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Thread: Midwest City Recollections

  1. #1

    Default Midwest City Recollections

    I have been lurking around OKC Talk and the Midwest City / Del City forum for some time and finally decided to post something.

    With the rapid and radical changes that have been happening in Midwest City over the past few years, I was wondering if there might be a repository of historic photographs. I stopped by the Midwest City branch of the Oklahoma County Metropolitan Library System, but there wasn’t a whole lot there in the way of pictures.

    I was eating in a barbecue place in Dallas and the fixtures hanging from the ceiling were reminiscent of the radial wave shade streetlights that Midwest City had before Mercury Vapor street lamps became prevalent. I have seen a couple of houses in MWC that have what appear to be old streetlights in the yard, but these no longer have their original hanging arms. I wonder where I might find a street scene with an original street light. I need to return to the library and look again.

    I would also like to find a picture of the fire station that originally sat where station 2 is today.

    In a Heritage Park Mall thread, someone mentioned that there used to be a dirt bike track or something in the space now occupied by the mall. I don’t remember the track for some reason, but it got me trying to recall Midwest City in the 1960s and 1970s.

    I have lived in Midwest City all of my life and most of my early recollections are restricted to the original mile and adjacent square mile areas close to where I lived. I grew up during the period when it was commonplace to go "downtown" to bank at the First National Bank of Midwest City (“at least we beat a piggy bank”); shop at Oklahoma Tire and Supply, Florsheim Shoes, Langston’s, and Streets; eat at the Plaza Restaurant; and have prescriptions filled at the Conrad-Marr Drug Store. The southeast corner of Southeast Fifteenth Street and Air Depot Blvd., where the self-storage place is, there was a large grassy lot with some type of antenna array, possibly connected with Tinker Air Force Base. Supermarkets were everywhere including, at Southeast Fifteenth Street and Air Depot Blvd., Humpty Dumpty where the ihop stands now and across the street to the east, Brannon’s where the Dollar Tree is located. Stockton’s Supermarket and Delicatessen is now vacant at the west end of the Uptown Shopping Center.

    We spent most of our shopping time Uptown at Sears (before it burned to the ground, where Michaels is now), or T.G.&Y (where Langston’s is currently situated, or the Uptown OTASCO (Evelyn’s Flowers). We also ate at Adair's Cafeteria (Henry Hudson’s Pub).

    At the Lockheed Shopping Center we had Conrad-Marr #2 and Smith Hardware. If they would hurry up and take down that confounded "Open during construction" sign, I'd like to take a night photo of the original neon in the window of the cleaners.

    Where the Jimmy's Egg now stands was Burn’s Tastee Freeze. Where the Chase bank is now, along Southeast Fifteenth Street, is where Dunn's Dairy Queen (drive in) used to be. Next to the Dairy Queen (where the Enterprise car rental, ex sit down Dairy Queen is now) was a small building housing a barber shop and Herman’s Sporting Goods.

    When I was attending Traub Elementary School, I remember being fascinated by the construction cranes used as I watched Oscar Rose Junior College being built.

    My purpose in the preceding prattle is to, perhaps, stimulate recollections of Midwest City’s earlier days by others before evidence of that era is erased from the earth. Also, since recollections are notoriously subject to being incomplete factually, any corrections or amplifications to my own are encouraged. Recently, I ran into someone with whom I attended school, and in reference to finding that my high school yearbook picture had been posted on one of the classmates type websites, I suggested that if I had known back then that one day there was going to be something called the internet some day, I would have been a bit more particular about what pictures of myself are floating around. Perhaps Midwest City residents, present and former, can turn the prevalence and permanence of the internet to good use by writing Midwest City recollections into the record right here.

  2. Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    I don't have quite the record since I got my start in '82, but here are a few things I remember.

    When Hunt's Law Office was the pancake house.
    When Walgreen's was Mama Lou's.
    When PhotMat even existed (that was sooo cool to a 4 year old)
    When that air conditioning place was actually a business on Midwest.
    When the Army Surplus store had cool stuff...if you could find the building.
    When MCHS had it's entrance where the new admin building is.
    When we actually had a real lumber yard!!!! Including those cheesey red shirts the folks that worked there wore to try and show how "strong" they were. That always made me laugh.

  3. Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    When onCue was a Shlotzky's....

  4. Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    I remember when that On Cue was an empty field. We would go cruising every Friday and Saturday night from McDonalds to Sonic and cars would line up in that field. Cruising came to an abrupt stop in the mid-80's when they made it illegal.

  5. Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    I wish they would bring it back...

    we still go to Meridian, even though I havn't been in a good while, and NW 39th.

  6. #6

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    I worked at Sound Warehouse, before it was a CiCis. I loved Rose Field. I still do. I used to come home from work at the Sound Warehouse and drive Air Depot just to see my friends. It would take me two hours just to traverse two miles.

    I loved the Apollo Twin theater. I saw "The Jerk" and "The Kids Are Alright" there.

    I used to go to Heritage Park Mall the last Tuesday of every month to buy "Creem" magazine from the book store. I would sit in the courtyard outside Dillards for hours reading that magazine.

    I once ate a 22 oz. steak at the Sirloin Stockade on Air Depot, when I was on break from my job at TG&Y. I ate the whole thing. With a baked potato.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    Ok, maybe it shows my age too, but I remember the arcade in heritage park. "Can I borrow a quarter?" and spending all my allowance there. I also remember the Sound Warehouse too. Used to go in and spend hours just looking around.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    Quote Originally Posted by bombermwc View Post
    I don't have quite the record since I got my start in '82...
    I think that recollections of Midwest City of any time period are apropos as the city has been subtly changing throughout the years.

    I have one minor correction to my original post. The building housing the barber shop and Herman’s Sporting Goods was not where Enterprise car rental is now: It was down in the hole in what is now the Hobby Lobby parking lot between Chase Bank and Enterprise. As late as 1977, that entire area with the exception of the Brannon’s (Dollar Tree) building and the buildings along SE 15th St. was a grassy field.

    My earliest memory of the location of Twid’s Sporting goods was that they were located along SE 15th Street where the Ace Alternator Shop is currently located. They then moved to SE15th and Air Depot to the vacant Security Bank Building where they had their shoe department in the vault. From there, they relocated across the intersection, northeast, to the right half of the building where the Dollar Tree is now, the left portion being occupied at the time by Mardel. Twid’s then moved to its current location at SE 15th. St. and Buena Vista.

    The Security Bank Drive in, believe it or not, was remodeled into what is now Auto Zone. Tooling down the aisles looking for windshield washer fluid or fuzzy dice for the rear view mirror, one is walking under the same roof where cars sat idling waiting for pneumatic tubes to shuffle between the Diebold stations and the tellers located behind windows that are still visible behind the motor oil display along the back wall of the store.

    To the best of my memory, the southwest corner of SE15th St. and Air Depot Blvd. Transitioned backward in time: Walgreens > Phillips 66 > Security Bank Building > ?

    I was graduated from Midwest City High School and I believe that it was the following summer that they moved the entrance to the west. Does anyone remember the year when the major remodel of Midwest City High School began?

    The comment about Schlotsky’s reminded me that before they were at 15th St. and Air Depot Blvd., they were in the building on Air Depot where US Cellular is. Prior to that, Schlotsky’s was at the North end of the strip center on the west side of Air Depot Blvd. at Peach St.

    If I recall correctly, the southeast corner of SE 15th and Air Depot transitioned backward in time: On Cue > Schlotsky’s > Carl’s Jr. > Hardees > vacant lot.

    Locke Electrical Supply was originally a Kinney’s Shoe Store and between it and Adair’s Cafeteria (Henry Hudson’s Pub) was an O.G&E. electrical Sub Station.

    Sears sat where Michaels is today and the Locke Supply plumbing, heat and air building behind it was the Sears tire and auto center. The main Sears building burned completely to the ground on the first day of school, 1976, and Sears relocated, until the mall store was built, as a catalog only store to the “Quonset hut” building on Midwest Blvd adjacent to the Santa Fe, ex Oklahoma City, Ada, and Atoks railroad tracks.

    I can’t remember if the odd building across the parking lot to the west of the Sears auto center was a furniture store or an appliance store.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    After high school, I moved to Midwest City for a few years befor I went into the USAF. I lived with three other people in a tiny house near the country club off of Reno near Post Road. There were 3-4 small rental houses along the last east-west street before the country club property. The street ended in a cul-de-sac and a heavily wooded area just west. This was in 1974 - so I think the statute has passed and I can tell you about the "Oklahoma Gold" that was grown in those woods! The tenants in the rent houses were all late teens/early twenties and the homegrown was both a method to party and to pay rent.

    I was the only one in our house with a "real" job - two, in fact. I worked at Frederick's of Hollywood and drove an ice cream truck. A lot more ice cream was consumed rather than sold - thanks to the aforementioned homegrown.

    Oh, and I do remember when the land where HPM is was a dirt bike track. Not sure exactly when that was - again, thanks to the blurry memory caused by "garden products".

  10. Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    HOW 'BOUT THEM BOMBERS?

    It seems like the remodel of MCHS started during my sophomore year (80-81), as I remember the commons area being almost brand new. Some of my friends had lockers in the old section (where the museum is now), and I hated going over there--it was rather musty back then.


    My earliest memory of the location of Twid’s Sporting goods was that they were located along SE 15th Street where the Ace Alternator Shop is currently located. They then moved to SE15th and Air Depot to the vacant Security Bank Building where they had their shoe department in the vault.
    Wasn't Twid's across the street before they moved into the old bank? I'm real sure they used to be next door to Eckerd's, which was next door to the Apollo Twin. Saw some classics there back in the day.

    Did anyone else here "live" at Heritage Park Mall like I did? Man, we would go to Topsy's popcorn and get an ICEE then go next door to La Pizza and have some of that AWESOME greasy east coast-style pepperoni pizza and watch the new big screen TV. Then go to Aladdin's Castle and blow a few bucks playing Asteroids, Space Invaders, and Galaxian.

    It's damn depressing to walk into that mall these days.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    "Wasn't Twid's across the street before they moved into the old bank? I'm real sure they used to be next door to Eckerd's, which was next door to the Apollo Twin. Saw some classics there back in the day."

    I agree. That is where I remember it being at one time.

  12. Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    Twids was next to the Eckards, which that space became Apple medical for a long time before the whole thing was torn down and they built the Ihop.

    My memory is fuzzy, I believe Greenhaws grocery was where the Hobby Lobby is now.

    On the odd occasion I drive by Jarman Jr high, I look at the marquee they have and remember that when I went there, we tried to raise money to erect one but Principal Groves wouldn't allow it because of fears of vandalism.

    I can remember when Midwest City/ Del City was "THE" game to be at. Now it barely registers.

    MCHS added the wing of the school which now is the entrance I believe in 1978. I think the west side parking lot (which is now a circle) was the junior parking lot. Seniors parked between the entrance and the fieldhouse, sophomores had to park south of the fieldhouse.

  13. #13

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    Posts that have recalled that Twid’s was once in the old Humpty Dumpty Supermarket building when the western part was Eckerd Drug are correct. I now remember shopping at Twid’s when it was in that location. They must have moved there from the old Security Bank building and then moved across Air Depot Blvd to the space just east of where Mardel was and Dollar Tree is now.

    Greenhaw’s was where Dollar Tree is. That building’s major tenants, as I recall, have been Dollar Tree > Mardel / Twid”s > Hobby Lobby > Greenhaw’s Grocery > Brannon’s Supermarket. Hobby Lobby vacated that space when they either built the building where they are currently located or moved into it after being vacated, although I cannot recall any other tenant before Hobby Lobby. Not too many years ago, they completed a phase 2 remodel essentially doubling their space by building an addition at the south end of the building.

    I graduated from MCHS in May of 1978 and so1rfan’s recollection of the parking assignments is correct. I am unclear as to when they began remodeling the building: It might have been that summer.

    I was driving along Air Depot Blvd between SE 15th St. and E. Reno. And I recalled the Dick Christman appliance store where Cash America Pawn is now. Edelweis Liquor Store was an A&W Root Beer. The lot where Aldi Food store is located was a “Jolly Cone” which was a Dairy Queen type place. Across the lot to the south, the NAPA auto parts store was a Silo appliance store. I also recall the rather large stone home that sat where the Applebee’s is. Across Jarman to the North, I cannot remember, however, what used to be where the Hibdon Tire Center is now. I have a four foot yardstick from the House of Paneling which was 900 ½ S. Air Depot which was a large warehouse building behind the former Binswanger Glass building.

  14. #14

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    Is the Celebrity Club still there? On Air Depot. When I was a kid (under 21), I used to drive by that club every day. I was mesmerized by the plywood cutouts of martini glasses and silhouettes of people dancing. I used to wonder what it looked like inside.

    After I turned 21, I never went in. A decade later, on a whim, and on that side of town, I actually went into the Celebrity Club.

    I was completely underwhelmed. All my childhood visions of what I thought it would look like were shattered when I realized it was just a bar!

    There used to be a Godfather's across the street from Crest and we would go there every Friday night to eat the combo. Greatest pizza ever. My friend Scott would always lift the toppings off, then scrape the sauce off, and reassemble his pizza. It drove me crazy every time he did it.

  15. #15

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    Quote Originally Posted by LordGerald View Post
    Is the Celebrity Club still there?
    Yes, it is. I believe that the owner has done some updating recently. I know that they did extensive work on the parking lot within the last year or so involving the removal and reinstallation of large sections of concrete. I have never been inside, however, from the outside, I don't recall any major changes having been made.

    I also remember some type of a club that used to stand just north of the intersection of SE 29th St. and Air Depot. There was a Mobil filling station on the northeast corner where the Circle K / Shell is and this club was next to it to the north.

    Thanks for reminding me about the Godfather's on Reno.

  16. #16

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    That club was notorious. For a brief time in the mid-1980s, it was known as the "Purple Palace" and it was an all-ages club where the DJ played heavy metal songs and the "bar" served only coke and O-Doul's.

    It was later turned into an illegal all-nude club when MWCPD busted it sometime in the early 1990s. I think that was the death knell.

  17. #17

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    Quote Originally Posted by woodyrr View Post
    (snip)
    Greenhaw’s was where Dollar Tree is. That building’s major tenants, as I recall, have been Dollar Tree > Mardel / Twid”s > Hobby Lobby > Greenhaw’s Grocery > Brannon’s Supermarket. Hobby Lobby vacated that space when they either built the building where they are currently located or moved into it after being vacated, although I cannot recall any other tenant before Hobby Lobby. Not too many years ago, they completed a phase 2 remodel essentially doubling their space by building an addition at the south end of the building.

    Don't forget the little bakery in that strip! They were small, but had the best eclairs and creampuffs I've tasted in the U.S. They also would give homeroom mothers a discount for large quantities of cookies or cupcakes to take to school. It wasn't advertised - you had to ask.

  18. Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    After I turned 21, I never went in. A decade later, on a whim, and on that side of town, I actually went into the Celebrity Club.

    I was completely underwhelmed. All my childhood visions of what I thought it would look like were shattered when I realized it was just a bar!
    This totally cracked me up, because I did the SAME THING!!!


    There used to be a Godfather's across the street from Crest and we would go there every Friday night to eat the combo.
    That Godfather's was THE place to be on Friday nights after the football game. It was standing room only back then. The poor saps who didn't get in had to have their pizza at Mr Gatti's (which wasn't too bad by the way) or Shotgun Sam's. I REALLY MISS THAT PIZZA.

    I can remember when Midwest City/ Del City was "THE" game to be at. Now it barely registers.
    People don't seem to believe me when I tell them that that MWC/DC used to be as big as the Moore War is now. There used to be fights and all manner of mayhem. Of course, it helped that DC had a decent team back then.

  19. #19

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    I remember the shopping center on key (just north of 7-11 )had Kens hobbies,Smith bakery and I think a curtain or sewing shop. Wasn't the bar on 15th by the rail road tracks a mexican restaraunt called Zamudio's? Also who can remember the Soldier creek drive in at 15th & Douglas? I can also remember when everything east of post was still a gravel road. Wasn't Shotgun sam's pizza located where Grandy's is now?

  20. Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    Did anyone else here "live" at Heritage Park Mall like I did? Man, we would go to Topsy's popcorn and get an ICEE then go next door to La Pizza and have some of that AWESOME greasy east coast-style pepperoni pizza and watch the new big screen TV. Then go to Aladdin's Castle and blow a few bucks playing Asteroids, Space Invaders, and Galaxian.

    It's damn depressing to walk into that mall these days.
    I lived there!! and played all those games!

    That club was notorious. For a brief time in the mid-1980s, it was known as the "Purple Palace" and it was an all-ages club where the DJ played heavy metal songs and the "bar" served only coke and O-Doul's.
    I went to the purple palace!! my mom was so mad when she found out ! haha. We were supposed to only stay on the cruise... I dont get that thinking!

  21. Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    We were supposed to only stay on the cruise
    AAAHHH!!! THE CRUISE! Remember those days? It would take about an hour to go from Sonic down to Mcdonald's. And then we'd do it all over again. We used to do stupid stuff like have watergun fights up and down Air Depot. I'd hate to imagine what would happen if you pulled out a water gun now.

  22. #22

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    I’m afraid that I was a year or two too old for “the cruise” I was more like the grumpy old geezer standing on the corner thrashing his cane in the air griping loudly about “You ornery young whippersnappers with your gas buggies!”

    Be that as it may, I’ve done some more thinking:

    One of the pitfalls of trying to identify buildings by tenant is that things are changing too quickly. For instance I see that Locke Supply is consolidating its Electrical, Heating and Air and Plumbing supply operations at the west end of the Uptown Shopping center where Dollar General / Save a Lot and previously Stockton’s Grocery was located, presumably vacating the former Kinney Shoe Store and the former Sears Tire and Auto Center.

    I drove through the Uptown Plaza today on an errand and noticed that the store fronts along the east side of Key Blvd. are mostly vacant, save a couple of short term loan places. I was trying to recall some of the stores that previously occupied those spaces and came up with: Tubb Rexall Drug, offices of O.G.&E. and Oklahoma Natural Gas where customers could pay their bills, Rector’s Books, Ken’s Sporting Goods / Keller Hobbies, and Walker Shoe Repair.

    Across Key Blvd, I was trying to figure out if it was the veterinarian clinic or the barber shop that was once the Midwest City Post Office. As I think about it, I believe that either originally or eventually, the Post Office occupied the entire building there where Sherwin Williams is. I don’t know if the Post Office was originally located in the Downtown shopping center, but if it was, it was before I was cognizant of anything.

    At Key Blvd and Russell there is a building housing the Garden Club. It was originally a Midwest City fire station. I want to say that when I was a child in the 1960s, it was Fire Station #1 and that the station on Mid America was Station 2. I may have that backwards. Station 3 at SE 15th and West Blueridge had not yet been built. The next time that the Fire department has a booth set up at a safety fair or something, I’ll corner one of the old timers and see what I can find out.

    I vaguely remember the Soldier Creek Drive-In Theater that ranger75 mentioned. If I recall correctly, it was located on the southwest corner of SE 15th St. and Douglas Blvd more or less where the city garage and transfer station is now. I definitely remember the Sooner Twin Drive-In previously located on the northeast corner of SE 29th St. and Sooner Rd. where the Tinker industrial park is currently.

    In answer to ranger75’s question: Shotgun Sam’s was in the general area on N. Air Depot where Grandy’s is today. A little further south on Air Depot where the Hu Nan Express is now, was Ken’s Pizza. Nowadays, the delivery drivers slip the hot pizzas into a insulated bag, of course, but in the seventies when pizza delivery was in its infancy, I guess, Ken’s had a Datsun type mini pickup with an actual oven in the bed to keep the pizzas warm as they traveled the streets of Midwest City.

    In the currently vacant field immediately east of Sooner Rose Elementary School, there was the Midwest Auto Auction held every Tuesday night. Across SE 15th St, on the south side of the road, where the back wall of The Home Depot is, was a large industrial building that housed what I believe was an auto machine shop. Herman’s Plumbing Co. was also located in that block.

    Around the corner to the southwest on Sooner Rd., near where the Radio Shack and Army recruiting place is, was a home turned into a dance studio. On the fence surrounding the house was a sign: “Have you a dancing doll?”

  23. Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    HA!

    I remember that "Have you a dancing doll?" sign vividly. It was like a landmark that I used before I could drive. I think it must have been there a LONG time. I'm kinda surprised that that area east of Sooner Rose Elem hasn't been developed AT ALL since the tornado. I wouldn't call it prime real estate, but it's heavily traveled.

  24. Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    the price for that land is outrageous!

  25. #25

    Default Re: Midwest City Recollections

    Since the last time that I searched, I found some really interesting pictures of early Midwest City.

    Midwest City Historical Photos - a set on Flickr

    I was blown away!

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