strange abandoned houses in the woods.

[sooner12]

OK, so here is something I remember finding as a kid that I have always wondered about. I grew up in the Northwood addition on Memorial between Bryant and Eastern. There was quite a bit of undeveloped land bordering the neighborhood, so we would often explore these woods and creeks that ran through area.
Not too far into the woods was a house that I would estimate at about 1000 square feet if I remember correctly. This house had pretty much collapsed. Stranger though was a group of tiny houses that we found further back in the woods.
I think there were about five of these houses and they were absolutely tiny. The thing that really struck me as odd about them though, was the stuff left behind in them. There were Sesame Street posters, and I think maybe a crib left in one of them. It has been a long time, so I don't remember what else was in there, but they were very odd and kind of creepy. These were way back in the woods and there were no signs of roads leading back there.
I'm pretty sure this area has been devoped now, so they aren't still there, but I'm guess I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on what sort of person would have lived in these tiny creepy houses in the middle of the woods, or know of other places with strange houses like this.

[mmonroe]

Research the Assessor's Records see who owned the land and the houses...

[ddavidson8]

Very interesting.

[whorton]

Sooner 12, Can you give a bit more info? What street did you live in, and what hundred block. More importantly, was the wooded area, and the housed to the West, South or East? Interesting question, and we can find an answer, but need a bit more info ..

Last question, what year(s) did you live there and explore the old houses?

[dankrutka]

The two houses over by the Boathouse Row river developments are pretty creepy. It's just strange to wander over there and see them so isolated...

[Snowman]

The two houses over by the Boathouse Row river developments are pretty creepy. It's just strange to wander over there and see them so isolated...

Pre-1950s that would have been a fairly normal neighborhood (though probably low income), it likely was subject to flooding by the river and the combination of how bad the river looked after being channelized, proximity to i40/i35 (which alone bulldozed like 5/6ths the original street network between the river and Reno & Lincoln and Eastern) and migration of the population out of the city core at the time meant that houses lost were never were never rebuilt. I am not sure but it seems possibly they did some zoning rules after the boathouse district ended up being a much larger area than the original Regatta Park concept, to keep people from coming in and either building since it was no longer intended to be a residential neighborhood post MAPS or from squatting on the land.

[kevinpate]

my first thought, and could be mistaken, was residences for sharecropper families or other laborers.

[RadicalModerate]

How about . . .
Beehives
Chicken coops
Smoke houses
Privies?

Googlemaps still shows the remains of something in the woods east of Northwood Addition

[Just the facts]

For those that have access to it check out Forgotten Planet on 3Net.

Forgotten Planet : Programs : 3net : Discovery Press Web

It is amazing how much abandoned stuff there is, even on a large city sized scale.

Bodie, CA once had over 2,000 buildings and a populaton of about 10,000 people. It was finally abandonded around 1943 when the federal government shut it down to support the war effort. Human and mechanical resources being used in Bodie were needed to fight WWII.

[whorton]

I am looking at an aerial photo taken on 9-30 of 69. The Northwood Housing edition does not exist as yet. The only street of any consequence that IS there is NE 126 running East from Bryant. This was in the South half of the section between Memorial on the North, 122nd on the South, Bryant on the Eastern side, and Eastern on the West side.

Needless to say, its a little tough to find anything if you don't have a better idea of where the houses were. . . .

[RadicalModerate]

I am looking at an aerial photo taken on 9-30 of 69. The Northwood Housing edition does not exist as yet. The only street of any consequence that IS there is NE 126 running East from Bryant. This was in the South half of the section between Memorial on the North, 122nd on the South, Bryant on the Eastern side, and Eastern on the West side.

Needless to say, its a little tough to find anything if you don't have a better idea of where the houses were. . . .

I, too, find this sort of suburban archeology fascinating, yet it might be worth noting that the original post on this thread is almost three years old.

Here is a more recent lead on a related topic =):
http://www.okctalk.com/ask-anything-...ep-hollow.html

. . . and then there is that mini-mansion over on Kelly, north of Britton Rd, named after some "Witch House" in Jamaica or whatnot . . . that was semi-recently "de-forested" and successfully restored to a point of resaleability by a "Flipper" who realized that he had accidentally discovered/recovered a treasure. =)

For the Record: Please be advised that the correct spelling of the location, referred to in the link, above, is actually Sleepy Hollow rather than Sleep Hollow. =)

[whorton]

An Aerial taken 1969. This is before the Northwood edition even existed, much less the Kilpatrick Turnpike of Today. Streets are labeled and North is up.

Click on the picture to see enlarged version.

[whorton]

Given that Sooner12 has not posted since Oct of last year, I suspect we may not be able to solve this mystery any time soon!

Wesley H

[sooner12]

Given that Sooner12 has not posted since Oct of last year, I suspect we may not be able to solve this mystery any time soon!

Wesley H

I just realized this thread was resurrected! I'll post some more details when I get a moment.

[sooner12]

OK, so it has been years, but here is a link to where I think we found those. https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Edmon...+Oklahoma&z=20
On google maps I do believe I can see the remains. They definitely looked lived in. Like I said before there was a crib in one, posters, and if I remember correctly cooking utensils, etc. I would guess this was around 1990 when we found them.

[OklahomaNick]

Very interesting thread. Most of the Northwood neighborhood was constructed in the mid to late 70's FYI. I am on the far west side and my house was built in 1979.
I don't know a lot about the "tiny houses" but most of that area was destroyed in a field fire probably 10 years ago. You can tell by the still grey trees all over that area.

[sooner12]

Very interesting thread. Most of the Northwood neighborhood was constructed in the mid to late 70's FYI. I am on the far west side and my house was built in 1979.
I don't know a lot about the "tiny houses" but most of that area was destroyed in a field fire probably 10 years ago. You can tell by the still grey trees all over that area.

I'm pretty sure we once came close to starting a field fire back there , but that would have been way earlier than ten years ago.

[whorton]

Hey Sooner 12. .

Thanks for coming back. I had almost given up hope on this one. Did you take a look at the aerial I posted from 69? If you click on it, it opens a larger pic. . . See if you can find anything on that one. .

[sooner12]

Strangely, I don't see any of the houses on the photo from 1969. There was a much bigger collapsed house that we saw many times that should have been to the east of Pinion Pl that I don't see on the 69 photo either.

[whorton]

What years did you live in that area, and about what year did you find the houses? perhaps I can find a better aerial picture, if I knew when to look?

Wesley H.

[RadicalModerate]

Thanks for showing back up to help attempt to solve the mystery you presented a couple of years ago!
Someone mentioned the Co. Assessors website and I know that it is a vast repository of information.
I have only gone back a few years from time to time to determine the history of a particular piece of real estate.
I'm not sure how far back the online records go to make ownership history easily available.
If one could determine whose "homestead"/"the old home place" was at this intersection it might provide a clue as to the reason for the mysterious little houses in the woods (c. 1960?).

Is it possible that the strange little houses were playhouses for a group of children who valued personal space? =)

[Phoenix59]

If the OP is speaking literally when he says there was a Sesame Street poster in one of the little houses, that kinda helps date at least one incidence of the occupation of those houses, if not the structures themselves.

Sesame Street didn't go on the air until November 10, 1969.

[PhiAlpha]

I, too, find this sort of suburban archeology fascinating, yet it might be worth noting that the original post on this thread is almost three years old.

Here is a more recent lead on a related topic =):
http://www.okctalk.com/ask-anything-...ep-hollow.html

. . . and then there is that mini-mansion over on Kelly, north of Britton Rd, named after some "Witch House" in Jamaica or whatnot . . . that was semi-recently "de-forested" and successfully restored to a point of resaleability by a "Flipper" who realized that he had accidentally discovered/recovered a treasure. =)

For the Record: Please be advised that the correct spelling of the location, referred to in the link, above, is actually Sleepy Hollow rather than Sleep Hollow. =)

The house of the white which in Jamaica is pretty cool and is now home to an awesome golf course. Played there a few years ago, really tough. It has a few holes on which the teeboxes are 200 feet above the fairways, very unusual.

[Jesseda]

nm