This is probably a stretch, but I’m going to throw this out there and see what bites.
About nine years ago, we purchased a piece of property in far NE Okc. On our property is an old park and picnic area that was used for ONG company and family picnics.
Years ago, … long before the land section was developed into our addition, and everything in that area was farm land, the original farm road lead to the old homestead, which was almost a ½ mile in from the main road. The land owners set aside some land for the park area, on one side of the road. About half way between the main road and the home. I believe the owners either leased the land to ONG, or they traded the use of the park area in exchange for a gas line ran to the homestead. This was a long time ago, I’m guessing somewhere back in the 50”s or 60’s. Maybe even before that.
When the section was split up into lots, there was a new road cut into the addition to feed the new lots, and the old road was pretty much abandoned. The old road cuts across our lot as well as several of our neighbor’s lots. In fact, the old barn still stands on a neighbor’s lot farther into the addition.
The park area itself wound up being part of our lot, residing on approx the back third of the lot in the trees. When we first bought our lot, it was very overgrown, but many parts of the old park were plainly visible. At the top of the hill, there was a large water tank that was fed from a well. A water line ran from the tank and fed two small buildings that sat side by side about midway down the hill. Each was about 12x 12. One of the buildings was obviously much older than the other and was probably the first one built and the other was added later on. They looked like they were used for a kitchen an storage area. Then farther down at the bottom of the hill were two restrooms. One marked “HIS” and the other marked “HERS”, on their doors. The bathrooms had flushable toilets that were also fed by the water tank at the top of the hill. There was also a long picnic table, a fire pit, horseshoe stakes and a swing set built in the trees. This was certainly a place where people spent some time.
Over the past nine years, we’ve done a lot of clearing and cleaning up of the place. The water tank has been removed, the oldest and most dilapidated of the two buildings was torn down, as were the two restrooms. The long picnic table still remains as does the swing set built in the trees. The fire pit is still there but has been moved to a different spot. After all the clearing we did, hundreds of beautiful flowering bulbs have been popping up all over the park area every year since.
In the past, I have contacted ONG to see if there was any old timers there who could shed some light on the little piece of history of our property, but with no results.
So I’m wondering, with all of the knowledgeable folks here on OKC Talk, maybe there is somebody who can share some information, or old photographs of what life was once like in the park on our place.
I do not wish to divulge my address, or the name of my addition, but the park was located in the area of NE 164th & Choctaw Road.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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