What is the oldest standing building/structure in OKC metro area?

[Urbanized]

Actually, the technically correct answer to the original question is the Old Trinity at Paseo church building, built in Canada in 1842, bought by Paseo artist/photographer Tom Lee online and sight unseen, and moved to OKC where it was reconstructed and beautifully restored.

[Urbanized]

The Sherman Iron Works building is the oldest in Bricktown, partly built in 1898.

Also, there are more territorial (pre-statehood) buildings in OKC than you might think. A small number of random houses and buildings are scattered around downtown, some of them on the west edge. The Wells Fargo building is the one on the location of the Land Run-era livery.

The Miller-Jackson Building, on the canal, was built in 1904 and was expanded upon in the late twenties. One of the brick walls in my office was an exterior wall of the original 1904 building and still has a ghost sign painted on it for Washington Stoves, a brand of stove sold by the Miller-Jackson Company at the time.

While not commercial buildings when built, the Overholser Mansion (1903) and the Maney House (1904, now housing The Grandison Bed and Breakfast), were both territorial mansions built in what is now called Heritage Hills. In 1909 James Maney moved his mansion from North Robinson to its present location at 11th and Shartel to get away from the urban congestion (heh).

There are a number of other surviving, less glamorous, territorial-era houses standing on the west side of downtown, some converted to businesses, mostly ignored.

[MsDarkstar]

These aren't necessarily the oldest but are among the oldest - go to The Harn Homestead museum just South of the Capital off Lincoln. On the property is a one room schoolhouse from Mulhall that was originally built in 1891, a dairy barn from Okeene built in 1904, a farmhouse that was built around 1890 or so (if I recall correctly). Also on the property is a house that was built in 1904, which was added on to an existing structure from 1889/1890. The Shephard House (that used to be where Shephard Mall is, and then at the zoo for a while) is on the property too, it was built shortly after the '89 Land Run.

[LandryTeam]

Thanks all...you guys have given me a TON of stuff to kill some time with while I am "working". I love driving around OKC and trying to figure out how old a certain structure is.

[UnFrSaKn]

Edmond building is oldest in Oklahoma County | News OK

[Doug Loudenback]

As a subquestion, what is the oldest residence in Oklahoma City actually lived in by an OkcTalk member? If this would be better as a topic of its own, I'm sure that Pete or an administrator will move it.

I'll begin with my own home in Mesta Park built in 1910, 525 NW 19th. Assessor's image:



I'm sure there are older and it would be fun to see a collection of these older homes that forum members own or are living in. That small room, 2nd floor, east side, is "my room," my small man-cave where I do my computing, have my Oklahoma City book library, and a huge mess on the floor of undone projects and other stuff which never seems to go away.

[Plutonic Panda]

What a beautiful house Doug!!

[Doug Loudenback]

Thanks, Panda. It's a modest home in my area, and I'm hoping that others will chime in here about their "old" homes in Oklahoma City. I'm certain that mine is not the oldest. By the way, my man-cave is 2nd floor, west (not east) side. I spoke incorrectly about my man-cave location. The 2nd floor, east side, larger room contains my wife's woman-cave location.

[SOONER8693]

For a number of years in the late 80's/early 90's, some good friends lived in the house next door to the Mesta house. I beleive it was on NW 16th st. Anyway, their house was built in 1907. Magnificent old homes in Mesta Park.

[Bunty]

For a number of years in the late 80's/early 90's, some good friends lived in the house next door to the Mesta house. I beleive it was on NW 16th st. Anyway, their house was built in 1907. Magnificent old homes in Mesta Park.

The mother of Billy Vessels once lived somewhere in the neighborhood of NW 16th in a fine old brick home. Billy Vessels was an OU football player, who won the Heisman in 1952.

[CaseyCornett]

There is an incredible "living story" right next door to me. I moved in Feb. into a house technically in Central Park (about 5 houses West of Edgemere off Walker). I met the 92 year old lady next door to me...she moved into that house with her parents when she was 6 years old in 1926. She had some great stories of the area.

[KayneMo]

I saw a post in an OKC Facebook group that says the house at 1841 NW 15th was built in 1896. Several realtor sites also say 1896 while the county assessor says 1912, though the county assessor can sometimes be incorrect.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.4849...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1...21858969_zpid/

https://ariisp1.oklahomacounty.org/A...PERTYID=152866

[shawnw]

Crazy that it sold for 70K in 1997, 100K in 2006, and now Zillow estimates it'd go for 400K. Good golly...

I ride by this place very frequently because my GF's house is on 15th. Her house is farther west and was built in 1925. Not sure if that matters, development patterns wise or not.

[shawnw]

Historic Goodholm Mansion, moved twice to avoid destruction, reduced to rubble by owners
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news...le/5887006001/

"The mansion was the oldest surviving home originally built in Oklahoma City"

[Urbanized]

^^^^^^^^
Ugh. I recall touring it when it was first restored at the fairgrounds, and then later became friends with Jim Fentriss when we served together on the Automobile Alley Main Street Program board of directors. We had more than a few conversations about that home, and you could tell he was so proud of the effort to relocate it to the fairgrounds. I feel terrible for him.

I also rode past it in Nicoma Park on a number of occasions and wondered about what plans they might have. What a shame that Mr. Harris died before being able to find a home for it.

Not to quibble - and it's possible that it was changed post-publication Shawn - but the article now says "...one of the oldest surviving homes originally built in Oklahoma City..." It's been my contention for a while that there are a few homes in west downtown and west OF downtown that are territorial and which could vie for that "oldest" title. It's possible that we have a (very few) buildings hiding in plain site which are from the 1890s. I'd really like to find the answer to this one.

[shawnw]

They must have changed it because I copied/pasted from the article

[riflesforwatie]

I am skeptical that 1841 NW 15 was built in 1896. It sits on lots 15 and 16 of block A of the College Addition, which appears to have been platted by Guy E. Blackwelder in 1908 or 1909. I say "appears" because the exact date is not legible on the plat map available from the Oklahoma County Clerk, but land records indicate that individual lots on that block were all sold by Blackwelder to various parties between September 1909 and October 1910.

Blackwelder sold lots 13 and 14 (1845 NW 15) to H.D. Chandler for $850 on December 4, 1909. Lots 15 and 16 (1841 NW 15) were sold by Blackwelder to A.M. Lutes on October 1, 1909 for $800. If the house was already there clearly its cost did not factor into these sale prices.

Lutes takes out a mortgage for $1,800 on May 10, 1911, in which the Moe Ingalls Investment Company also agrees to insure any buildings on the land for $1,200. Lutes is, as it turns out, involved in the building trades(!) as the president of the National Builders’ Supply company. He is arraigned for fraud in a “brick swindle” in March 1910, according to The Daily Oklahoman.

On April 28, 1914, Lutes sells the two lots to T.J. McComb for $6,000. Either the real estate market was hopping or a house got built at this location (or moved onto this land) between late 1909 and early 1914. Since the guy who owned the land was the president of a building company and the County Assessor's records say 1912 was the construction date, I'm inclined to believe it. By August 1917, The Daily Oklahoman lists 1841 NW 15 as T.J. McComb’s address.

It was certainly possible to move a house at this time, as evidenced by Urbanized recounting the story of the Maney House, moved to NW 11 and Shartel in 1909 but originally built on N Robinson Ave between NW 8 and NW 9 in 1904. However, I would question why someone would have gone to the expense of having moved the 1841 NW 15 house to what would have been the outlying suburbs of early 1910s Oklahoma City. Also, I’m not an architecture expert but 1841 NW 15 just doesn’t “look” 1890s to me. The other pre-1915 homes in Classen-Ten-Penn that I know of are that very simple style with the stone porches/foundations and minimal exterior decoration, except for side bay windows.

Incidentally, if anyone is wondering why both the Maney House and 1841 NW 15 share the name "Grandison", it's because the folks who turned the Maney House into a B&B originally did the same thing to the 1841 NW 15 house, back in the late 1980s. They named it “Grandison” after Grandison Crawford, who they said was the original owner of 1841 NW 15. I can’t find any connection between Grandison Crawford and 1841 NW 15 in the property records or in The Oklahoman’s archives. (Crawford does show up in property records as having owned the quarter-section of land that now contains Casady School -- the NE corner of N. Pennsylvania Ave. and W. Britton Rd. -- in the early 1900s. Crawford appears in the newspaper only once, in a 1903 real estate transaction listing associated with that same purchase.)

In an article from November 1988, The Daily Oklahoman does not claim that the house was moved to its present location but instead relates the story of an elderly neighbor who says the home was “built before statehood” and then added onto over the years. In fact, the owners of the house say that they “hear from several sources that the original home may go back as far as the central Oklahoma Land Run of 1889.” The 1896 date is not mentioned at all in that piece, and the evidence for anything other than the 1912 date seems weak given the evidence in the property records, the newspaper, and the construction dates and architectural styles of the surrounding houses.

[Martin]

great research... thanks for sharing!