Tepees to Towers: The Story of Building the Sooner State
by Walter Nashert

I came across this book while cleaning out my dad's house. I was immediately interested because I very clearly remember Mr. Nashert and had never read his book although I vaguely remember when he wrote and published it.

There are 27 chapters following the preface. It is hard bound with a blue cover and a clear dust jacket. On the cover is an image of two men opposed to each other. One is dressed so as to remind one of a pioneer explorer and behind him is a tepee. On the other side is a more modern construction man standing in front of a city skyline.

There is no date of publication or publisher or other similar citations but the inscription hand written by Walter Nashert on the inside front cover is dated 1970. I believe the inscription was made not long after the book was published.

The book is only available from used book sellers as far as I could tell but I did not check any libraries.

The book broadly covers the Oklahoma construction industry more or less from the run of 1889 through 1967. The first chapter actually includes information that predates the Civil War.

Walter Nashert was a general contractor and was active in contractor associations and also in supporting formal training for contractors. A good deal of the book is from that perspective. But he devotes a good deal of time to other construction specialties and related industries. There is some remarkable information in particular on the surety business.

I knew a good many of the men (and a few women) whose names are prominent in the book. I was very young and mostly they were already pretty old. But even then a good many of them were nothing short of legendary in my mind. I learned a lot I did not know about them.

There are many names I had only heard and not a few that were brand new to me.

Events are described in broad strokes and the perspective is invaluable. But for me the thing that was remarkable about Walter Nashert's book was his intimate portrayal of the personalities that were so involved in the actual building of Oklahoma.

One story that struck me was about Solomon Layton, the architect of the Oklahoma State Capitol building. Layton interviewed for an assignment to expand Georgetown University in 1894. He was awarded the commission largely because of a shared interest in the poet, John Ruskin. Layton had adopted for his own creed an excerpt from Ruskin's work, "Lamp of Memory" which follows:

Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build forever.
Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone:
Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for,
and let them think, as we lay stone on stone,
that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred
because our hands have touched them,
and that men will say as they look upon the labor
and wrought substance of them,
"See! This our fathers did for us."