TCC showing off Tulsa's early days

Written by Jimmy Pride | Download Original Article

When it comes to Tulsa's past, no one's up-to-date like Beryl Ford.

Having taken upon himself the task of preserving, categorizing and exhibiting a vast collection of Tulsa artifacts, Ford is essentially the city's tour guide to the past.

His latest exhibit -- "Beryl D. Ford's Early Day Tulsa: Indian Territory to Statehood" -- is on display through Aug. 5 in the student center at Tulsa Community College's Southeast Campus.

"We are so honored to have this exhibit," said Barbara Slagle, the director of student activities.

Slagle said that for years she had heard about the rare things Ford has in his collection and had tried to contact him for an exhibit, but to no avail.

"I would call and call and just couldn't reach him. Then one day one of my student workers, Cary Parker, came to me and asked if her grandfather could have an exhibit here. I asked her who he was and she said, `Beryl Ford.' "

The collection on display is a mere "drop in the bucket" as Ford calls it in comparison to his full collection.

"I have so much, we didn't know where to start," he said.

To help focus the exhibit, TCC Balance = 30.0 pts picked the Indian Territory period, Slagle said.

Included are artifacts from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, the earliest days of Tulsa.

The first issue of the Tulsa Daily World is part of the show, along with many newspapers from Indian Territory days.

So is the first known photograph of downtown Tulsa, when it was a tiny business community in a backwater town, and a contemporary photo of the bustling business district of the state's second largest metropolitan area.

There are bricks from buildings that have been torn down and pictures and papers to document the important strides in Tulsa's earliest days.

"Exhibits like this help keep alive our faith in the past while embracing the future," Ford said.

Calling himself an unofficial historian, Ford said he enjoys collecting the remnant's of other people's lives.

"I don't know why people throw away such valuable things," said the 75-year-old.

Some of the items he's collected out of alleys, demolished houses and the city dump.

"This collection has so much," said Ford pointing to a yellowed document he said is the allotment land document belonging to Thomas Gilcrease.

Ford showed some of his documents to appraisers for the Antique Road Show, when it visited last summer. They told him some of the documents and photographs are so rare as to be priceless.

"I guess my greatest fear is that after I'm gone, somebody unfamiliar with my work will pull up in a garbage truck and haul everything off to the city dump," Ford said. "I don't want that to ever happen."

He isn't certain what to do with his collection in the future to avoid that fate.

"Maybe it will end up in a museum or at the Tulsa Historical Society or in some private collection. I don't know," he said.

He said a plan is under way to preserve his collection, but for now, exhibits like this will have to do.