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America’s Black Wallstreet — Greenwood — Tulsa Series

Black Wall Street (Greenwood) Memorial in Tulsa, OK

In my last Tulsa Series blog post, I explained that because of black gold – oil – Tulsa became known as the Magic City. Later to be known as The Oil Capital of the World. Promotion and civic pride abounded. However, there was one little problem. That was the thriving black community to the north known as Greenwood, named after the main street located in the community. For many Tulsa business people, the presence of so many successful black businesses was a thorn in their side.

J.B. Stradford

One black businessman by the name of J.B. Stradford, the son of a freed Kentucky slave, came to the area in 1899. It was his dream for blacks to pool their resources and work together to support one another’s businesses. To this end, he purchased large tracts of land just north of Tulsa. From there he subdivided and sold only to other black business men and women.

Later he built the Stradford Hotel on Greenwood Avenue, which was the largest black-owned hotel in the nation.

Black Wall Street

The Dreamland Movie Theater, located in Greenwood before being destroyed the Riot

This is why Greenwood was made up of independent entrepreneurs who owned their own businesses – laundry, hair salon, taxi service, grocery store, barber shop, dry goods, movie theater – you name it, the community offered it. A dollar bill could be circulated in Greenwood many times before ever leaving. The area covered over 40 square blocks. The neighborhoods were similar to any neighborhood of that era with stylish wood-frame homes, sidewalks, and manicured lawns.

Few of the citizens of Greenwood had any need to go into downtown Tulsa except to go to work. Many were employed by the wealthy oil barons living there, all of whom needed domestic help. (I stated previously that in 1921 the city of Tulsa boasted over 50 millionaires.)

Now you can understand why the black community of Greenwood was known as the Black Wall Street of America. It stood as a sterling example of American ingenuity, enterprise, and resourcefulness.

In the spring of 1921, all of the peace and prosperity that Greenwood had enjoyed for decades was about to come to a horrific end.

Book #1 (Tulsa Tempest)

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You can read Chapter 1 of Tulsa Tempest right HERE!

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Book #2 (Tulsa Turning),

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The Tulsa Series — Tulsa, The Magic City

Tulsey Town

In 1905, an oil strike forever transformed the small cow town, known as Tulsey Town, into a mushrooming metropolis–the Magic City. The strike, however, was not in Tulsa itself, but rather twelve miles south of town.

A man named Robert Galbreath, following the lure of black gold, traveled to Indian Territory in 1901 (the area did not become the state of Oklahoma until 1907) along with his partner, Frank Chesley.

The Glenn Pool

Four years later, the two drilled the Ida E. Glenn No.1, the discover-well of the Glenn Pool, Oklahoma’s first major oil field. It was soon to become the richest field the world had ever seen.

It quickly earned the name of the Glenn Pool, because it was a lake of oil. Black gold gushed from the ground, so much so that storage tanks couldn’t be constructed fast enough. In places, the oil literally stood hub deep. Production peaked about 1907 with more than 100,000 barrels a day. The field grew from eighty acres to eight thousand acres during the first year and ultimately became roughly four miles long and two miles wide. (Difficult to imagine, right?)

Magic City to the Oil Capital of the World

So, you may be wondering, if the oil strike happened twelve miles south of the city, how did Tulsa become known as the Magic City? (And later as The Oil Capital of the World.)

The answer is simple. It’s called publicity. No matter that the strike was down the railroad tracks a ways, clever, far-sighted businessmen in Tulsa were determined to make Tulsa the center of all the action.

In time, a number of aggressive Tulsa promoters were renting fancy rail cars and traveling around the country touting all the reasons for people to pack up and move to Tulsa.

As mentioned, they first dubbed it The Magic City; but by 1912, they settled on the “Oil Capital of the Be A Novelist World.” The name stuck and the city was still carrying the name when I first moved to the area before the oil bust of the 1980s. And Glenpool is still a flourishing little town down Highway 75 from Tulsa. (The second n was dropped somewhere along the way and Glenn Pool became Glenpool.)

Simmering Cauldron

By 1921, when my Tulsa Series books takes place, over fifty millionaires resided in the city. (Do names like J. Paul Getty, Harry Ford Sinclair, and Waite Philips ring a bell?)

As the city outwardly gleamed and glistened, beneath the surface was a simmering cauldron about to boil over. That’s where the Tulsa Series books come into the picture.

Photo Credits:

Tulsa Offices, 1909 — Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society.

Glenn Oil Pool — Oklahoma Historical Society