Steve LackmeyerThe Oklahoman
In just a matter of minutes, the historic city of Sulphur was smashed to pieces by a tornado that took out an estimated 200 buildings, left its museum without a roof and wiped out its downtown.
The storm also showed no mercy to the city’s Chickasaw National Recreational Area where trees were shredded into pieces. But this is no ordinary city. This is Sulphur, where healing waters and the strength of the Chickasaw Nation have long provided relief to those in pain and hope for recovery.
Can the history of Sulphur be saved? Can it be rebuilt, and if so, how? And why is the city, and its history, worth the effort?
City built on healing waters and Chickasaw hospitality
Nestled in the foothills of the Arbuckle Mountains, Sulphur is known for its mineral springs that were believed to have healing powers.
According to the National Park Service, archeological evidence indicates the area’s springs were first used by humans 1,000 years ago. The Chickasaw Nation, one of the five major tribes forcibly moved from their lands in what is now the southeast United States, was relocated in the 1830s to what is now southern Oklahoma.
Dennis Muncrief, Sulphur’s city historian, sees the city’s DNA in the Chickasaw legacy and the healing powers of the rippling waters of the sulfur springs.
“The water has brought people to this area for hundreds of years,” Muncrief said. “And it’s where the Chickasaws had their tribal meetings. A lot of tribal business was taken care of at the springs.”
During the Civil War, at what is now the Chickasaw National Recreation Area, the tribe set up a camp for refugees, regardless of whether they were tied to the Union or Confederacy.
“Most of the tribes, the five ‘civilized,’ they had factions that fought the north and south,” Muncrief said. “Those whose lives and homes were disrupted by the war would come to the springs. The Chickasaw Indians took care of them.”
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Once again, 160 years later, the Chickasaws were quick to provide aid when Sulphur was decimated by an EF3 tornado on April 27. The tribe set up a mobile medical van just north of the city’s Artesian Hotel and provided free medical care regardless of insurance or citizenship.
The storm that hit Sulphur on April 27 wasn’t the first twister to rip through the city, but records maintained by the National Weather Service indicate that it was the strongest.
The last tornado to hit Sulphur was an EF1 that struck a drive-in movie theater on July 15, 1955. The movie screen blew into a car, injuring three women, one of whom later died from her injuries.
The latest storm killed one Sulphur resident and injured at least 30 people. The woman killed was later identified as Sheila Hillard Goodman, who was one of several people gathered at Raina’s Sports Lounge when it was hit by the tornado.According to her obituary, the 63-year-oldwas a lifelong resident employed by the Chickasaw Nation as a casino floor manager.
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Muncrief, 77, was at his home along Rock Creek directly in the tornado’s path. He survived with minor injuries. He said his Corgi dog El Chapo now has PTSD and is largely hiding under furniture and is skittish at most noises.
He is living with his nephew since the storm but is getting back out to the home daily to make it livable again. The storm stripped off the roof and busted all of the windows, but the exterior walls survived intact.
The house was built decades ago by his parents, and he spent his youth playing, swimming and fishing in the creek. He saw first hand how the city, and the legend of the springs’ healing powers, attracted visitors from throughout the region.
“They would smear the black sulfur mud all over their bodies,” Muncrief said. “They would lay out in the sun until the mud dried. They said it made their bodies feel better because it relieved their pain.”
Muncrief swears a legend about drinking the sulfur water to prevent chigger bites is true.
“You sweat the sulfur through the body,” Muncrief said. “That keeps the chiggers off. That’s a fact.”
The first ranger at the Chickasaw National Recreation Area, originally known as Platt National Park, was himself subject of a tale of Sulphur’s healing waters.
“He was a 17-, 18-year-old boy and he liked to fish,” Muncrief said. He was bit in the leg by a catfish. The doctors told his mother they would have to amputate his leg. They heard about the healing waters in the sulfur springs. They moved down, they bathed the leg every day, and it healed.”
The family stayed in Sulphur where the mother opened a hat store, and the father opened a real estate business. Their son, Forest Townsley, was the first ranger at the new national park and is credited with inspiring standardized park ranger uniforms.
The development of Sulphur dates to the early 1890s when conventions and gatherings were held at the springs. Muncrief said fishermen built a clubhouse at the springs in 1890, and expanded it into a hotel. A townsite was platted, and the Sulphur post office opened in 1895. By 1900 the community was home to 1,198 residents and had its own newspaper. The Chickasaws donated their 640-acre Sulphur Springs Reservation to the Department of Interior. The former reservation, along with an additional 200 acres acquired by the federal government, was made a national park in 1906.
It was at this time, Muncrief said, that Sulphur flourished as a resort. Stores and refreshment stands were built around Pavilion Springs. The post office was the center of the "East Side," and businesses opposite the springs developed the "West Side." The Belleview Swimming Pool was billed as Oklahoma's largest, and the park’s Vendome Well remains the state's largest artesian spring.
The growing number of tourists visiting Sulphur prompted two local entrepreneurs, J.M. Bayless and C.J. Webster, to begin construction of a four-story luxury hotel they aspired to make the finest in Indian Territory. The pair abandoned the project when the Department of Interior extended the boundaries of the Sulphur Springs Reservation.
The pair started over and built the Artesian Hotel, which was used as a “summer White House” by Oklahoma’s first governor, Charles Haskell. Over time the hotel would host legends like Roy Rogers and John Wayne.
With the advent of statehood in 1907, the Oklahoma School for the Deaf was established in Sulphur with classes first held in rented buildings and hotels. The campus, still home to the school, opened in 1913. A tuberculosis sanatorium was opened in 1921 and is now home to the 17-acre Sulphur Veterans Home.
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The part of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area known as the Platt District took shape during the Great Depression when the Civilian Conservation Corps planted hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs. They built mineral spring pavilions, campgrounds, picnic spots, dams and waterfalls, all linked by a network of roads and trails.
The history by the National Park Service credits the Platt District work as being the largest and longest running effort by the CCC, employing 200 workers at any given time between 1933 and 1940.
Much of the Platt District was listed as still closed due to the tornado’s damage at the start of Memorial Day weekend, a time when many of the state’s recreational areas are usually busy with campers, hikers and water sports enthusiasts. Closed historic landmarks included the Rock Creek Campground, the Bromide Pavilion and Picnic Area, Black Sulphur Springs and Walnut Grove.
The storm also did extensive damage to Flour Bluff Manor, built in 1924 by former Mayor J.D. Ramsey. The large rooms and furnishings stood as a reminder of early wealth in Oklahoma for those visiting it after it was converted into a bed and breakfast, event center and restaurant.
Photos posted online show the mansion without a roof, furnishings trashed and much of the decor ruined.
Most of the 27 buildings in the Sulphur downtown district, listed on the National Historic Register of Historic Places, were damaged or destroyed. Any hopes of someday renovating and reopening the city’s historic downtown theater were wiped away by the twister.
The city’s National Guard Armory, also on the historic register, was extensively damaged by flooding caused by the 7 inches of rain dumped during the same storm.
Sulphur City Manager Andy Freeman was still assessing damage a month after the deadly storm.
“It came from the southwest going northeast,” Freeman said. “If you were standing in front of City Hall, you were 100 yards away from the track of where the storm went.”
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Roof repairs were underway at the city museum to avoid further water damage. The city’s art gallery’s new roof was punctured and dealing with water leaks. The downtown plaza, lighting and clock were destroyed. The American Legion post took roof damage.
A fire department substation was destroyed, and a tanker truck and brush truck were totaled. A police car and code inspection vehicle were damaged. Stoplights took a hit as did a switch at the city’s wastewater treatment plant. Inspections were still ongoing with the city’s bridges, some of which dated back to the construction by the CCC.
The city’s high school was flooded, and the twister damaged the school's baseball and softball fields. The school bus barn was destroyed as was most of the school bus fleet. Freeman said Oklahoma City Public Schools lent some busses to the district to get it through to the end of the school year.
“It’s pretty bad,” Freeman said.
Recovery and rebuilding possible when storms turn towns into rubble
A glance at the devastation in Sulphur might spur ample doubt or even hopelessness that the city’s history can ever be restored. Some building facades still stood along Muskogee Avenue looking west along Muskogee and Vinita avenues. But just as many if not more of the structures were reduced to piles of rubble.
Sulphur was one of several communities hit hard by more than a dozen tornadoes on the night of April 27 with people killed and injured in Marietta and Holdenville.
After touring Sulphur, Gov. Kevin Stitt called the devastation in Sulphur the worst he had seen in his six years as governor.
“We’ll build back stronger than ever before,” Stitt said. “That’s my promise to Sulphur, Holdenville and every Oklahoma community facing loss today.”
Sulphur and other hard-hit communities were declared federal disaster zones, qualifying them for aid from FEMA, while lawmakers and Stitt agreed to provide $45 million to leverage federal grants. Private donations totaling tens of thousands of dollars flowed into the city.
The numbers of communities and people needing help continues to go up.
At least another eight tornadoes hit the state a week after the ones that hit Sulphur and other communities. On the second weekend, twisters left serious damage in Barnsdall and Bartlesville. More tornadoes hit the state in the ensuing days and weeks. Western Oklahoma was clobbered on Mother's Day weekend.
Photos of Sulphur taken after the April 27 storm closely resemble aerial shots taken of Greensburg, Kansas after a rare EF5 tornado wiped out much of that city in 2007. The city rebuilt much of its Main Street and transformed itself into an incubatorfor green technology and construction.
Another EF5 tornado hit Joplin, Missouri, in 2011. The storm killed 161 people, destroyed 4,500 homes and businesses, and caused $3 billion in damage. The Washington Post later reported the city received $150 million in federal aid, and entire neighborhoods were rebuilt, albeit without the tree canopy the city enjoyed before the storm.
Several examples of rebuilding badly damaged historic buildings, meanwhile, also can be found in Oklahoma City.
They include the Hotel Marion, built in 1904 and stripped down to four walls before being rebuilt with restoration of some key interior features, including the lobby stair-rail. Similar rebuilds occurred with part of the Sieber Hotel Apartments and the Sunshine building, which is now home to Stonecloud Brewing.
The St. Nichols Hotel building at 900 N Broadway, built in 1910, was extensively damaged by the bomb blast that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995. The building was then gutted by fire a couple of weeks later.
“Anything that could happen to it happened,” said Meg Salyer, who along with her husband at the time took on the challenge of building back the former hotel against tough odds. “The St. Nick had Sweeney’s Deli on the ground floor, and the rest of the building had been abandoned for a long time. We had the bombing, and then every building on the street had their roofs lifted off. The building had been boarded up and secured all the way up to the top floor, but someone broke in and set a fire in the stairwell.”
The roof had to be removed. The walls still stood. Architect Rand Elliott salvaged and reused the beams that weren’t destroyed by the flames.
“Many people would have written it off,” Salyer said. “But it’s a very important structure. Clarence Page lived there for a while. And it was a contributing building on Broadway that we wanted to save.”
Teams from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Urban Land Institute sent experts to consult on the rebuilding — the sort of assistance can be sought out by Sulphur as it seeks to rebuild its downtown.
The focus on rebuilding the area also included architects, landscape designers and consultants from the state’s Main Street Program.
Ron Frantz, a veteran of the Main Street Program, was among those who consulted Salyer and other Automobile Alley property owners.
“I always like to try to think of ways to save what you can, especially in a town (like Sulphur) that has been hit that hard,” Frantz said. “What can you save that can be re-used and bring back the look of the town. So many times, it’s easy to run in after a fire and bulldoze everything instead of spending some time looking at it to save what you can.”
Frantz added Sulphur has the advantage of having so much of the area was documented through its own Main Street program and the State Preservation Office.
Salyer agrees Sulphur can be rebuilt, but she added the discussion should not exclude alternative uses and new directions. Most of the historic building facades remain intact. But Automobile Alley, almost 30 years after the bombing, is a mix of shops, restaurants and offices, far different from what it was before the area was rebuilt.
“What has happened in the last 25 years is incredibly inspiring for what can happen in any community,” Salyer said. “If it’s a neighborhood, a community effort, that the difference with all of these Main Street efforts. It can’t be the vision of a single person. It has to be a collaborative, neighborhood effort that brings people together.”
Perseverance and preservation form strong ties between Sulphur and the Chickasaw Nation
The Chickasaw Nation is headquartered in Ada, but its ties to Sulphur date back almost two centuries. Muncrief credits the tribe with bringing life back to Sulphur at a time when it was seeing its population drop from a high of 5,516 in 1980 to 4,794 in 2000.
Muncrief recalls that when the Artesian Hotel was destroyed in a fire in 1964, the surrounding east side of the city died, as well.
Bill Anoatubby, governor of the Chickasaw Nation since 1987, has early memories of when Sulphur had a reputation for the medicinal properties of its springs and beauty of the adjoining park land and lake.
“It has always been a wonderful place to gather,” Anoatubby said. “Our history in the area dates back to the 1830s when we established homes and businesses on the land surrounding the Seven Sisters Springs near present-day Sulphur.”
The Chickasaw Nation employs about 425 people in Sulphur. In recent years the tribe opened an array of cultural and community attractions in Sulphur, including the Chickasaw Nation Retreat and Conference Center, the Chickasaw Nation Cultural Center, the Chickasaw Nation Visitors Center, the Sulphur Splash Pad, the Inkana bridge, the Mahota Art Gallery and Artesian Art Gallery and Studio.
The city is also home to the Chickasaw’s area office, youth club, head start program and senior center.
It’s the Artesian Hotel and Casino, however, that is seen by Muncrief as an example of what’s possible when the city has the Chickasaws as its partner. The Chickasaw Nation, now one of the state’s largest employers, got its start in business with the construction of the humble Chickasaw Motor Inn in 1972 on the site of the original Artesian Hotel.
Muncrief pegs the year of Sulphur’s revival to when the Chickasaw Nation built a new Artesian Hotel that closely resembles the original landmark while offering guests a sleek, modern interior.
The city worked with the Chickasaws to build back the Artesian in a way that brought its history back to life. He asks, why can’t the same be done with the historic downtown district?
Anoatubby pledged the Chickasaw Nation remains committed to Sulphur and is ready to take on its share of rebuilding a community known for its healing waters.
“Perseverance is a core value of the Chickasaw people, just as it is for the people of Sulphur,” Anaotubby said. “While Sulphur has suffered many challenges and losses over the years, each time the citizens and community have risen to those challenges and overcome them.”
The Chickasaw Nation, Anaotubby said, helped transform Sulphur into a tourist destination by continuing the tribe’s legacy of preserving the area’s natural beauty and history.
“We have a responsibility to continue preserving and celebrating our unique cultural heritage, the history and economic development of this area,” Anaotubby said. “We remain committed to that responsibility because it is part of our overall mission to positively impact the lives and welfare of the Chickasaw people and it benefits all who live and work in this part of the state.”
Steve Lackmeyerstarted at The Oklahoman in 1990.He is an award-winningreporter, columnist and author who covers downtown Oklahoma City,urban development and economics for The Oklahoman. Contact him at slackmeyer@oklahoman.com. Please support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a subscription today atsubscribe.oklahoman.com.
