What Became of the Downtown USO?

[Doug Loudenback]

Perhaps you've seen the postcard of it in Vanished Splendor II or somewhere else ... the 1943-1946 USO was said to have been one of the largest and finest in the country:



Before it was the USO Club, it was Bass Furniture & Carpet Company, built in 1930:



Without peeking, do you know what became of that building and whether it still exits today?

Here's the answer: Doug Dawgz Blog: What Became of The Downtown USO?

[Steve]

Oh my god.... I'm looking at that building and the corner.... height is right.... they ruined that building time and time again. I can't believe it. It looked like that? What were these people thinking? Please tell me I'm wrong... going to look now....

[Steve]

Yep. That's it. Spitz ruined it. To be fair to the city, while I'm not a stucco fan, what they did was an improvement over Spitz' design.
Geez. Was everyone on cocaine in the 70s?

[andy157]

Perhaps you've seen the postcard of it in Vanished Splendor II or somewhere else ... the 1943-1946 USO was said to have been one of the largest and finest in the country:



Before it was the USO Club, it was Bass Furniture & Carpet Company, built in 1930:



Without peeking, do you know what became of that building and whether it still exits today?

Here's the answer: Doug Dawgz Blog: What Became of The Downtown USO?

Is it 420 W. Main St.?

[Steve]

Nope, it's where the city's finance offices are located.

[USG '60]

yep. That's it. Spitz ruined it. To be fair to the city, while i'm not a stucco fan, what they did was an improvement over spitz' design.
Geez. Was everyone on cocaine in the 70s?

duh!

[andy157]

Is it 420 W. Main St.?

Nope, its not. I just looked. But, I was in the ballpark.

[andy157]

Nope, it's where the city's finance offices are located.

Boy that brings back old memories.

[Steve]

Um yeah, I'm sure it does!

[Doug Loudenback]

yep. That's it. Spitz ruined it. To be fair to the city, while i'm not a stucco fan, what they did was an improvement over spitz' design.
Geez. Was everyone on cocaine in the 70s?

LSD it was, I think.

[Steve]

Bad drug! Bad drug! Bad drug=bad architecture!

[papaOU]

Bad drug! Bad drug! Bad drug=bad architecture!

So is this post card incorrect?

[Doug Loudenback]

No, they were different USOs. The smaller one shown in your thumbnail was earlier and was immediately north of the Skirvin.

[papaOU]

No, they were different USOs. The smaller one shown in your thumbnail was earlier and was immediately north of the Skirvin.

I was under the impression that the current Civic Center, Walker and Couch was the shown on the thumbnail.

Guess that's shy we have you! Keep us lined out.........

[Doug Loudenback]

Well, the "Civic Center" note on the single-story postcard is probably what's tripping you up (and it did me, too for quite a time). I remember when I first tried to figure out that postcard ... "Civic Center?" I wondered ... I didn't then understand that the Civic Center is and was a much larger area than is commonly thought of when that term is used.

Even though we tend to think of the "Civic Center" today as being the OK County Courthouse and the city buildings west of it to Shartel (city hall, music hall, police station and earlier (not the newer) jail), it was and technically is a larger area than that. The "Civic Center" area ran east/west from west of the Santa Fe RR tracks to Shartel. Couch Drive (principally where the east/west Rock Island tracks were located) was the northern border (but think of it as a "deep" Couch Drive -- deep enough to extend south to the northern border of buildings which already existed on 1st Street (Park Ave) -- such as where Kerr Park is today. Until Leadership Square was built, that "park" area extended further west than Robinson and the western tip still exists today between Park Harvey Apts. & the Court Plaza Building. The southern border wasn't a straight-line. West of Broadway to Harvey the southern side was what became Couch Drive but from Harvey to Hudson the area extended south to 1st Street (Park Avenue). From Hudson to Shartel the southern border was what would become Colcord Drive. Remember, the old Frisco tracks were in the latter area. So, from Hudson to Shartel the rail yard was pretty deep, north/south.

Click the photos for larger views.



After the tracks were cleared, the area rather looked like the image below (even though some Rock Island tracks are still present on the northern part when the photo below was taken:



ON EDIT: here's a cropped view of the rescan I just did:



The above photo is from Terry L. Griffith's Oklahoma City: Statehood to 1930 (Arcadia 2000) and Griffith identifies the photo as circa 1925 ... but that can't be right ... the Bass Furniture building was built during 1929-1930.

The one below shows all tracks removed. Even though the quality is not good, it's neat because you can see the Biltmore Hotel going up at the far right.



In the above pics, notice the Bass Furniture building is visible in the larger views ... I'll probably add one or both of them in my article as I'd quite forgotten about them as showing Bass Furniture, which became the larger USO Club in 1944.

Anyway, when the single story USO postcard was done immediately north of the Skirvin, it was doubtless the only USO that existed in the Civic Center area. Plus, the later and larger USO isn't technically in the Civic Center area but is immediately south of it. The building already existed before the Civic Center area did, even if by only a few years.

Clear as mud?

[Doug Loudenback]

Yep. That's it. Spitz ruined it. To be fair to the city, while I'm not a stucco fan, what they did was an improvement over Spitz' design.
Geez. Was everyone on cocaine in the 70s?

Thanks for that intended or unintentional tip, Steve. When you said, "[W]hat they [the city] did was an improvement ..." told me that I'd probably not carried my research to its end. And, I hadn't. I stopped looking after the Spitz articles ... bad Doug Dawg!

Here's the wrap-up article, now added to the post:



And, now that the cat is out of the bag as to "What Became of the Downtown USO," here are the "today" photos that I took yesterday of the building (click on them for larger images):

[Steve]

More info from a fellow history buff: he recalls there being a small one story building on the west side of the USO/Bass building facing Walker. Sure enough, if you look closely, you'll see it shown in the center top image of the post card. Further, he recalls something like a "Wilme" department store being the mystery tenant mentioned by Doug. I can't find any reference to it in archives however.

[Doug Loudenback]

More info from a fellow history buff: he recalls there being a small one story building on the west side of the USO/Bass building facing Walker. Sure enough, if you look closely, you'll see it shown in the center top image of the post card. Further, he recalls something like a "Wilme" department store being the mystery tenant mentioned by Doug. I can't find any reference to it in archives however.

I didn't find much in the WilmOR Department store, even though the Bass Building was often referred to as the Wilmor Building in the mid-1950s. In the the 8/14/1955 Oklahoman graphic below you can see the "Wilmor" sinage on the building.



But I'm not sure that's what you are saying. Are you talking about the USO postcard? The Vanished Splendor II rendering that I used isn't very crisp and while I see what may be 1-story building next to (on the right side of) the USO Club, I can't make out any lettering on it. If you have an original postcard, maybe such lettering would show up.

As far as location of such a building, though, the one-story building would have had to have been east of the USO Club since the USO Club entrance faced south to Main. The west side of the USO Club fronts Walker so noting could have adjoined it to the west, unless it would have been built in the middle of Walker!

[Steve]

It was a very small building Doug. I couldn't believe it at first either, but sure enough, if you look at the property now, the plaza in front is big enough that it could have had a 25-square-foot building immediately west of the Bass building. Look at the postcard you have on top of this thread. It's there.

[Doug Loudenback]

Oh. You mean my other west. It may even appear in the Oklahoman item (my last post before this one) which has the Wilmor signage. The image is too bad to make anything out, though. But I still see no lettering (on either of the small flanking buildings). You sayin' that you do?

[Generals64]

More info from a fellow history buff: he recalls there being a small one story building on the west side of the USO/Bass building facing Walker. Sure enough, if you look closely, you'll see it shown in the center top image of the post card. Further, he recalls something like a "Wilme" department store being the mystery tenant mentioned by Doug. I can't find any reference to it in archives however.

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Hey guys, Doug....In Lawton (your home town) there was or is a car company by the name of Wilmes.....Their family was in the Department store business before the other members split off to Wilmes Auto. Odds are they are two of the same......If you need a source to contact....Let me know and I'll PM you a name in Lawton that can probably shed some light on the matter.....

[Doug Loudenback]

Ha ha. Steve brought it up. Steve's job!

But, I still don't see any writing/lettering on the small building, do you? Where are you seeing that, Steve?

[Steve]

Not saying the small building was anything - person I talked to didn't remember what it was either. But it's there - that's all I'm saying.

[Doug Loudenback]

I misunderstood ... I thought that you were talking about yourself when you said, "fellow history buff."

[Steve]

Hey my friend, did you see this?

21412.M234.21 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!