I'm certifiably crazy about maps! Here's another, extracting the images contained in the County Assessor's 1905 Township Plat maps to put together an interactive flash file for all of Oklahoma County's 20 townships. Unless you're a map freak, it probably won't be very interesting. If you are, you'll probably like it.

Link: Doug Dawgz Blog: 1905 Oklahoma County Township Maps (http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2008/08/1905-oklahoma-county-township-maps.html)

doug, i am a recovering map freak and i've been clean and sober for two we--- oh my, what's this? :P

these are extremely cool! yes, i'll be gobbling up each one of those tiff files. i've been to the ok county assessor's site on several occasions and never saw these old township maps. nice job adding them to a flash file, too. it'd be fun to take these maps and overlay modern streets onto them, etc. i wonder if cleveland county offers someting similar? ...i'll probably have more questions/comments as i study these : )

so much for recovery. -M

edit: couldn't find anything on cleveland county's assessor website... will have to ask.

I'd not seen that assessor's page until just a few days ago, either. While doing research on another article (a new article on trains) I was trying to find some decent township maps so to check out a legal description in the Oklahoman in 1930. My own "manual" construction of a township section map placed what I was trying to locate somewhere in the vicinity of S Pennsylvania and SW 74th-80th or nearby and that seemed improbable to me. So, in googling for plat maps, the assessor's link popped up and that was quite a nice surprise to me!

Still haven't determined what I was actually looking for, though. Turned out that I'd done my manual drawing correctly. Maybe it was an Oklahoman misprint. Maybe the improbable was real. I still don't know.

Here's what I was looking for. Part of the new trains article shows a number of photos taken in 1941 by a photographer named Vachon who worked for the war department. The photos are at the Library of Congress' website ... not high quality but good enough.

Some of his photos show trains on the Santa Fe tracks downtown, but a bunch are at a place described as the "Phillips Gasoline Plant" ... got that, Phillips Gasoline Plant. I'd never heard of that. That's what makes this history stuff so much fun ... and then tracking it down.

It turned out the Phillips Gasoline Plant, which was constructed in 1930, at (according to the Oklahoman article I mentioned) in "NW NW SW 32-11-3W" was huge ... an early 1940s article described it as the largest gasoline plant in the world! Huge! Aircraft fuel for sure, maybe autos, I don't know.

Just a hunch, but now I think we might "know" why that Phillips 66 sign was on top of the Culbertson Building at Grand (Sheridan) and Broadway ... Phillips' presence in OKC was a very big deal from 1928 and probably into the 1950s.

So, where was the Phillips Gasoline Plant? Anyone know? Several Oklahoman articles describe it as being located in the "South Oklahoma City Field," if that helps.

Why I say "improbable" that the plant was located where the Oklahoman article described was that there weren't any tracks near that legal description ... I'm guessing that it was near the Santa Fe tracks north of Cleveland County. One Oklahoman article described that secrecy was very tight at the plant ... no photographs allowed by ANYONE (I guess except this War Department photographer).

Several train tank cars at the Phillips Gasoline Plant are shown in the photographer's series of images ... here are a few ...

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/trains/vachon/loc_vachon_tankcars01.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/trains/vachon/loc_vachon_tankcars12.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/trains/vachon/loc_vachon_tankcars08.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/trains/vachon/loc_vachon_aviationfuel01.jpg

Here are a pair without trains, just parts of the plant ...

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/trains/vachon/loc_vachon_fractionators03.jpg

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/trains/vachon/loc_vachon_highpressurestorageta-1.jpg

Sooo ... where'ya hidin', you suckah! :numchucks

the picture of the car that says 'chickasha cotton oil co.' would lead me to believe this would have to be somehow connected to the sl & sf that goes southwest out of town through wheatland and ultimately through chickasha... just an idea.

-M

edit:

here are a couple pics i found (probably doesn't help much):
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Phillips gasoline plant LC-USW33- 014771... from Pop Art Machine Popart Gallery (http://popartmachine.com/item/pop_art/LOC+1386786)

Employees at the Phillips gasoline plant LC-USW3- 010378-D... from Pop Art Machine Popart Gallery (http://popartmachine.com/item/pop_art/LOC+1351007)

the picture of the car that says 'chickasha cotton oil co.' would lead me to believe this would have to be somehow connected to the sl & sf that goes southwest out of town through wheatland and ultimately through chickasha... just an idea.

-M

edit:

here are a couple pics i found (probably doesn't help much):
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Phillips gasoline plant LC-USW33- 014771... from Pop Art Machine Popart Gallery (http://popartmachine.com/item/pop_art/LOC+1386786)

Employees at the Phillips gasoline plant LC-USW3- 010378-D... from Pop Art Machine Popart Gallery (http://popartmachine.com/item/pop_art/LOC+1351007)

Thanks! I have the 2nd pic (it's by the guy I mentioned, John Vachon) but don't think that I have the 1st.

The SL&SF connection occurred to me, but I dismissed it as likely since its track route was nowhere close to the legal description in the Oklahoman article, and, while I have no certain concept of the general boundaries of the "South Oklahoma City Field," wasn't it in the south central and southeast parts of the county?

Thanks to Doug, I just found my Great Grandparents homestead. Spring Creek section 24 Vincent Kratky. He and his wife Josephine were from Bohemia. Below is link to the 1900 Spring Creek census.

http://ftp.rootsweb.ancestry.com/pub/usgenweb/ok/oklahoma/census/1900/sprngcrk.txt

sl&sf would make sense if we're talking pennsylvania... but way north of 74th st. but like you say, that property description may not be accurate.

given the shadows cast by the tanker cars, i think we can rule out track sections that run east/west. as far as "south okc field", south central okc seems to make most sense to me...

this hazardous waste site (http://www.epa.gov/EPA-WASTE/1994/December/Day-16/pr-93.html) mentions a "fourth street abandoned" refinery in okc... that could put us just south of bricktown. i don't know how long the present-day pyramid-looking structures (i think they're for grain?) were there, but that's a possible spot... and it would be close to the santa fe line. i know for a fact that that area was dotted with rigs as seen in the distance on those photos... just throwing out possibilities.

-M

Thanks to Doug, I just found my Great Grandparents homestead. Spring Creek section 24 Vincent Kratky. He and his wife Josephine were from Bohemia. Below is link to the 1900 Spring Creek census.

http://ftp.rootsweb.ancestry.com/pub/usgenweb/ok/oklahoma/census/1900/sprngcrk.txt

That is so neat, rondvu!

sl&sf would make sense if we're talking pennsylvania... but way north of 74th st. but like you say, that property description may not be accurate.

given the shadows cast by the tanker cars, i think we can rule out track sections that run east/west. as far as "south okc field", south central okc seems to make most sense to me...

this hazardous waste site (http://www.epa.gov/EPA-WASTE/1994/December/Day-16/pr-93.html) mentions a "fourth street abandoned" refinery in okc... that could put us just south of bricktown. i don't know how long the present-day pyramid-looking structures (i think they're for grain?) were there, but that's a possible spot... and it would be close to the santa fe line. i know for a fact that that area was dotted with rigs as seen in the distance on those photos... just throwing out possibilities.

-M
Sharp eyes on the shadows! I hadn't even noticed. It sounds as though the area would have to be rather large, too. I've stuck he Vachon photos I copied and cropped in a photobucket trains subdirectory for them that want to look: DougLoudenback/trains/vachon - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting (http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/trains/vachon/)

Despite being a subdirectory of trains, it contains some other photos than trains and the Phillips Gasoline Plant, e.g., a few downtown pics, oil at the capitol, etc.