Original Buffalo Dale

Welcome back. Thousands of tons of concrete were poured to build the walls of McAlester State Prison and this week my story on the execution of Julius Jones is not from inside those walls but rather from outside the walls where a huge crowd had gathered in protest. I was…

Welcome back. Over the last three weeks you, my regular readers, have traveled with me to the state prison in McAlester, Oklahoma. Unless Governor Stitt grants clemency to Julius Jones it looks like I will be making a return trip on November 18th so I thought a little history about…

Welcome back.   Twenty-one-years and counting down to October 28th. It’s the day when Gay Carter ‘s family expects that justice will finally be done at the state prison in McAlester, Oklahoma with the execution of John Marion Grant. Executions have been on hold in Oklahoma for the past seven years…

Welcome back.   I often write about towns like Coffeyville, Kansas whose history, including the famous shoot-out with the Dalton Gang, has made the community a popular place for tourists. Dewey, Oklahoma is another place that draws tourists who come to see the Tom Mix Museum and the Dewey Hotel with…

Welcome back.   Last week I told you about the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum’s annual Western Heritage Awards which is always one of my favorite events during the year. If you missed the article, the E/E still has papers available or check out my website  www.originalbuffalodale.com. This past weekend…

‘Welcome back.   I lived the cowboy way of life this past weekend along with actor Robert Duvall, singer George Strait and the great Red Stegall just to name a few so here’s the story of how it all happened. First up is a brief history of just a few of…

Welcome back. As I look back at my atlas road map retracing all the places, I’ve traveled over the last three weeks it might appear to you that I was lost but not so. With my tent and supplies I set up camp near the Continental Divide for several days…

Welcome back. Somewhere between the sun and a man’s last breath lies a stretch of land in north central New Mexico that many think is enchanted and many others consider to be heaven on earth. Traveling up into the Sangre de Christo Mountain range you first come to towns with…

Welcome back.  With the recent sighting of an unidentified flying object or “UFO” by an American Airlines pilot in the skies above Clayton, New Mexico, I’m headed that way. You regular readers know that I have been planning this trip to search for more information about UFOs in the north…

Welcome back.  There is so much going on this week that my problem is deciding just where to start. Should it be with Pawhuska where the final days of shooting on Martin Scorsese’s well documented movie are just wrapping up? I know spending three hundred million on a film in…

Welcome back. 1919 was a wonderful time in local American history and on July 24th you will have the opportunity to revisit that era in a real time machine with me. Yes, you will hear stories of the stars of silent movies, listen to the leading singers from the Metropolitan…

Welcome back once again to your unofficial report on Pawhuska the town and Pawhuska the site for Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of the book Killers of the Flower Moon which if you haven’t heard depicts a time in the 1920s when murder was common in Osage County. Something else that’s…

Welcome back once again to your unofficial report from Pawhuska on how the filming of a 200-million-dollar movie there is coming along. From the spot where Apple Films built a replica train station, I can tell you all the trains and train cars are gone. The props have been taken…

Welcome back to your unofficial report on the filming of the movie version of Killers of the Flower Moon, or Gray Horse as we have been told it will be called.  Nowadays the town of Pawhuska that you may have been familiar with is gone as construction continues to transform…

Welcome back. Over the years I’ve brought you stories of many legends along with the lives of other men and women who I hope have been as inspiring to you as they have been to me. Now here is the life story of another man who I recently learned has…

Welcome back Over the past three weeks I have been writing about local history for the enjoyment of not only you  my loyal readers but also the new hires moving to town and the dozens of film crew employees who are here temporarily. These stories include Bill Hale who was…

Welcome back and with the movie having such a huge impact on the local economy, I thought my continued report on it being shot in Pawhuska deserved to be first up. Several dozen equipment trucks parked side by side, some pulling large restroom trailers, out of town caterers serving meals…

Welcome back once again to your unofficial report on the events happening right now in Pawhuska, Oklahoma along with Part Two of the history of the Mullendore Cross Bell Ranch. Ree Drummond’s Mercantile has drawn a crowd since day one about five years ago and now with several hundred film…

Welcome back to the unofficial report on the status of the filming of Killers of the Flower Moon. Although it looks like most of the actual filming will take place in Pawhuska, the majority of the journeymen working on the project are calling Bartlesville home.     Local hotels are housing most…

Welcome back.  During the next few weeks while filming starts up on Killers of the Flower Moon on weekdays, I plan to be hanging out in Pawhuska to bring you, my readers, the most up to date information on the progress of the movie. Starting with this week. I hope…

Welcome back. Traveling along the Gulf of Mexico around the Corpus Christi area for the last four months I’ve brought you stories about Boots Adams and Phillips 66, museums and all the different species of birds among many other subjects I hope you found interesting. Though my time here is…

Welcome back.  Legends and heroes. Yes, my friends, with the passing of sheriff, war hero, cowboy and plain good guy, George Wayman fit the bill when he was inducted into the Osage County Hall of Fame. Born August 5, 1923 George started off working as a cowboy and as a…

Welcome back. Over the years I’ve highlighted the places to see not only in Bartlesville but in all the surrounding towns. I’ve also taken you to New York City to the east and L.A. to the west. You regular readers have also followed me north to Helena, Montana and south…

I just learned that former Osage County Sheriff George Wayman died yesterday. He was a great guy and also a great help to me when I was writing Footprints in the Dew. He was one of the last people still around who worked on the Mullendore murder case and was…

Welcome back. With lots of ground to cover first up will be the fabulously wealthy Bass family of Fort Worth.  In 2020 Forbes Magazine ranked the Bass brothers as the 30th wealthiest people in the United States and provided the following biographic information: The four Bass brothers, Sid, Edward, Robert…

Welcome back. From New York City to Los Angeles, from Alder, Montana to Rockport, Texas, I’m always on the lookout for an interesting story but you my friends don’t have to travel thousands of miles to learn about noteworthy people and places because there’s plenty of stories in your city…

Welcome back Continuing from last week’s column, I hope you are keeping up with the ongoing story of my siting of two mermaids which took place two weeks ago along the shore of the Gulf of Mexico near Rockport, Texas. Friends I have been researching these mythical creatures and I’ve…

Welcome back.  Millionaires to mermaids, you’ll find it all in Rockport, Texas and friends there’s a tie to the Bartlesville area that this week I thought you might find interesting. Water Street in Rockport is only a mile long and runs right along the edge of the Gulf of Mexico….

Welcome back.  Traveling the country in search of interesting stories for almost 18 years I have had the opportunity to meet many fascinating people. I was recently in the company of one such person, an eighty-year-old friend of mine who thanked me for being part of his legacy. After looking…

Welcome back. Recreational vehicles or RVs as they are commonly called, over the years I’ve owned about a dozen of them and camped out in RV parks across the country. On the west coast Mugu State Park was my home for two weeks while I was investigating the Whitey Bulger…

Welcome back.  Over the years I’ve brought you readers many stories I hope you’ve found interesting from Whitey Bulger’s trial in Boston, the American Sniper trial in Stephenville, Texas and even the heartbreaking trial in Aurora, Colorado where a deranged kid killed dozens of people in a movie theater. I’ve…

Welcome back. With hundreds of ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 employees in the Houston area and many more located along the Gulf of Mexico down to the big shipping center of Port Aransas, the impact of Hurricane Harvey has had is in many ways still reaching all the way to Bartlesville….

Welcome back. You may not know their names but down in Rockport, Texas where I’m “chasing a ghost”, Sid Richardson, Clint Murchison and the Bass family represent money, big money and yes there’s a tie to the Bartlesville area. But first I’m taking you back in time to 1937 when…

Welcome back. The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Osage County represents mother nature at her finest and back in the 1980s several people had the vision to protect it, one of whom passed away last week. The Tallgrass Prairie is just one small piece of his legacy. Born on July 13,…

Welcome back. Giving Up the Ghost is a book written by my late friend Sanford “Sandy” Doty, a man whose writing career spanned over fifty years. Sandy lived in New York City where he was the ghost writer for the biographies of numerous famous people including Bette Davis, Helen Hayes…

Welcome back. One was born and one died, this week it’s the story of two famous men from this area and I hope you enjoy the ride. On October 7, 1930 a male child was born in Independence, Kansas who would go on to establish the largest country music management…

Welcome back. First the scoop, and if you’re a rodeo fan you’d better listen up. The BOK Center in Tulsa is going to open up to the general public for the first time since the pandemic started in March to host the Express Ranches PBR bull riding championships on October…

Welcome back to my sixteenth Labor Day lake report and weather-wise what a great weekend to be out! Up first, the town was first called Lawton, then changed its name to Weldon and finally when the railroad came through the name Copan stuck. A boom town in 1905, it’s a…

Welcome back. Over the years much has been written about Woolaroc, both as a world class museum and a truly great wildlife preserve, but this week I’m taking you backstage at this terrific place for two reasons. First of all, every year for roughly the past twenty years I have…

Welcome back.  Over the past sixteen years you readers have followed me down the road to many of the great ranching empires in our country. Locally, the Drummond family name is well known by many of you and the Land Report ranks the family as one of the twelve largest…

Welcome back.  Pawhuska three times, Tulsa twice, Oklahoma City and Edmond once with Nowata, Caney and Barnsdall and there’s is no end in sight for my travels this month so you can count on some interesting stories. Arcadia Lake in Edmond is a place where I often spend the night…

Welcome back.  Nurses, fire fighters and cops. They all play important roles in our life’s journey and as we age there’s another group of people that is just as important. Can you imagine being a senior citizen still living at home on your own but unable to get out because…

Welcome back. Founded in 1947, the world’s largest amateur rodeo is back in Pawhuska this week and friends if rodeo is your sport the Pawhuska fairgrounds ought to be your destination. The fairgrounds itself sits three miles outside of town and you won’t miss it because there will be hundreds…

Welcome back. The good guys and the bad guys. One wants to protect us, the other wants to take advantage of us and a week ago this past Monday one of the good guys paid the ultimate price for protecting us. It was a day that not just the brave…

Welcome back. Over the past several weeks I’ve written about nurses and the fine job they do for mankind with their dedication and love. I know most of you readers have experienced this at least once in your lives. There’s another group of people that is just as dedicated which…

Welcome back. President Trump didn’t show up at the Tulsa Fairgrounds where I was autographing books on Saturday but everyone else did and the well-advertised gun show drew one of the biggest crowds in years. The show was held on the lower level of the big Expo Center and the…

Welcome back. Brenda Maness from Franklinville, North Carolina got one, so did Katie Craft from Eastlake, Ohio and Lynn Smith in Hamilton, New Jersey got one as well. For me, what was going to be a four-month book signing tour on the east coast starting in May turned into a…

Welcome back. Trade shows at the Tulsa Fairgrounds are starting up again on June 20th with a big two-day gun show and I’ll be there to give you all a report not only on the size of the crowd but also on all the coronavirus prevention measures being put into…

Welcome back. In 1875 Pawhuska got its first post office and not long after that what had been Indian Territory became the State of Oklahoma. in 1909 one of my favorite organizations, the Boy Scouts of America, established its first troop in Pawhuska. The town is also the capital of…

To All Nurses: If you haven’t requested your copy of Footprints in the Dew yet I still have 80 books left! Email bestofbooks@sbcglobal.net or call (405) 340-9202.

I had a great weekend in Pawhuska signing books at Lorec Ranch. Even wearing a mask and social distancing it was great to see people out and about again. I plan to be there again next Friday and Saturday.

Welcome back.  Memorial Day weekend 2020 is history now but before it slips away in our memory here’s a few places I went you might find interesting. First, I took a spin down to south central Oklahoma to Tenkiller Lake on Saturday to see if folks were getting out and…

Welcome back. The date was May 4, 2020 yes friends this past Thursday, the time was 6PM and the location was on the old Chisholm Trail where Texas cattle were brought to Oklahoma and then shipped by Kansas railroads to folks on the east coast to eat. Sitting just a…

Welcome back.  From Montana to Texas, California to New York nurses have heard about the book Footprints in the Dew and learned that they could order a free copy by emailing bestofbooks@sbcglobal.net or calling the store at (405) 340-9202. Dozens of books have already been mailed out and the giveaway…

Welcome back to part two of the history of the nursing profession, who started it, when, where and how we should all show our appreciation during National Nurses Week which starts today, May 6th. From your history books you may have learned about Florence Nightingale who established nursing as a…

 In recognition of the brave work of nurses across the country during the coronavirus pandemic, I am partnering with Best of Books in Edmond, Oklahoma to give nurses a free copy of my best-selling book during National Nurses Week starting at 12AM on May 6th and ending at 12PM on…

Welcome back.    It’s a profession that is overlooked by most of us until we need their services and that’s when we learn just how important these people are. This week I am bringing you their story. First let me take you back in time again, back to May 12, 1820…

Welcome back.   I’m continuing last week’s story about the celebration of Bartlesville 100th birthday, hope you’ve enjoyed the ride so far. Throughout the year Dee Ketchum, who was another friend of Tom Sears and Bill Creel, played a big role in highlighting the American Indians’ influence on the development of…