Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome,
And it's time now for our community connection right here on Gay one,
the one you trust, and we're gonna get a little bit of a history
lesson today and we're gonna find out how to preserve a little bit of history
here too, because we have Joe Sears and Ron Adams and both of them
are here on behalf of the Dewey Hotel Museum. And welcome gentlemen. First
of all, thank you Tom, good more of you Donald. All right,
Well, you know, Ron, I understand we got a little bit
of a fundraiser for the hotel, but it's a very specific project, that's
right. We're we're looking to try to raise about sixty thousand, sixty thousand,
sixty five thousand dollars to paint the old Grand Old Lady of the Grand
Prairie, the big Dewey Hotel where we do the Christmas paride from every years.
Right now, now, Joe, that's a pretty what kind of paint
y'all use it? Well, they're Dewey Tel Museum is a National Register of
Historic Places. Yeah, along with that come all kinds of stipulations to preserve
these things. If if you're going to get grants to help preserve these things,
that you have to follow their directions and they want it done precisely so
that you know, it doesn't have to be done for another decade. So
it is expensive. It's more much more expensive for a historical place. And
that's what we're looking at. You know, We've got thirty thirty one rooms
with all the windows there's that have to be foamed and if there's any standing
that takes place, it has to be done right. So expensive, Yeah,
labor intense. Oh yeah, man, well you just imagine too.
You gotta you gotta prime. It's great, primate and in paint, you
know, yeah, I mean it's just not it's like any other house,
you know. But the size of it is what makes a job, I
mean huge. And the shape. The shape. It's the first. It's
a Victorian New England Victorian structure. It's the only structure of its kind in
Oklahoma. It was the first structure to receive electricity in Indian Territory and it
was going to be torn down in the mid sixties. I was a teenager
getting ready to head off to college about that time, and they decided to
turn it into a museum and they wouldn't tear it down, but a group
of Dewey citizens saved it. Yea, and thank goodness because it's it's really
the cradle of a lot of our history in the area. Jake Bartles built
it, and he was originally a New jerseyman who came to Kansas to test
out the prairie. His family were big agricultural people, you know, and
he went. He heard Kansas was very fertile. But while he was there
in Kansas, the Civil War started and he joined the Union, and he
was Kansas was a new neutral state. The Confederacy had told the five civilized
tribes, you're either with us or against us. You better join us because
we're not going to tolerate an invasion from Kansas to Texas and Arkansas. So
they placed troops up in here, and mister Bardell's was a part of the
Union forces that came down here to work their nerve and just let them know
you don't have complete control of Indian territory. So this area here, interestingly,
Highway sixty was called the California Highway, the California Yeah, and it
hugged Kansas still does, but it kept the white people out of the middle
of the Indian nations because there was really no law to protect white people.
Those were Indian nations and you had no business being in there unless you were
a US marshal. I think Texas Rangers were allowed to go in there.
And the laws that governed Indian territory were out of Fort Smith and the Hanging
Judge, Judge Parker. It was tough times at Ridgemont highm Now you know
why they call us the porch Stokers. Yeah, but there's a lot of
history to the Dewey Hotel and Jake Bartle's and we just happened to be board
members and working for the you know, we're of the generation the historic the
Washington County Historical Society saved the old hotel back in the mid sixties. Yeah,
and it takes fundraising. So we're having a big buffet on October the
seventh. Yea and Ron, where are we holding this thing? I'm sorry,
where are we holding this buffet? All at the Barsville Masonic Lads?
Oh, you know a lot of great meals have been half Yeah, and
we've had and you know, of course I'm a I belong to the Masonic
laws. So we've helped a lot of nonprofit organizations with our breakfast that we've
had out there, and uh, you know, that was something that we've
always taken pride of being as charity, you know, and I'm glad that
we've done so much to help the different organizations here in town. Well how
much does it cost to slap on a bib and enjoy some good food?
Well advanced tickets. We got him on himself for eight dollars and then at
the door it's ten. And it's quite a feed for that much money.
My goodness, as that's a great proces. Yeah. Price the old fashioned
Mika markets, the break caters, Yeah, we got the good we went
first class. We're sure dead and uh boy, I mean we've got like
Hammond beans and corn bread and bit red vegetable beak stews, chili chili.
If you want a Freedo chili pie or a hot dog, we've even got
that. I'm gonna line up for the Freedo pot. Yeah. And then
we got the BlackBerry copper and Jerry copper yeah, and afforded cookies. Yeah.
And the community has come out, I mean, the merchants are we're
having a silent auction. Now you don't have to be there to win,
okay, but we're the lots of merchants are coming through and what they don't
do a silent auction. They're giving rang money. And it's amazing how people
want to help the old Dewey Hotel. And well, it's just it's one
of the icons of the area. We can go to Dewey there it is,
you know, and tourism. We know how important tourism is. You
guys see a lot of folks. Well, yeah, surprisingly, you know,
I for a long time I wondered about that, and we looked at
our register. There's people from all over the United States and even some foreign
countries that I had a land from Turkey the other day. I sure did.
Yeah. So you guys, you're talking about being ports talker. You
guys are actually kind of guides there at the hotel. Yeah, but we
got our rocking cheers out character. We're part of the character of that court.
We can sure come up with some story too. Well. I tell
tours when they come in that this lobby is pretty much what it originally looked
like. But all the history that the hotel opened in nineteen hundred and all
the history events that have taken place between nineteen hundred and now we're announced in
that lobby and discussed in that lobby, and both sides of all three party,
the Whigs, the Republicans. It's always faced a controversy and discussion and
it's still I am amazed at something will happen and the people the discussions of
it in the lobby, and I sit there thinking this is what it's all
about. For a hundred years, this old lobby has you heard our American
history and discussed it pros and cons and probably kicked off the porch. We
have a poker room up there where one is always going to ask about that.
They told me about that that time it came up there with the TV
camera they had up there. Two men have been shot in that poker room,
one and drug out to die on the law. But it was built
as a poker room. There's an outside room and nobody goes into the poker
room until somebody comes out. And there's lots of famous people from John Wayne
Lodgers, and they've even got a bed at Beair in case the old boys
would get hired. They let him take an that's right, They wouldn't let
them. Can't leave yet, you know. And then they got another private
bedroom a pair that they had the backstairs for for the evening round. I
guess you like you know nanny who helped build that hotel. She was a
chief's daughter of the Delaware Nation. She was educated and had money and it
was her land alotment. And when they bring up the idea of there being
you know, hanky panky going on, you gotta remember this lady started the
first Baptist church in the area. Okay, I doubt seriously she tolerated the
backstair. But then again other people will say, well, she was a
business wal her and Jake well and then tulor their son Joe became I meant,
really a prominent you know person two with starting to do around that he
did, which became the third largest rodeo in the United States attached in North
America. Yeah, yeah, and just hard to mission. You look at
those pictures up there that round up the fair grounds was huge and the number
of people there was one picture there I think it's for forty some a thousand
people come to that rodeo. They had forty thousand people over a three day
period for three rodeo in one hotel. Yeah. Well the hotel was really
exotic. They had they served a wild game. They had two bakeries going
twenty four hours a day. Oh my goodness for bread. They just they
had a store up there that was like a Reezers store of it's from a
pretty high end for Indian territory. And it used to be in Bartlesville.
And the railroad didn't come through the Bartlesville area where where mister bartles wanted it
to. So he just put his store on rollers and took it to do
it. Yeah, took him eighty eight days. It stayed open, and
I mean it was all intact. Yeah, we're talking about a two story
mercantile, that's right. Yeah. Wow, and used oxen and brought that
thing up. That's what blows my mind. Well, but when he put
that, he put the store down where the Tom Mix's Museum is now,
and now he was half a block from the railroad stuff. Yeah, so
he had one before Bartlesville did. But do you know that old dooy Is
has its own entity. It's always been its own little town. It's not
a part of Bartlesville. Oh, it's always it's always been its own little
special place. And at Christmas we celebrate the small town Christmas at the hotel.
Santa comes and I love so fun. And you know, I made
a mistake first time I was there. I asked the lead you at the
front desk, I said, I got some equipment here, y'all got an
elevator. School sir, this is a historic for my bad. Yeah,
I think. What's so fun an when people bring their children, Yeah,
and they see like their spit tunes, you know, you tell them what
it what it is, and then the chamber pots. Yeah, oh yeah,
yeah, they just kid. They flip out on it, so they
don't they have no idea that at one time people had to use chamber pots.
There was no modern plumbing in the hotel there until the thirties. But
somebody had every day, you know, clean and empty the chamber. Imagine
that job. Yeah, I hope they gave her minimum. Way, my
goodness, Well, we're getting kind of skinny on time. I want to
remind everybody that we do have the fundraiser here. It's for the painting for
the hotel. Then because of its historic registration, it's going to be done
in a specific way, so we need a race between fifty five and sixty
thousand dollars and we're doing. Boy, you're gonna be serving a lot of
meals at ten bucks up pop. Yeah, but if you get them early,
it's only eight bucks. And we're going to do that out at the
at what Sonic Lage Sonic lawge Fry, October the seventh. What time is
that? It's the evening. It's an evening five to eight eight. We
figured we figured that was going to be our best time to have it.
I'll be hungry by then. Yeah. Well and all of the there's a
raffle during the fifty fifty, but all of it. You don't have to
be there to win. That's a good part, Okay, good thing,
and we've got to carry out. It's available to read and beans for a
week. Math man or mister a Dan out there at prices beating. He
knows how to fix it. Oh beach is good. Now, how do
we get the tickets? Do we just stop by the hotel? You can
you can stop by the by the hotel and you also buy them online through
our website which is wc HS dot org or through fakesbook. Do we hit
do helptel museum that way, it's said up. Okay, so you do
that way too, could yeah, we might easy could come. Yeah.
And then there's there's a few of us that you know, do have some
sales ability, you know, and we're kind of floating around town, you
know, sell them out of pocket, you know. Well, I'm gonna
tell you they're gonna go fast at eight to ten dollars. Yea, and
little guys you don't have to worry about that. But well, this is
gonna be a lot of fun and it's gonna be you know, a great
cause. And you know, fellas stop buy here an each whole time.
You got a project. Okay, thank you, thank The door is always
open, and we'll see you around Christmas started. Yeah, we'll be up
there for the parade. It might even be up there for Heritage Days.
I think we put we go right there. Oh yeah, that's coming up
the poorteen. We watch out for the cost next weekend. Oh we don't
feed along word alright, take care