Oklahoma Journeys
Week of June 14, 2008
Oklahoma’s Semi-Centennial Exposition Opens – June 14, 1957
Celebrating the big 5-0 this week on Oklahoma Journeys. It was only a year ago that Oklahoma celebrated its centennial anniversary, 100 years of statehood. It seems more than appropriate then that we take a look back at an earlier celebration, the big 5-0. That’s the topic on this week’s Oklahoma Journeys from the Oklahoma History Center.
From the Oklahoma History Center, this is Oklahoma Journeys. I’m Michael Dean.
Last year at this time, Oklahoma was celebrating its 100th birthday with the big centennial celebration. All throughout the history of our state, however, residents have eagerly and with much pride and ceremony marked our various birthdays. It was fifty-one years ago this week that one of the biggest celebrations to date occurred. It was during the state’s semi-centennial birthday party. In order to celebrate fifty years of existence and to cover most of the important dates, Oklahoma’s fiftieth birthday party lasted from April, the month of the first land run, all of the way through November, the actual month of statehood. 1957 was the year, of course, and it was during this week in 1957 that some of the biggest events of the celebration occurred: the opening of the Semi-Centennial Exposition at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds and the Tulsarama Celebration.
In Oklahoma City the fairgrounds featured a two-block replica of an oil boomtown complete with general store, boarding house and chili parlor. Performers such as Mickey Rooney, the Ziegfeld Follies, and Oklahoma’s own singing rage, Ms. Patti Page, were on hand during the three-week celebration, and The Today Show from NBC broadcast live and direct from the expo center. More than a thousand Native Americans helped celebrate by participating in a powwow, a series of games and sports as well as providing a feast of barbequed buffalo.
In Tulsa, meanwhile, Tulsarama featured its semi-centennial highlight: the burial of a brand new 1957 Plymouth Belvedere. The ‘57 Belvedere was chosen because city officials felt that this car demonstrated the ultimate in American industrial ingenuity and was of such style and refinement that it surely would be in demand fifty years from then. Inside the car were placed various items such as the contents of a typical woman’s purse, which at the time apparently included both cigarettes and tranquilizers, copies of the Tulsa World and the Tulsa Tribune, miniature barrels of oil from local refineries, and a microfilm containing guesses on what the population would be in the year 2007. The person having the closest guess or the next closest living relative would win the car when it was removed from the ground in 2007. The entire vehicle was encased in some sort of foam thought to be a preservative and buried in front of a downtown courthouse. It turned out that when the car was uncovered last year, well, it wasn’t preserved so well. But Tulsa had a big celebration with worldwide coverage, anyway.
You can read about the semi-centennial celebration in the newspaper archives of the Research Library at the Oklahoma History Center, NE 23rd Street just east of the state capitol in Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma History Center is open seven days a week; the research library is open to the public six days a week. Oklahoma Journeys is a production of the Oklahoma Historical Society, dedicated to collecting, preserving, and sharing our state’s past. I’m Michael Dean.