Oklahoma Territorial Plaza – Part Two
2012.12.22
Bud’s Service Station, built in 1957, was on 6th avenue in Stillwater.
Bob Read established the Cimarron Valley Railroad Museum in 1970 on land just outside Cushing, Oklahoma when he purchased the Yale, Oklahoma Santa Fe Depot (1916) to house the family’s growing collection of railroad memorabilia. I visited once or twice on grade school class trips. In 2011, the building was moved to the Territorial Plaza. The museum in Cushing included a caboose, oil tank car, box car, and engine, but I believe the Read family sold all the rolling stock to private collectors before donating the depot and its contents. The red caboose now at the Territorial Plaza used to sit next to the McDonalds in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
John Allen Neaves of Missouri joined the 1889 land run. After establishing his claim, he sent for his wife Ella. She was one of the first schoolteachers in the area, and remained on their farm until her death in 1950. The windmill below came from their homestead.
At the driveway entrance to the plaza stands this large reproduction of “Buffalo Horse”, a Frederick Remington bronze sculpture from 1907. The original can be seen at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa. The sculpture depicts a disastrous moment for a native buffalo runner and his pony. Although the piece was surely intended to be dramatic and tragic, I found it comic.
Territorial Plaza