Historical Marker Program

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Battle of Round Mountain

Tulsa County
Location: at junction of OK-51 and Old Dawson Road south of old Keystone
Topics: Government; Military; Territorial Period, 1861–1907

The first Civil War battle in Oklahoma was fought here on November 19, 1861, between Confederate troops led by Colonel Douglas H. Cooper and Union forces led by Creek Chief Opothleyahola. The Southerners prevailed and occupied the Confederate encampment nearby. Some scholars believe this battle occurred in Payne County.

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Booker T. Washington High School

Tulsa County
Location: on south edge of OSU-Tulsa campus
Material: Granite
Topics: Civil Rights; Early Statehood, 1907–1941; Education; Ethnic Diversity

The original school for African American students in Tulsa was a four-room wood building constructed in 1913. In 1919, a brick building was built on the same site and was one of the few structures to survive the 1921 Race Riot. The school moved to its present site in 1950.

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Creek Council Oak

Tulsa County
Location: southwest corner of West 15th Street and South Cheyenne Avenue in Tulsa
Coordinates: 36.140502, -95.989655
Material: Aluminum
Sponsor(s): Tulsa County Historical Society
Topics: American Indians; Government; Social/Cultural; Westward Expansion, 1803–1861

4 blocks south on the north side of 18th St. stands a great oak, focal point of the old Creek Ceremonial Grounds. Here, overlooking the Arkansas, in 1828, the Indians deposited ashes from their Alabama ancestral home, kindled a fire to begin anew in the west, thus founding present-day Tulsa.

Note: This marker is no longer extant.

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First Gas Processing Plant West of the Mississippi

Tulsa County
Location: east side of US-75, 300 feet south of 141st Street in Tulsa
Material: Granite
Topics: Early Statehood, 1907–1941; Industry/Business; Natural Resources; Petroleum; Transportation

The beginning of Oklahoma's famous oil boom brought the need for processing facilities located near the source of the raw material. Kiefer, Oklahoma, the closest unloading point on the Frisco Railroad to the newly opened oil fields, was the site selected for the first casing-head gas-treating plant which extracted gasoline from wet gas, west of the Mississippi River. The location of the plant in this region was a tremendous boost to the infant, but thriving oil industry in Oklahoma.

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Hillside Mission

Tulsa County
Location: on OK-11, four miles north of Skiatook
Material: Aluminum
Topics: American Indians; Environmental/Cultural Ecology; Industrial Period, 1941 to 1982; Religion/Philosophy; Social/Cultural; Territorial Period, 1861–1907

Reverend John Murdock established the Hillside Mission school in 1882 under the auspices of the Society of Friends. A nearby cemetery contains the grave of William C. Rogers, the last elected principal chief of the Cherokees prior to statehood.

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Holmes Peak

Tulsa County
Location: on Keystone Expressway (US-64) at the intersection of 45th West Avenue in Tulsa
Topics: American Indians; Environmental/Cultural Ecology; Industrial Period, 1941 to 1982; Religion/Philosophy; Social/Cultural; Territorial Period, 1861–1907

Holmes Peak is the only geographical feature on Earth officially named by a government in honor of Sherlock Holmes. The US Board on Geographic Names approved the name on October 24, 1984. Another officially named geographic feature to honor Holmes is a crater on the Moon named by Astronaut Harrison Schmidt on the Apollo 17 Moon Landing.

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Indian Memorial

Tulsa County
Location: at entrance of Owen Park on West Edison Street in Tulsa (DAR)
Sponsor(s): Daughters of the American Revolution
Topics: American Indians; Government

This is the spot where the Creek, Cherokee, and Osage national boundaries joined.

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Mt. Zion Baptist Church

Tulsa County
Location: 419 North Elgin Avenue, Tulsa
Topics: Religion/Philosophy

Mt. Zion Baptist Church was organized in 1909 in a one-room frame school building located in the 300 block of North Hartford under the Revered Sandy Lyons. Church Founders included Mr. Aaron Ellis, Mrs. Kate Bell Baldridge, Reverend Alexander Brown, Mrs. Georgia Brown, Mrs. Cornelia Dallas, Mrs. Mary A. Grayson, Mrs. Hannah Hale, Mr. Jim Hale, Mrs. Ella Bell Johnson, Mrs. Caroline Lollis, Mrs. Ella Suggs, Mrs. Ida Rector, Mrs. Jeanette E. Webb and Mrs. Nellie Brown Wharton. Soon after Reverend R.A. Whitaker assumed the pulpit at Mt. Zion, the congregation was forced to move from the school building with only three days notice. Hardships, discouragement and disappointment would not deter the congregation and a permanent church home was erected at 419 North Elgin.The first service was held in the new $92,000 church on April 4, 1921. Nearly one month later, the imposing structure of Mount Zion was reduced to ashes during the Tulsa Race Riot on June 1, 1921. It took twenty-one years, until November 23, 1942, for the original mortgage of $50,000 to be retired. Reverend J. H. Dotson immediately started a Building Fund for a new church. W. S. and J. C. Latimer were architects and members of Mount Zion. Graduating from Booker T. Washington's famed Tuskegee Institute, the two brothers completed the drawings and plans for the new church. Bit by bit, Mt. Zion's members paid for rebuilding the basement of the old church and a new church. On Sunday, October 21, 1952, dedication services were held in "The Church That Faith Built." Nearly one year later, Rev. Dotson's health began to fail and the Reverend G. Calvin McCutchen accepted the leadership of Mt. Zion. Dr. McCutchen, serving longer than any other pastor, led the church in paying off the mortgage of the church. Under his leadership numerous improvements have been made including a nursery, the J. H. Dotson Memorial Scholarship Fund was established for Mt. Zion college students, and the addition of a multi-purpose facility known as the Family Life Center. The Center was renamed to the G. Calvin McCutchen Sr. Family Life Center in honor of Dr. McCutchen in 1998.

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Oil Capital of the World

Tulsa County
Location: in Municipal Plaza in downtown Tulsa
Material: Granite

Tulsa has long been known as the Oil Capital of the World and the City That Oil Built. The rise of Tulsa to a place of preeminence in the petroleum industry began on June 25, 1901, when a well was brought in at Red Fork across the Arkansas River to the southwest. Tulsa leaders caused a bridge to be built between the two points and national publicity focused attention on Tulsa as a center of a new oil region. "When a major oil strike took place at the nearby Glenn Pool on Nov. 22, 1905, the production of oil in the area became so great that the term "Oil Capital of the World" was universally applied to Tulsa. Other fields were discovered and developed in adjacent areas to a point where, for a time, it was the largest oil producing center on earth. Tulsa remained in the forefront of exploration and development, financing, equipment manufacturing and provided skills and executive direction for a growing worldwide industry–hence it continued to hold the title: Oil Capital of the World.

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