of towns gobbled up by Tulsa at one time including Mayo, Alsuma, etc. Union Public Schools was formed as a rural district serving 9 towns/communities.

[Neptune]

quote:Kendall addition 1914 blueprint

This, I have questions about.  The word "addition" is fairly specific, at least the way it is used today.  And as the word is used today, additions can be very large.  I looked up the link for the pic, and hopped around until I ended up at...

http://www.berylfordcollection.com/

Couldn't get a more specific explanation of it, but did notice there is a vertical file at the downtown library labeled Kendall Neighborhood Planning Council.  Might be pertinent, might not.

I think we're at a dead end as far as answering the question "what exactly was Kendall"; unless one wanted to devote a little bit of real time to it.  It seems the details readily available over the internet, are sketchy at best.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by inteller

quote:Originally posted by Neptune

Typically, it's easy to locate old towns that we're annexed at one time.  

hehe, try to go driving and locate Alsuma.

Alsuma is an easy one, Inteller. When you drive by Stokely's billboards and you exit off 51 onto 169, Alsuma starts. Kraft Tours sits on old Alsuma. You can enter on 61st, cross some railroad tracks and you're there. Last time I was there at least one of its original buildings, a frame, clapboard home sitting on concrete block was still being used.

On the other hand, I've never even heard of the town of Mayo.

[jkeyeser]

Although I am not sure what communities/town it served...but East Central was once its own school district.  Since I don't live in Tulsa anymore, I am not sure if any trace of the old school buildings are left at Admrial and Garnett (NE corner).

[Neptune]

There's a decent chance Alsuma was not "incorporated."  A community can have several hundred people in it, without ever becoming a town.

It's not a hard and fast rule, but generally speaking, evidence for old annexed towns is  easier to find than evidence for old annexed communities.

Mr Bates mentioned a few towns, and I have tendency to agree on most of them.  Dawson was an incorporated town.  Red Fork, Carbondale probably incorporated.  Garden City 50/50.  I'm skeptical about Highland Park.

A Post Office, or a School, those don't make "towns".  There are plenty of non-incorporated communities still in existence today, that have both a Post Office and a School.  To develop any more than that, typically a community must incorporate and become a town.  And if the area was developed to a degree deemed worth salvaging, it's typically easier to locate.

And in the case of the current Kendall-Whittier area, which gives the appearance of an old downtown, it's likely a shopping center built in Tulsa before the era of strip malls.

[MichaelBates]

quote:Originally posted by jkeyeser

Although I am not sure what communities/town it served...but East Central was once its own school district.  Since I don't live in Tulsa anymore, I am not sure if any trace of the old school buildings are left at Admrial and Garnett (NE corner).

Some of the old buildings are now used by Wright Christian Academy. I seem to recall Lewis & Clark Jr. High was there after East Central High moved into its new building on 11th.

Lynn Lane, Romoland, and Tower Heights are all communities that were within the East Central district -- Lynn Lane's school building still stands -- but none were incorporated.

Regarding Highland Park, I'm pretty certain that it was incorporated, as I've seen the newspaper articles about their vote to dis-incorporate and be annexed by Tulsa, sometime in the early '50s. The town encompassed the quarter-section southeast of 31st and Yale.

(Edited: I just double-checked some annexation articles Jack Blair gave me a couple of years ago. Highland Park was annexed in 1956, and at the time it was the full square mile from 31st to 41st, Yale to Sheridan.)

[Neptune]

quote:Originally posted by MichaelBates

(Edited: I just double-checked some annexation articles Jack Blair gave me a couple of years ago. Highland Park was annexed in 1956, and at the time it was the full square mile from 31st to 41st, Yale to Sheridan.)

1956 isn't terribly long ago.  I wouldn't bet against the destruction caused by the BA Expressway, but it's possible some non-residential buildings still exist from Highland Park.

[TURobY]

Is the building a faded blue?