Pretty sure some of you guys are my age. So I was there before the Interstate.
And where I lived wasn't in Moore until about 1964 because Moore stopped at South 4th Street. I recall we weren't terribly happy about being in anyone's city.
Norman and Oklahoma City both seemed a long ways off back then. So a lot of people in and around Moore actually went to Norman for "city" things like lawyers and title work and banking and clothes and such. And back then you couldn't get anyone to come out to the farm which was fine because no one ever thought of that anyway.
I don't remember that much rivalry between Moore and anyone really probably because Moore was so small it was just kind of overlooked. It is still kind of that way really.
jmark, that brought back another memory for me from my youth. When the Brookhaven addition was being built on the north side of Robinson in west Norman it was just farm land on the south side of Robinson. The woman who owned that land didn't like what Brookhaven was doing and put up a large sign saying "Home Sites for Coloreds". Can you imagine the uproar if something like that was done today? And, as I've mentioned before, the sign you're talking could have very easily been something that my grandfather could have done when part of his land was taken for I35 through Norman.
The sign I mentioned was by a farmer on the road from Moore eastward that went over to Hollywood Corner and some guy caught some thieves and called the police and they let the guys go and he got somewhat bent out of shape...it was in those days similar to when the town of Fletcher was not given an off-ramp to the Bailey Turnpike and they put up the big billboard that said..."Fletcher--Not Big Enough for an Exit--BUT--Big Enough Not To Like It!!"
The colored sign you mentioned goes back to the days (pre about ~1965) when hyper-liberal Norman...politely agreed among it realtors NOT to sell any property or homes to black-folk...one of the reasons I think liberals are the ultimate charlatans and liars...they love all ethnic types--as long as they stay the hell out of THEIR neighborhoods...
I don't recall that sign.
I do remember when they widened Highway 37 (134th) from Moore west and moved the old stand of cedars back away from the road. Eventually they died and the land owner painted a sign on the old barn roof. Always made me sad about those old cedars although I did really appreciate the widening of that road. I'm not sure I ever have driven a darker, more narrow stretch of road as it was back then.
I don't know, JMR, I could be wrong (it's happened before!) but I do not think that it was so much "hyper-liberal Norman" (??) deciding amongst themselves to not sell homes to black people pre-1965 or whenever. I think it was pretty standard practice across the USA. My mother was a realtor back in Connecticut in those days and it was the same situation there. My former husband and I lived in Denver in the seventies and it was the same situation there. Just try to get a mortgage in Five Points in 1975! Ha ha ha!!! Red-lining. We couldn't even get a TV delivered! We looked at each other and said "Wow! They really DON'T come up into the hills anymore!"
Dr. Henderson was the first block-buster in a small town, and many people are still here who remember it, and it has become an iconic story told every year. It was not unique to Norman, however, in my experience.
we're straying a bit into politics territory... let's try to keep political opinions to the politics forum. -M
Oops! Sorry!!
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