Historical Society Plans Good Ole Days Event

The primary order of business Monday night, April 11 at the Historical Society was the preparation for an event to celebrate the good ole days of making things by hand to be held May 14 from 10am to 3pm on the street around the Chickasaw Bank building in Tishomingo. Janis Stewart, Norma Chaney and Sherrie Adams are in the process of contacting people to come and demonstrate their personal handmade items. People have been contacted who will demonstrate old fashioned cooking, quilt making, candle making, butter churning, early day means of entertainment, old time children's games, and lots more.


During lunch time, an early day style lunch with beans & ham, corn muffins, with drink and dessert will be available for participants. Throughout the day, between 10am and 3pm, there will also be music and other entertainment. If your church choir or musical group would like to schedule a time to perform contact Janis Stewart at 580- 371-8989 or www.electionlady1@yahoo.com

Richard "Dickie" Craven was a guest and shared with the group a project he is working on with a collection of early day aerial photographs of Johnston County. He is hoping to get some technical assistance from the Chickasaw Nation to graphically integrate all the photographs into one large mural so folks can see what the county looked like in the early 1900's. One very interesting feature will be the ability to see what Washita/Chapman Farm looked like before Lake Texoma was built.

The Historical Society is recruiting new members and invites anyone interested in learning about and working on the preservation of county history to come and get involved. The society meets on the 2nd Monday of every month. For more information contact Mary Jane Nelson, 580-443-5788 or www.redrabbit@wildblue.net.

Saluting Our AmeriCorp Kids

December 13th, 2010 

The Johnston County Historical Society was delighted to have the eleven member team from AmeriCorp help repair many years of water damage to the Chickasaw Bank Building.

The team worked for 3 days scraping off peeling old water soaked layers of paint and repainted the walls and paneling to restore them to their original state.

After a hard day's work last Thursday, the team was treated to a night out at Sipokni West by Jack Yates and M.J. Nelson. The group enjoyed meeting Johnny Shackleford and were entertained by his stories and jokes. Then they had dinner in Wanda's western restaurant. Members of the Historical Society served them lunch two days to express their appreciation for the great job they were doing. Our community owes a debt of gratitude to not only the team...but also to Jack Yates for making it possible for an AmeriCorps team to return to Tishomingo to help various county organizations with much needed repairs.

AmeriCorps Kids At Sipokni West

AmeriCorps Doing Tedious Paint Scraping

Scraping And Painting




Bidding farewell, on their way to more adventure.

 

Partners

The Greater Southwest Museum in Ardmore, Oklahoma, recently created an exhibit of wedding gowns from the 1880's through 1940.  The Johnston County Historical Society was eager and proud to offer two of their wedding gown dresses to be included in the display.  

The Johnston County Historical Society is proud partners in this project.

April Meeting Of The Society

The Johnston County Historical Society met Monday, April 12 at 6pm for the regular monthly meeting.

After a tasty pot luck meal, the monthly "Historic Show & Tell" program included several interesting items.

In addition to some antique green glass items, and an antique pliers/wrench combo tool, James Bauman displayed a 1940's map of Alaska.

The map was made at the beginning of WWII, prior to the construction of the Alcan Highway. James & his wife Nina taught school on an island off the north coast of Alaska for several years before they retired back in Johnston County. James also presented the society a quaint little 1928 book entitled Etiquette Of Personal Correspondence.




Mary Jo Davis read an 1893 letter from her great-great-grand father G.F. Dykes, who was in Rome, Georgia, to her great-grand-father C.F. Dykes. The letter was detailing the growth of different types of transportation and commerce in that part of the county. Price of corn was 50 cents a bushel, they were building a new furnace to produce a new type of light weight metal "aluminum"...and tracks were being laid for an electric trolley.



Bobby Payne had a book with some wonderful old stories and pictures about Boggy Depot, and a home there built in 1860, that had coincidentally been the birth place of Letha Channell Clark's father, Floyd.

Letha Clark explained that an antique hall tree now on display in the tea room was her grandmother's, brought from Arkansas.

Mary Jane Nelson had a small jewelry box with various antique pieces belonging to her great-grandmother Mrs. D.D. Jones and grandmother, Nolen Bennett.

New Officers elected for 2010-2012 were: Mary Jane Nelson, President; James Bauman, Vice President; Mary Jo Massey, Secretary; Donna Pope, Treasurer.

The society has received a donation of 3 books listing WWII veterans.

Janis Stewart invited the society to prepare a Tishomingo community display for the Chamber Banquet this coming weekend.
Other members present were: Janice Fairchild, Sherrie Adams, Tammie Howard, and Joe Clark.

After a discussion of possible fund raising projects for the future, the meeting adjourned.

Next meeting will be May 10.

A New Chapter

It's been some time since we've had an up-to-date web presence so we are excited about our new blog.

Through this blog we will be able to keep members and all interested in current happenings including events we have planned, new displays we are creating, monthly meetings and more.

We are always seeking new members for the society and if you are interested in history as a whole and the preservation of history then please consider joining us.

Our phone number is 580-371-0254. Or you can contact one of our officers at the following addresses.

President: Letha Clark, 580-443-3540
email: letha3@netcommander.com

V.Pres/Secretary: Mary Jane Nelson, 580-443-5788
email: redrabbit@wildblue.net

Treasurer: James Bauman, 580-443-5326
email: ninabauman@wildblue.net


April 5th, 2010

We just created a new page that shows the current publications we have for sale. Be sure and check "Our Publications" page in the sidebar.

Quick Links

Photographs Of Our Displays

Publicatons

Our Publications

Softcover - 6x9 inches - 28 pages -Early Residents (Before 1920)
Tishomingo, Oklahoma. List of people and their addresses during that time.
$5.00 - $2.00 S&H



Softcover 6x9" - $15.00 - 88 pages - Depression Days Remembered in Johnston
County in the 1930's by Ed Gill. Book has history of Governor W. H. Murray,
county school history, and county elections, plus information of Ed Gill
while he was teaching at Russett, the 1938 elections in Johnston County and
the end of the railroad in Johnston County.



Softbound book - 7 1/2 x 10 1/2 - 128 pages - Oklahoma in the 1920's by Ed
Gill (limited supply)- History of Oklahoma and Johnston County during 1920
to 1929. Cost $20.00 - Shipping & Handling $8.00.



A 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch booklet - 20 pages of history and pictures of
Tishomingo during Indian Territory days. Book $5.00 Shipping & Handing
$2.00.



Soft cover 9 x 12 inches. Interesting People I've Known (A manuscript
discovered after Ed Gill's death in 1986) Book contains short articles (many
with a picture of the person) regarding Ed's association with local and a
few Oklahoma politicians. The book also contains history of the Gill family
in Milburn with pictures of the family; comments from local citizens
regarding the people Ed Gill reflected on in this manuscript; and pictures
of the Milburn area and people. Price of book $25.00. Shipping and
Handling $8.00.



Soft cover book - 9x12 inches - 157 pages - History of Washita Farm also
known as The Chapman Farm which was started in 1916 and ended when Lake
Texoma covered the area. The book also includes history and pictures of
the school, and many family histories of the tenant farmers that once lived
and worked the area. Cost $25.00 Shipping & Handling $8.00.



The Early Years of Milburn - A Chronicle - by Ed Gill - second edition -
This book is 9 x 12 soft cover - 105 pages - includes the original book by
Ed Gill plus a section of pictures of Milburn. Book is $20.00 plus Shipping
& Handling of $8.00.



A 9x12 hardback book (limited amount $75.00; 338 pages - contains sections
regarding Chickasaw History; Towns and Communities History; Schools;
Businesses; and Family History Shipping & Handling Cost $10.00.

To order any of these books contact Letha Clark at:
Letha Clark

About The Society

OUR MISSION: The Johnston County Historical Society has an ongoing commitment to historical and cultural preservation.

The Johnston County Historical Society is located in the restored Wm. H. Harris Building/Bank of the Chickasaw Nation, built in 1903.
The facility includes a gift shop, Victorian Tea Room, Genealogy Research library
Bank of the Chickasaws gallery, on the National Historic Register.
Two upstairs galleries with historic Johnston County relics and artifacts, including a dentist office, optometrist office, drug store, WWII display, early day furniture and clothing, kitchen display.

The Bank gallery includes the extensive 63 piece Julia Carter Welch collection of southwest and northeast Indian pottery and baskets. Julia Carter Welch was the daughter of Charles David Carter, (a Chickasaw/Cherokee, b. 1868 Boggy Depot- d. 1929) who served as U. S. Congressman for 29 years. Carter county was named for their family after they moved there in 1892. Julia is the niece of Vinita Ream (Vinnie b. 1873 Boggy Depot) for whom Vinita Oklahoma is named. She has 3 sculptures on display in the D.C. capital rotunda Hall of Fame.

The "society" opened in October, 2009, an auxilary museum at the Tishomingo Wildlife Refuge, Washita Farm Heritage Center, in partnership with the TREES organization, (www.treesok.org) the Chickasaw Nation, and the Wildlife Refuge. The museum is housed in a restored building, which was the former home of a "share-cropper" for the historic Fred Chapman' s Washita Farm. The building serves as a museum and welcome center for the Wildlife refuge and is located just north of the Refuge headquarters.

The gift shop has antique photo postcards, locally made Indian jewelry, booklets about county towns and historic sites, the complete collection of history books about Johnston County by county historian Ed Gill, (b. 1908 Milburn) who served as county school supt., state representative, Chief Administrator of the V.A., Muskogee. A complete list of books and booklets available for purchase by contacting any of the following officers.

President: Mary Jane Nelson redrabbit@wildblue.net

Vice President: Mary Jo Massey mjmassey1@yahoo.com

Treasurer: James Bauman ninabauman@wildblue.net

Secretary: Donna Pope americanbeautyinst@sbcglobal.net

Business hours contact:
Janice Fairchild, Wed - Sat, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. 580-371-0254