Building the Oklahoma History Center

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
(upbeat music playing)

(00:04):
(TRAIT THOMPSON) Hello, and welcome to“A Very OK Podcast.”
My name is Trait Thompson. I’m executivedirector of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
And here with me as always, isDr. Bob Blackburn.
Bob, it’s great to see you again.(DR. BOB BLACKBURN) Thank you, Trait.
It is always a lot of fun,and I’m hearing more
and more from people at restaurantsor at meetings and parties.
I say, oh,we’ve been listening to the podcast,

(00:26):
and they say you andTrait have a real rapport.
I said, do we?
I said, I like Trait, and we get along well,
and some good laughs,and they say, yeah, it’s working.
So I think whatever we’re doing,we need to keep doing it now.
(THOMPSON)I think we do have a good rapport, Bob.
I don't think we last, almost five years of
doing this podcast togetherand over 50 episodes so far.

(00:48):
But, you know, I think oneof the things that I noticed
when I first got this joband we were traveling together
around the state, right before youofficially retired, is, you know,
I’d gotten to spend time with you,and I always liked you
but I didn’t get to spend a lot of timebecause you’re busy,
I’m busy.

(01:08):
But having the time that we’ve hadin cars. We played pickleball together.
We’ve done projects together.
You know, I just generally enjoy the timewe get to spend together.
And I’ve,
I’ve enjoyed having youas a friend, in addition
to being a mentorand my predecessor.
(BLACKBURN)Well, thank you.
You’re doing a great job,and everyone is impressed.

(01:30):
And so, you know, goodthings are happening, and a lot of it
is because you knowhow to get things done.
(THOMPSON) Well, I pulled the wool overmany people’s eyes and,
let’s just hope we can keep the rusegoing as long as possible.
Well, this is, it’s great to be with you.
I do have something I want to mentionbefore we get into.
This is about a TV show I’ve been watchingthat’s really interesting.

(01:53):
It just came out on Netflixcalled “Death by Lightning,”
and it is about James Garfieldand his rise to the presidency.
And then, of course, his assassination,
and Chester Arthur, the vice presidentassuming the presidency.
And it’s really fascinating.It’s got great actors in it.
Michael Shannon plays Garfield,

(02:13):
and Nick Offerman plays Chester Arthur.
And it’s a really good. It’s only fourepisodes, but I have really enjoyed it.
And for the most part,it sticks pretty well to the history.
(BLACKBURN) I haven’t seen that,but I’ll, I’ll try to find it.
(THOMPSON)Yeah.
It’s, it’s worth all of you checking outif you have a chance
to do that, for sure.
I always love finding good history dramasbecause sometimes they’re

(02:37):
difficult to find. They’re not always
well-acted either,but this one has great actors in it,
and, a finer collectionof beards and mustaches
and, and Nick Offerman has an incredible set of mutton
chops, for his portrayal of Chester Arthur as well.
So definitely worth checking out.
(BLACKBURN) Well, the, the only TV thatI’ve watched lately that I remember, at least,

(03:02):
there’s so much that you can forget.But I’ve found is a documentary series
that’s partly docu-drama on Alexander the Great,
like a six episode.
I think it probably came outsome time ago.
I just had never paid attention.
But I love ancient history.
A lot of people don’t know that I reallywanted to be an ancient historian

(03:23):
in the beginning, butwe’re going to have to learn German
to do primary research,and I thought I don’t want to learn German.
And, I’ve always loved Oklahomaand history of
the American Westis what I finally finished with.
But in graduate school,ancient history was one of my
four areas on PhD, one of the three in the masters.
And, it’s a pretty good little series.Some pretty good acting and, you know,

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nothing really new,but personalizing the stories
about individualsand history can really work.
And if it’s done well, and in that particularseries it was. (THOMPSON) I agree, I agree.
I’ve watched some kind of docu-dramasabout the history of Rome
and things like that.
I did, I watchedone a couple of years ago.
Maybe it’s three of four years agonow on the Medici family in Italy,

(04:08):
and that onewas pretty fascinating as well.
So yeah, I love that stuff too.
I have to check out the Alexanderthe Great one for sure.
Speaking of not so ancient history,we’ve got a great topic to discuss today.
It happens to coincidewith a big milestone for the
Oklahoma Historical Society.
This month, November of 2025, marks the 20th

(04:31):
anniversary of the OklahomaHistory Center being completed.
And I thought we would spend some timetoday talking about that
because, you know, some of our listeners,we may think, well,
why do I care thata building was completed?
But this was a major milestone in
not only the history of our state,but a major milestone in the

(04:52):
Oklahoma Historical Societybeing able to carry out its mission.
(BLACKBURN)Yeah.
And, there was so much
going against this thing.
In the article thatI’ve written about it,
I call it improbable.
That’s the word I usebecause it is improbable

(05:12):
that we were able to pull this off.
And it wasn’t an individual effort.
It was partlya matter of historical timing,
opportunities, you know, the right people,the right places,
of course.
And but having the right atmosphere,
but we had so much going against us.
We, you know, people would refer to usas the “hysterical society”

(05:34):
because really,we lost our way in the 1960s.
Really up until the 1960s,everything of historical society
was in the four wallsof the old historical building.
We had,
we had preserved a few historic spotslike Sequoyah’s Cabin,
part of Fort Gibson, but no staffing,not doing much with it.

(05:55):
It was just, we need to save itand treating those as collections
is really what we were doing,but we were not a parks department.
Tourism had already started in the 1950s,developing parks
and some historic museumsunder the rubric of parks.
And so in the 1960s, the legislatorsdiscovered the OHS as a place

(06:16):
to put some of their local projectsuntil it got to be almost
40 things we were in charge ofand a long list of pork. And John
Eric, not John Eric.
Janet Cartwright, the attorney general,kind of cut out a lot of the pork,
but that was what our agency was
seen as a place that legislatorscould put money in our budget,

(06:36):
and then spin it out on their districtsand very little oversight.
And it was not a transparent thing.
So when I started here in 1979,on contract,
next year, full time,we had a lot of ground to make up.
And, so we startedputting teams together.
Blake Wade came on as a deputy directorat one time. Louis Coleman

(06:59):
was influentialin all that of doing budgeting.
Even David Salay,who didn’t last a year as director,
brought some internal reform.
And then in the 1990sis when we really started
turning thingsaround and tried to overcome
the disadvantage of the reputation up
to that point, especially withlegislators and the public.

(07:22):
Not many people outside of Oklahoma City
were awarethat we were even a state agency.
People within the state governmentdidn’t know
we were also a private organization
with press.
And as long as the press was strong,like they were our main
constituency supporting us,but it really didn’t,
we didn’t have a lot going for us, butwe were putting together the right people,

(07:46):
the right team, gaining prestige,earning the support of the press.
So we went in to battle in the
in the 1990s, going up against the fact
that rural legislators do not want tospend money in Oklahoma City.
(THOMPSON)That’s true. It’s still true.
(BLACKBURN) Exactly.
And you discovered that when you wereworking on the State Capitol.

(08:06):
That’s another improbable investment thatthe state had made in the last 20 years.
But, they want to spend it in theirhometowns, please their constituents.
So getting them to vote for somethingin Oklahoma City was an uphill battle.
We had never had a fundraising tradition.
We had trouble raising money.
We had a few success projects.

(08:28):
We were getting some federal grants
in the 1990s, the first ones,and got a pretty steady stream of those.
And then with a Route 66 museum,we came up with a new business plan,
that based on some earned revenue,
some donated money from the community,a partnership between a community
and historical society,and really rely more on partnerships,

(08:50):
knowing that we would never havethe resources to do it on our own.
We were not Minnesota.
I’ll never forget when I started,Minnesota had an annual budget
of 24 million.
Our budget was 4 million.
It was that big a of the difference.
And so we were coming upwith a business plan,
how to deal withthe realities of Oklahoma.
But then along came the opportunities too.

(09:11):
We had people like Yvonne Kauger saying,
I want your old building.
So if they’re going,if she’s going to get our building
for the Supreme Court Judicial Center,we had to get something else.
So suddenlywe were part of a conversation.
We had Senator Kelly Haney,who was probably one
of the most dynamic personalitiesin the Senate at that time.

(09:32):
He at one time had been Chairmanof Appropriations in the House.
So he knew state politics,and he was a gifted dealmaker,
and he wanted us to get something goodbecause he also wanted
a museum on American Indian history,which is now the FAM.
And so that all was there in 1997 and 1998.
Our reputation was better.

(09:53):
We felt like we could take on somethingbecause we had a team, a good,
productive team here.
Board of Directorswas really unified at the time.
We’d gone through some troubles in 1989and 1990 with a split board.
Wanted to go different directions.
Largely those had been washed out
by the mid and late 1990s,where the board was very unified.

(10:17):
Good leadership by Jack Haley, longtimearchivist at Western History Collections
at OU. Marvin Kroeker,retired professor from East Central.
Denny Garrison, former senator,
big genealogist from Bartlesville.
We had good leadership at the board level,and they were ambitious.
They wanted us to do something and withouta board really saying, yeah, go for it.

(10:41):
They can yank you back
with a pretty short chain.
But, when we had that opportunity
with Yvonne and Kelly’s support,
and then we got lucky with the times.
Oil and gas was just comingout of its deep funk that had started
in 1982 with the failureat Penn Square Bank.
First National Bankin 1995. Excuse me, 1985.

(11:04):
And the oil and gas industrywas recovering.
We had new technologies, people
like Aubrey McClendon and Tom Ward and
Harold Hamm, Larry Nichols,
they were
just finding their footing at the time.
And of course, in the oil patch,they’re always willing to take a risk.

(11:25):
And it’s not just drilling a well,
but let’s take a riskon making a donation to a good cause.
And so we came along at the right timewith the economy beginning to recover.
And in 1998, we were able to get $200,000,which was
the figurative foot in the door to say,hey, we are part of the conversation.
And they gave us $200,000 to do a plan.

(11:47):
(THOMPSON)Can I back you up for just one second?
(BLACKBURN)Yes, sir.
(THOMPSON) The old building that we had, theOklahoma Historical Society building built in
in 1930 and later renamed the Wiley PostHistorical Society Building.
Can you talk about the deficienciesthat it had as far as having
a modern museum, modern archive storage,and that kind of thing?

(12:09):
(BLACKBURN) Well, by the 1960s, museumtechnology was changing.
The way museums would portrayhistory was changing.
I call itthe antiquarian approach to exhibits.
You put a lot of stuffout in cases with a label.
A boot from the Civil War,
you know, doctor’s instrumentfrom the 1920s.

(12:29):
You still see a lot of museums like that.
Smithsonianwas going through the same changes
we were. We didn’t have thethe space to improve it.
So we still had just a lot of cases,a lot of stuff.
Antiquarian approach,very little interpretation.
And then the building itselfhad been built for 1930s technology,
no air conditioning.
So how do you moderate the heat of summerin a building like that?

(12:52):
You open the casement windows with airwells in the middle of the building.
You open the transom above the door
if you want privacy. Open the doorif you want more airflow,
and then the rising heat going upthe air wells would draw air
in through the air to the outside windows.
And it might cool it downfive or six degrees.
So instead of 102 it’s going to be 95.
So it was still bad.

(13:13):
And of course, you could imaginethe fluctuation
in humidity based on whateverit was like on any given day.
And then you throw in radiators
with steam heat running those, leaking.
And so humidity was up and down.
That’s your enemy.
That’s organic materials of course.
So the building could not be sealed.
And we tried a variety of,the people in charge of the building,

(13:36):
I was not in charge of the buildingin the 1960s
and 1970s or even the 1980s,
1990s more so, but they tried to do things.
They replace the old original elevator.
That was a manual operator.
When I started,you actually pulled the cage to the side,
pulled another doorclosed, and then, you know,
shifted a lever to go up and down.

(13:59):
It was, it was an old building.
It hadn’t changed.
And so and in terms of space,we had no space for collections
and some early effortsto do interpretation
that had pushed collections back.
So instead of everythingbeing out in cabinets, open
storage was really what it wasfor decades, from the 1930s through the 1960s.

(14:19):
In the 1970s, you start
getting a few interpretive exhibits,but then stuff had to come off the floor.
Well, where do you put it?
This closet.
Well, above that shelf over here,behind that radiator.
Yeah, it just was awful.
No inventory to speak of.
The building could not be heated and cooled.
We had a chance late.

(14:40):
In fact, I was deputy director already.
We had a chance to get a Smithsonianexhibit focused on Woody Guthrie.
And they had specs on what the temperaturefluctuation should be,
fluctuations in temperature.
We put in
humidifiers, dehumidifierson a daily basis
trying to, never could stabilize it
in one of the gallerieson the third floor.

(15:01):
And the Smithsonian said, well,we really want this there,
so we put it up anyway.
And so we created some little microenvironments to help out some.
But it was an impossible place,and the staff was growing
as different organizations aroundthe state wanted us to do more.
We were adding staff,no place to put them.
We had put historic preservation,which really doesn’t get going

(15:24):
until the early 1970s,
had to build a platform in the stacks.
At one time, people called it the canyon.
You look down a few doorsand you look straight down the basement.
And these bookshelves wentthree stories tall,
and you’d have to access itdifferent ways.
Well, they finallycovered one of those areas

(15:45):
for historic preservation,so that was typical.
And then preservationeventually moved out to quarters,
eventually in the Journal Record Building,where the bombing injured
some of our employees.
But it was really an impossible building.
Good location, right by,
and in fact,it was the first building built
in the State Capitol complexoutside of the Capitol.

(16:05):
So we had been a priority.
A lot of school groups comingin, they didn’t
charge admission,so generated almost no income.
So it really wasn’t working very well.We needed something.
We all recognize that. By 1988,the board had already gone on record
saying we want a new building.
(THOMPSON) Yeah, in 1982 and in 1992,there were attempts to get funding

(16:26):
to build on to the buildingthat were unsuccessful.
And so I think at that point,
later on, when Justice Kauger decided
the Historical Society
building would be a perfect placefor the new judicial center,
that’s when things started coming togetherto get the wheels in motion for the OHS
to get a new building.
(BLACKBURN)Exactly that, along with Kelly Haney’s desire to have two museums going,

(16:49):
he really understoodthat it would be almost impossible
in Oklahomato get funding for an Indian museum.
And this is beforethe tribes had the resources.
You know, FAM was finished largelybecause generosity of Bill Anoatubby
in the Chickasaw Nation. That was not therein 1997. The tribal enterprise

(17:09):
was just getting startedand was really not making much.
We relied more on federal grantsthan income.
And so he knew he needed the OHSto have a new building
and then try to keep them goingin lockstep.
And so we both gotplanning money.
So, a new
commission that was established by statutegot to build an Indian museum.

(17:32):
We got the money to do our planning.
At my right side,I had Sandy Stratton, who had risen up
through the ranks from historicpreservation.
She had worked at the museum
in Guthrie for a while,and I really came to admire Sandy.
So I said, Sandy, I need help.
So I had money to paywith this amount of money
coming in for planning.
So I brought Sandy in on special projects.

(17:55):
Let’s, let’s figure outwhat is our vision.
So what we had to dois to take what the board wanted,
staff members, constituentslike the press, academic
community, education community,genealogists, obviously.
But we were, we relied on themtremendously at the time.

(18:15):
And, so we all went together.
So what do we want?
So really my task with Sandy helping washow do we come up with one plan,
a planning
document that incorporateswhat everyone wants to keep the momentum
going that we canthen take back to the legislature,
then eventually take to the philanthropic
community and say, we want you to invest.

(18:39):
We had to find ways to generate revenue.
We knew that was critical at the time,something we had never done.
We had to figure out how we couldraise the money, which we had never done,
and we needed a new site becausewe couldn’t build on the old location
because that was, the SupremeCourt was going to get that building.
(THOMPSON)So the plan says that you need 200,000 square feet of space.
You need eight acres for parking.

(19:00):
And it recommended a bond issuefor construction funding, which you,
and at that point, they anticipated$46 million from the state,
with an additional $10 million in privatefunds raised. During the 1998 session,
you were able to get a $32million bond issue
passed from the legislature,which is less than needed.

(19:21):
But legislative leaders at the time, Kelly Haney, Governor Keating, they said,
we’ll come back next year, and we’llre-allocate the rest of the funding.
And that ran into some challengesbecause of the economy,
because then for the next few years,the state goes
into a period of contractionin terms of state budgets.

(19:41):
(BLACKBURN)It did.
And, so the board really had to makethe decision.
I could make recommendations all day,but the board has to, as you know,
working with theboard now, you know, only
lead that so far.
Then you have to rely on their wisdomto make a decision.
So I talked to everybody, Governor Keating, of course, he loved history.

(20:04):
He, when he was in Washington DC,
he had told me that he went out
to museums and sites,Civil War battle sites every weekend.
He just, and he still does to this day.
We’re having lunch this next week and wetalk history when we get together still.
But he wanted it,and he wanted it to be Smithsonian.

(20:25):
He wanted us toget the real “Winnie Mae.”
And that’s still contentiousbetween me and him.
(THOMPSON)Oh, believe me, he mentions it to me.
And I love you, Frank Keating,but he mentions it to me
at least every other time we see.He’s like, “Trait,
why can’t we get the real ’Winnie Mae’”?
And I have to tell you,
I say, Governor Keating,the Smithsonian doesn’t want the real
“Winnie Mae” hanging in a big atriumwith a lot of natural light.

(20:47):
I said, I don’tknow that that’s a possibility,
but he’s still holding out hope for that.(BLACKBURN) I know.
And, anyway, he was an enthusiastic.
And then on his,his secretary of state was Tom Cole,
now US congressman from Oklahoma,Chairman of Appropriations,
right?
And Tom was PhD in history.
And he and I had been friends.
We were both in graduate schoolat the same time.

(21:09):
So Tom is helping and enthusiastic.
Governor Keating is enthusiastic.
Kelly Haney,
of course, wants us to get more moneyso his project could get more money.
So he’s pushingthat on the Senate side.
But with the state revenue down,there was just no chance.
So after that next yearwhen we didn’t get it, Governor Keating
said it’ll still be in my executive budget.

(21:29):
We’re going to ask for it.
Well, for people who don’t know politicsat the Capitol, typically,
if a governor wants it, legislatorslove it because then they can use that as
leverage to say, we’ll never go for that,but here’s what we want.
Then in the final days,they find a compromise.
They each get a little bitof what they want, but never everything.
And so that dialog is going on.

(21:51):
The legislators, well,Governor Keating wants it.
Let him fund it.
You know, we’re not doing it.
But with the revenue shortfalls,
Governor Keating is leaving office.
We still don’t have the money.
Now, we had broken the firstcontract down with Don Beck,
who we’ll talk to here in a littlebit more about the design.
Don Beck got the contractto do the design.

(22:14):
Manhattan Construction,
And this was a design bid built.The state
did not give us any optionsother than that at the time.
Well we decided we’vegot to break it into two phases.
Fortunately, all my staff I had heardmy deputy director, Bob Thomas,
by this time.Bob was a, an experienced architect.
OU School of Architecture,had worked with Bruce Goff,

(22:37):
the great architect
there.
And he had had his own firmwith Neal McCaleb,
which was a good connectionwith the Keating administration,
because Neal was head of transportationat the time,
and we were getting transportationgrants almost every year.
When we didn’t get the rest of the money,I’d go to Neal
and say hey Neal,
instead of one millionfor the site development,

(22:59):
we had to spend four million and takedown those houses.
He goes okay, I’ll see, and so I’d say, well,I want another million dollar grant
for this or that.And we were getting those.
So we were keeping things moving.
But Manhattan was getting closeto wrapping up phase one
and spendingall of the 32 million that we had.
We really hadn’t startedmuch of the fundraising effort.

(23:21):
We had some going on,but it was not rolling.
And, we really gotto a point where we delayed
or slowed constructionfor a really a year.
And Manhattan agreed,
we’ll go slow, we’ll pull crews off.
We’ll just do a little bit here
and there, try to keep a presenceat the site with the management team

(23:43):
because
they said if we haveto leave, re-stage, it’s going to at least
a million, maybe two millionmore to the budget in the very end.
So we were facing a crisis.
When Governor Keating leavesoffice, new governor is elected,
Brad Henry, who fortunately I knew.
And, here comes Brad, a new governor.
So we’re still sayingwe need the funding to finish this thing.

(24:08):
(THOMPSON)And I want to back up just a little bit because,
you know, we’re locatedacross the street from the State Capitol.
But there were other locationsthat were initially under consideration.
There was a location in Edmond,location down I-35 and I-40 area
near the North Canadian Riverthat was on the board.

(24:30):
There was a
location near the Harn Homestead,which is just south of the State Capitol.
So how did we hone in on pickingthis site?
(BLACKBURN)Well, Sandy and I did pros and cons of each,
and those are somewhere in my notes,somewhere in the archives.
But we went through
because I had to make a presentationto the Board of Directors. Here are
the pros and cons of this,and it was going to be their decision.

(24:52):
Now, of course, their decisionwould have a political impact
if the legislators or the governoror someone didn’t like it,
and then I’d have to deal with that.
So everyone knewthis was a critical decision where to go.
I actually initially I liked the sitewhere the Wildlife Department is now.
Wildlife wanted to get out of there
at the time. Their building was oldand not performing

(25:13):
very well, and Harn Homesteadis right out the back door.
I’ve had the great to have a museum,a history center right there
on Lincoln Boulevard.
So still part of the political complexor the government complex,
but with this great teaching toolright out the back door,
kind of liked that in the beginning.
But it finally came down towhere can we raise the money?
Where could we
keep the legislature involved?

(25:35):
And when the site here at 23rdand Lincoln came up, it was a parking lot,
plus about 41 homes
that were in a various state of repair.
Some were, should have been torn down,some had been maintained pretty well.
And one of the
the downsides of that,if we choose that location

(25:55):
and we get those 41 homes,we’re going to spend another $3 million
to acquire them, which is going to have tocome out of the construction budget.
So, we presented to the board prosand cons, politically in terms of
what is most marketable,what will help us raise the money,
what will help us keep the legislatureinvolved with providing the money

(26:17):
to support the staffingand maintenance of the place?
And at the end of the day,it was unanimous.
All 25 board members said it needs to beon the northeast corner,
23rd and Lincoln, across the streetfrom the State Capitol, very visible.
And as legislators would come outat that time, most were staying north
of Lincoln somewhere.
So as they come out of the parking lots,the drive right by it, so they’d see it

(26:39):
every day, numerous times.And it’ll be close enough,
we thought, for special eventsso lobbyists would rent the place.
We put togethereventually a business plan. 521 00:26:51,067 --> 00:26:5 4,904 And, we just thought that this is the best location, and
the board agreed.
(THOMPSON)And you ultimately,
Speaker Loyd Benson, 1999 session,says, Bob,

(27:03):
I don’t think there’s any more moneycoming for this thing.
And you have to decide, you know,are we going to
continue on with our big grand plan,or are we going to scale down.
You know, Benson’s recommendationis that you scaled down the project.
What made you and theboard confident to move
forward with the original grand vision?

(27:24):
(BLACKBURN)Well,
we could see what was happeningwith the economy,
and the economy was improving.
So we assumed that state revenueswould keep going up,
and state revenues are not always tiedto what’s having at the moment.
There’s almost a delayed reaction.
And so state revenuesdid not keep up with it.

(27:44):
So a little bit of a miscalculation.
But with Governor Keating’s enthusiasm,our board’s enthusiasm, my enthusiasm.
I and I guessgoes back to basic personality.
I’ve been accusedof being an eternal optimist
that, you know, whatever the challengeis, how we deal with it
creates character, teaches us new lessons,what didn’t work, what might work,

(28:07):
and then looking for the new opportunityand trying to seize it.
So I was optimisticthat somehow I didn’t know how.
And, so I think my optimism was therewhen I made the presentation to the board.
But we had people like Marvin Kroeker,and Jack Haley, some historians,
and of course, we had the volunteermembers, like Barbara Thompson
and Denny Garrison,who believed in our mission.

(28:31):
The genealogists wanted to go forward.
We were, we were being encouraged.
The press wanted us to go forward.
I was talking to a lot of
of senior people in the press at the time.
And fortunately,I had done a couple of books
that really drew in the press.The Gaylord family, for example.

(28:51):
I wrote the history of the State Fair
in the mid 1990s,which gave me the ability to go see
Mr. Gaylord or to see Christy,who is soon to be the publisher.
And so I was talking to people like that.
What do you think we should do?
And so I tried to distill all that downinto one board meeting.
And the board voted unanimously.
Let’s just keep itat the Smithsonian National Archives level

(29:14):
and not compromise.
So we just boldly wentwhere no one had gone before.
(THOMPSON) And you had to waitbecause we go through the 2002
legislative session and there’sstill no bond issue forthcoming.
And in your article,you mention that you wrote
a letter to all of the legislators about,

(29:35):
hey, we’re in dire straits now,and we need to
have a bond issueor this project is going to be in jeopardy
with a half built structureacross the street from the Capitol.
And you mentioned that it was metwith deafening silence.
(BLACKBURN) Yes, I, my mailboxwas not full of responses.

(29:56):
(THOMPSON)And, you know,
that had to be very disheartening until,
Senator Morgan gives you a calland says, okay,
we’re willing to do this if you can committo raising private pledges.
And if you can get a pledgefor two-thirds of the House

(30:17):
and two thirds of the Senatethat they would vote for a bond issue,
and you had put forththe idea of capitalizing
the interest on a current bondto pay for the future bond as well,
which requireda little bit of financial creativity
but was well within the bounds of statelaw, according to the bond advisor,
Jim Joseph, which,
you had to, you know, had have themcall the House and Senate fiscal staff

(30:41):
to make sure that, to convince themthat was a thing that could be done.
So there was a lot that you had to do.
Tell us about getting that two-thirdsin the House
an Senate to sign on to this.(BLACKBURN) Yeah, that was the first challenge.
Second would be to raise the money,the $12 million.
And at that point we had raiseda little bit, but not all we needed.

(31:01):
And it was a revenue shortfall year.
So as you go into a legislator’s officeand say, you know,
I need a bond issue, they’d say,well, we need to pay our teachers.
And they were furloughing teachersthat year.
I think of all of my yearsin state service,
that may have been the only yearthey furloughed teachers.
You know, they’d furloughedstate employees several times.
And I had to make decisions how to do that

(31:22):
within our organization,but never did they, because they knew
that was in all their districts,and they didn’t want to do it,
but they were going to beforced to do it that year.
So we had that uphill battle.
And so I started with a roll call sheet.
I started with those who I thoughtwould vote for it and started with them.
Ma’am, sir, you know, here’s the deal.

(31:44):
And, you know, started with a few yeses.
And then I startedI’ve tried to avoid the no’s,
and there were going to be some thatI probably never talked to, knowing that
they didn’t like government,they would wish government would go away.
(THOMPSON)Yeah.
(BLACKBURN)And we go back to the cave, you know, times where we just,
survival of the fittest.

(32:05):
So ignored them largelyand then trying to get that middle
of getting two-thirds and,and Senator Morgan and Cal Hobson,
who was pro tem at the time,the way they saw it,
they did not want thisto be a campaign issue.
(THOMPSON)Right.
(BLACKBURN)And if it was just a Democratic led and at that time,
the Democrats still control the majority,barely,

(32:26):
barely in the Senate,and barely in the House.
In fact,that would change within two years.
But,
they did not want to be a partisan issuethat could be brought up.
And the other thing, no log rolling,nothing else could be added.
Typically, the way bond issues were alwaysput together, typically in history,
going back years and years,about every eight to ten years,

(32:49):
deferred maintenance, mainly at collegesand then around the Capitol complex,
and it would build up to where
roofs were leaking, enough pressurethat you could put it together.
But you put together 40 projects
drawing in enough votes.
Well, yeah, Senator,that’s up in your district.
Vote for it. Okay.
And that, but this onewas won in Oklahoma City

(33:11):
where most legislatorsdon’t want to spend any money anyway.
And in Senator Morgan’s offer to me
on that pivotal night, and I knowthe exact night, and I think in the article
I put the exact. It was in my calendarwhen we had that call, and,
so I had to get thatwithout any log rolling.

(33:31):
He said it would, it’ll kill itif he added anything to it.
And I think they knew that without addingthings to it, you couldn’t get the votes.
So I had no bargaining position on say,well, if you do this or that and,
but it was just a matter of circling
around. The legislative assistantsreally helped me.
They’d say, well, the senatorjust went down to the bathroom.
He should be coming back inabout ten minutes.

(33:52):
You can intercept him at the corner.
You know, these legislative assistantswere critical to this,
and I just lived over there.
I don’t remember the exact date now.
I should have looked that up beforeI came in. I think it was in March when
he gave me that offer.
So I had about two months into the session.It’s always going to end,
it doesn’t have to, unless
they go to a special session,but the end of May.

(34:13):
Yeah, last Friday of May,it’s going to end at 5:00.
So had a couple of months
only to pull this togetherand just keep adding one or two here, there.
And I’ll never forget, I got to speak tothe Republican caucus on the Senate side,
and, I was making my pitch,
what this is going to do for all of them.One thing I did

(34:34):
have is we were collecting newspapersfrom all their hometowns.
So their publishers and all these towns.
And at thattime, newspapers were still alive.
Today, the different world. Right.
We don’t have those editors out thereto push.
Well, then I had the editors,and the press was very supportive.
And so I say,we’ve been collecting your newspapers.
We have 33 million pages in our archives.

(34:56):
Someday we’re going to get to digitizing.
It’ll be, you know, my sales pitch.
And then we’re doing this
and that and schoolkids and,you know, going on, patriotism, you know,
your grandfather’s carved out a frontier,but, you know, that sort of thing.
And I’ll never forget one Republicansenator from south side of Oklahoma City
where you wouldn’t expect a lot ofsupport, stood up.

(35:17):
He said, Bob, we’ve got to do this.
I just could have hugged him.(laughter)
You know, it was one of those momentsthat you kind of say, oh, thank you.
And so startedpicking up more votes there.
And on the House side, just kept going
until I had the two thirdsof both the House and Senate.
And plus you dealt with votes there.

(35:39):
It reminds me a storyDenny Garrison told me
when he was a young representative.
He had a bill,
he asked an oldsenator to vote for,
and he said, oh, yeah,young man, I’ll vote for that.
Gets to it. Got votes against it.
Denny says, what happened, Senator?
He said, I didn’t say forever.
And so, I knowthat they were going to change.
I’d had a couple of billsfail over the years.

(36:00):
(THOMPSON)Oh, yeah.
(BLACKBURN)One person took a ride at the very end.
And, so we had a couple of extra votes.
And it comes down to the very day thatwe’re going to put the bill on the floor
and another person in state government
tells the Senate staff,you can’t amortize the interest.
You can’t do this,because I was going to use
some of the interest from the old bondissue before we spent it

(36:23):
to actually make the paymentson two years of the bond issue.
I didn’t need any cash.
That was probably my best sales pitchthat year.
I need no cash,
senator, representative.You can fund this. We’ll be finished
here, and in two yearssomeone else will have to put up money.
But for two years we’re covered.
And Jim Joseph had taught me about that.
And so, we got the votes,and the day that

(36:48):
this lawyer on the Senate side said, well,Bob, so-and-so said we can’t do this.
It’s not legal.
I said, what? Jim Joseph said Gary Gray,
not Gary Gray. Gary.
I’m sorry, his name is notcoming to me.
But whoever was the bond
the contract person.(THOMPSON) The bond attorney.

(37:08):
(BLACKBURN)Bond attorney. Thank you.
And so, fortunately, I had a cell phone
with me, called his number.
And he answered,these people never answer their phone.
He and I said, Gary,I said, I’m here in the Senate office.
Can you explain amortizing it?
The guy listened,
writes the bill, and survives.

(37:30):
And that was like the day beforethe end of the session,
gets up there and we get a voteand that has to go to course one house
and then the other, and it passed.
(THOMPSON)Well,
and I have to mention, youmentioned in the article that the minority
chairman of the Senate Republicanswas Jim Williamson from Tulsa.
And when I started working in the pro temoffice in the senate 15 years ago,

(37:51):
Jim Williamson was Pro TemBingman’s chief adviser at that time.
And I have to say that,
he is one of the most principled menthat I have ever known.
And so when you wrote in there that hesaid, I’m not going to vote for it,
but I will let you comeand speak to the caucus,

(38:12):
that is Jim Williamson altogether.
And I have nothing but respect for himbecause, first of all, he’s
just a very honorable person,but he’s also someone who I,
almost everything that I learned about
procedure, legislativeprocedure, about bills,
I learned in those first couple of yearsworking under Jim Williamson.

(38:34):
Another one that I just have to mention,since I’m right here talking about it,
But, Carolyn Dennis, who worked for years
and years on Senate staff taught mean incredible amount as well.
But I loved working with Jim Williamson,and I loved the opportunity
to learn underneath him.
Because when you’re in the minority,if you want to get anything done,

(38:55):
you have to figure out.You have to learn the rules.
You have to figure out every trick
of the tradeyou can to try and advance your agenda.
(BLACKBURN)Yeah.
And you mentioned Carolyn Dennis, Debbie’son the House side.
I had friends within the staff
by that time. I’d been working withJohn Bryant and Randy Beutler and

(39:16):
Senator Gustafson over on the Senate sideon battlefield protection.
So I had my network within the Senate
and the House.
Rick Littlefield had been chairmanof my subcommittee for years.
And so I could, you know, I could workwith these people toward deals,
and it worked.
And then we had to raise the money,once we got the bond issue approved,
and Manhattancontinued with a construction

(39:39):
management contracts, we didn’t have,God forbid, which saved a lot of time.
So we kept them on the side.
They geared back up.
We start moving forwardbecause we have the cash coming in soon.
And, but then I had to raise that$12 million, or we had to raise it.
I shouldn’t use the word I ever in thisbecause it was always a team effort.
But we started out raising. Lou
Kerr was critical in this,because I’d known Lou literally

(40:03):
since I was a teenager.
She and my mother, they had a TV show.
We’re good friends.
And Lou had the KerrFoundation at the time.
So one of the first people, I goto, Lou Kerr. I said, Lou, what do I do?
I’ve got to raise all this money.
We’ve never raised any money.
Do I need to hire a fundraising team?
She said, no, Bob,she said, you can do this.

(40:24):
She knew I was about half salesman.
And she said, you can do this,
and it’s a good cause.
She says, I’ll make a contribution.
But Kerr Foundation, she said, we alwayslike to give at the end of a campaign.
They don’t like to give in the beginning.
They want to make sure something’s
really going to happenbefore they tie up any cash or a pledge.
She said I’ll put moneyin, but it’s got to be the last money,

(40:46):
and I’ll get you over the finish line,but you’ve got to go to work.
She told me about a coupleof other foundations just being formed.
That’s when I met Bill Ross,
one of my heroesand turned out to be a great friend.
He and I were friends untilthe end of his life.
(THOMPSON) Inasmuch Foundation.(BLACKBURN) Inasmuch Foundation.
Ethics and Excellence in Journalism at the time.(THOMPSON) Still a great friend of the

(41:06):
OHS. Donates to usevery grant cycle usually.
(BLACKBURN)His son Bob is continuing that impact.
But then going to Larry Nicholsand Aubrey McClendon.
I had met Aubrey didn’t know him wellbut go to him and pitch him.
Turned out he was a historymajor at Duke, loved history, wanted me
to write books on the oil and gasindustry later on in our friendship.

(41:28):
But, yeah, I’m in.So we put together a plan.
Had to get, I think it was six$500,000 donations to kick it off,
and I knew there neededto be some from Tulsa.
Couldn’t be all Oklahoma City.
This was not going to bean Oklahoma City museum, in my mind.
So I had to go to Tulsa,had to go to Ardmore, other communities
and got the Noble Foundation, got ONEOK

(41:51):
in Tulsa and started
putting together the big piecesas we were working on the smaller pieces.
(THOMPSON) And you created a 501(c)3,Friends of the Oklahoma
History Center to be that nonprofit arm.
And you brought in Cliff Hudson, CEO ofSonic, to be the first president of that.
Right?
(BLACKBURN) He was good personal friends,Debbie and I and Cliff and Leslie

(42:12):
and Debbie and I were,you know, dinner friends.
And so I asked Cliff,who was chairman of the board, CEO
of Sonic America’sDrive-in to lend credibility
in the business community,
because we had never gone to the businesscommunity to fund anything at the OHS.
And so I said, I need credibility,
someone believes thatwe’re really going to do this.
And Cliff was in, Chuck Wiggin.

(42:32):
John Yoeckel, some other businessmenin the community at the time.
Jay Hannah, the BancFirst,and so brought these people in.
So I was able to useput their names on letterhead.
So I said, sir, I need a meeting with you,and the money will go to this foundation
because it’s tough to raise moneyfor a government agency.
So we had a foundation that was semi,

(42:54):
more private than even the OHS was,
and it wouldn’t have to go throughthe same procedures as state money.
As you know, you get state money,
you go through hoop, hoop,hoop, hoop, one after another.
But in the foundation
you can spend it directly,much more efficiently, much more timely.
And so we knew we needed that.
So that was fairly early on.
And so as we started raising money,the checks were made to the foundation.

(43:17):
And so largely, most of the exhibitswere built with private money.
(THOMPSON)Yeah.
(BLACKBURN) The building itselfwas largely public money.
It’s the people’s museum.
We did not want a huge amount of moneycoming from any one entity.
We did not want to name it for anybodyor any organization.
It was a people’s museum.
It was the Oklahoma History Centerand shouldn’t

(43:38):
have a name on it, in our opinion.
The board agreed with that.
And, so we had to do it in chunks,$500,000 initially.
Now a lot of those donors,
Kirkpatrick Foundations, plural,
Inasmuch, and Ethics and Excellence, the
E.L. and Thelma Gaylord Foundation, goes onand on, which would surpass a million

(43:59):
eventually because we kept going backfor sustainability.
But the way we did the fundraising,as Lou predicted, we then had a tradition.
We had a method for raising the money.
And she said, you got you know,you won’t be able to stop raising money
when you open.
If you’re going to keep a quality museum,state-financed, state

(44:20):
support isn’t there.
So because of that,we kept working with the Bill
and the Bob Rosses of the world and AubreyMcCLendons and the Larry Nichols.
Back after Larry said yeson the first $500,000 for the building,
I went back to him and I said, sir,I may be going to the well too many times
that we want to bring over an oil derrickfrom the old site.
We got an oil derrick

(44:41):
from the west side of the Capitolthat Stratton Taylor wanted out,
and I said, I’d like to do this oilpatch exhibit, but I need money for it.
I don’t have any in the budget.He said how much?
I said $500,000. He said,I made the decision on the first.
You got to sell my staff.
And so, I was reaching out to
Larry Nichols again, didn’t knowwhat response.

(45:03):
I said, I want to do an oil patch exhibit.Got a couple of derricks.
We can get more,but I said I need the money.
He said, how much? I said $500,000.
He said, well, I made the decisionon the first you have to sell my staff.
So all the senior staff comes over.
That’s when I met Duke Ligon,your current president of the board
right now.Duke and I would become good friends
and a man I truly admire,an American hero in many ways.

(45:26):
And people knew his entire story,
service to the country in Vietnam andoil patch as well as community leadership.
But Duke came.
I’ll never forget himbecause he’s about six foot two or four.
You know,it could have been six foot eight in my.
(THOMPSON)He’s a formidable man.
(BLACKBURN) And so he’s there, and I’m sellingall these financial people, legal people,

(45:47):
community.
And they say, yeah,
but we want a third of it to go into anendowment to support, make us sustainable.
I said, man, you’re talking my language.
So we were doing things like that, andwe’re able to raise the money
and get that thing openin November of 2005.
(THOMPSON)There’s one story before we transition into talking to the architect,

(46:07):
Don Beck, in this episode,but I do want you to tell the story
about getting the Allan Houserstatue out front, because I love hearing
you talk about talking, Bob Ross and
and his father into going with youto New Mexico to get that statue.

(46:27):
(BLACKBURN)Well, early on in the process, in fact, as before, Blake
went to the Centennial Commissionwhen we were just working with the $200,000
because by the time we got the bond issue,he was already gone.
But so, it was early on,
and I
really thought we neededa piece of sculptural art out front,
and as I was going around the countryusing that $200,000, we went South Carolina

(46:50):
went to Sacramento, Atlanta HeritageCenter, Minnesota History Center,
we went to twice.
And so was going to all these museumsputting together ideas,
and one of them was,the best ones had sculptural
art out front, somethingto brand a historical organization, right?
Not just a sign, but a brand.
And so we called Betty Price.

(47:12):
And Betty was head of the Arts Counciland a good friend
by that time, and said, Betty,what kind of art should we put out here?
She had been instrumental in the art
that was already in the Capitoland around the Capitol.
And she said, oh,it’s got to be Allan Houser.
Yeah,
Apache Indian. He was with,
his dad was with the Geronimo’s band,and so kind of got our attention.
So she brought over a catalog of his art,

(47:33):
and there was one piececalled “Unconquered.”
It was the last pieceAllan had worked on before he passed away,
suffering from cancer.
And it wasn’t quite finished,but it was the last that he initiated.
And it was two Apache
warriors, one kneeling, one standing,looking out in the distance,
and I just fell in love with itfrom the first time I saw it.
Just in a photograph.

(47:54):
So Cliff Hudson, I said, Cliff,we need that piece of art.
That’s $1 million.
He said, well, let’s go look at it.
So we got in his Jaguarat the time and flew out to, drove,
seemed like flying in thatJaguar, went out to Santa Fe and
Mrs. Houser was still alive at the time.
Fell in love with her too.
And a couple of the sons,Bob and Philip, went out to the compound.

(48:18):
David Rettig was their corporate manager,
marketing.
It was a compound.
It’s on the TurquoiseTrail between Santa Fe and
Albuquerque. High desert.
You go around this bush,and you see another piece of sculpture.
You go along this path,you, an incredible emotional experience.
Well, of course, Cliff
and I said, yeah, this is it.

(48:40):
We’ve got to have this outfront of the building.
And finally they said, well,they’ll take $750,000 for it.
Well, okay. A real bargain.
(THOMPSON) Yeah.(laughter)
(THOMPSON) On sale.(BLACKBURN) On sale for over $750,000.
We had didn’t have a penny,didn’t have it raised,
and this is still fairly early.
So by the time we get tothe fundraising drive that’s kind of there

(49:01):
and we say, well, no one’s going to buyit, you know, in the meantime.
So we thought, well,put that on a shelf.
So kind of set that aside.
Dealing with other crises,and it gets down to it.
So after we makethat first round of $500,000 contributors,
I go back to Bill Ross.
By this time,his son had come in to the staff.
And so it’s with Bill and Bob.

(49:23):
Bob, of course, now is CEOof the foundation, but he was there.
And so I’m pitchingthis to Bill again,
and I could see I wasn’t winning Bill.
But I noticed out of the corner of my eye,Bob just kind of nodded.
Oh, wow. Cool. I like, I like it.
And he hadn’tlearned to put on that poker face yet.

(49:43):
He didn't have a lot.
(THOMPSON)He’s better at it now.
(BLACKBURN)He is much better.
Yeah, and he was realgood at what he was doing then,
but I could just kind of sense.
And Bill said, I’m sorry,we can’t help so.
But I talked to him and say, Bob,we really need to do this.
This has got to have a brand.
You all invest a lot of money.
We can’t stop there.We gotta do this.
And so, and I don’t remember ifBob suggested or I did,

(50:07):
but anyway, let’s get Billto Santa Fe to see it,
the magic of the space and scene.
And for our listeners who don’t know,Allan Houser was the son of
Sam Haozous, who literally was fightingwith Geronimo when he was captured in
1886, became a prisoner of war down nearwhat’s now Apache.
(THOMPSON) And Allan was born in captivity.(BLACKBURN) Born in captivity, and becomes this,

(50:29):
And he changes American Indianart from the Kiowa
Five, very flat art to really expressingan American way of life.
Almost all of the current Indian artistswould say Allan Houser was the guy.
So Allan was magical
within the Indian art community,and it’s just a beautiful sculpture.

(50:50):
And, we get them out there,I go and pick up Bob and Bill.
We go out to the compound,
and Philip playing his flute thereat the foot of the statue.
Mrs. Houser, who’s about 95 years old bythis time, is talking
about the whole thingin this desert air, the
the sand, and the pebbles, andthe trees and the sculpture.

(51:12):
It was magical.
It’s funny how you know when something’sgoing to really happen.
Bill starts walking around the statueand looking at it.
Then he goes around again. I thought,hmm, he sees what we’ve been seeing.
And out of that,he said, okay, we’ll do it.
And so we got that funding.
And then Cliff and Leslie
Hudson stepped up and said,we’ll build the monumental base for it.

(51:35):
So and I’ve seen 40 kids
on that base getting their photographtaken with “Unconquered.”
And every photographthat defines who we are, largely it’s
from that perspective. It didexactly what we wanted.
(THOMPSON) It’s incredible and iconic, andit is the identification of this building.
(BLACKBURN) And it was the last Indian tribe.In fact, I had board members who doubted

(51:58):
and questioned that.
I never, never forget.
One board member who’s quite a historianhimself said, Bob, why the Apaches?
Why not the Cherokees or the Choctaws?
I said, well, we only use one tribeor one artist from one tribe.
And I said, the Apache werethe last Indians brought to Oklahoma.
They were brought here not for areservation or for the title land.

(52:19):
They came as prisoners of war.
How more dramatic can you getwith that story?
And those two warriors are looking out.
Are they looking at the enemy?
Are they looking for a place to hunt,to gather food for their families?
Are they looking for a placeto put up camp the next day?
I said, this is a monumental sculpturethat came out of Allan’s heart,

(52:41):
of his dad’s experience,his experience of being
raised in a community thatsays he shouldn’t be an Indian anymore.
Give up your hair, give up your language,religion, give up your land,
and become a good little American.
He had gone through that,and he expressed it in that piece,
and everyone saw it.
And Bill and Bob Rosssaw it. Cliff and Leslie saw it.

(53:02):
And to this day, over a million people
have walked by that sculpturecoming into this building.
(THOMPSON)And we’ll be back after this short message
to talk to Don Beck,the architect of the History Center.
(ANNOUNCER)Give the gift of history with an Oklahoma
Historical Societyfamily membership. For a limited time,
family memberships are only $50.

(53:23):
That’s unlimited free admissionfor up to six people
to more than 20 museums,historic homes, and sites across Oklahoma.
You’ll also get a one year subscriptiondigital or print to “The Chronicles
of Oklahoma,” “Mistletoe Leaves,”and our e-newsletter “EXTRA!”
plus early registrationfor select programs and events, and 15%

(53:44):
discount in the Oklahoma HistoryCenter Museum Store and Research Center.
And it’s tax deductible. This year,
you can also wear your support.From November 24 through December 8,
OHS members have accessto our first ever member merch store.
Hoodies, long sleeve tees,sweatshirts, T-shirts and beanies.

(54:07):
You can stay cozy while showing your lovefor Oklahoma history.
Grab a $50 family membership today
and unlock access to our limited-time, members-only store.
Visit okhistory.org/membership
and become part of Oklahoma’s story.

(54:30):
(THOMPSON)Well, friends, I am extremely excited to have a friend
of the Oklahoma Historical Societywith us today as our guest.
We have architect Don Beck with us.
He graduated from the Universityof Oklahoma
with a degree in environmental designand architecture,
with continuing educationat Harvard University.
He studied under renowned architectBruce Goff and has over 45 years of hands-on

(54:54):
involvement in programming,planning, and design
of diverse and distinctive buildingsthroughout the country.
He has over 200 designawards and has been involved
in the design of over 1,500 buildings,
master plans, and restoration projects.
Don, we’re so excitedto welcome you into the podcast today.

(55:15):
I think my first question is,how big of a house do you have to
shelve all of those 200design awards you have?
(DON BECK)First, thank you for having me.
And actually,they’re in the boxes in storage.
There’s really no place to put them.
But the next design awardis going to be the next project we do.
So we’re kind of looking forward,not in the past.

(55:35):
(THOMPSON)Fantastic.
Well, we’re just soexcited to have you here
because we’re talkingabout the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma
History Center.And can you believe it’s been 20 years?
(BECK) No. It seems like you just blinkand then five years go by
and all of a sudden now it’s 20,but it’s amazing,
and the building still looks great.
(BLACKBURN) And one thing that’s changedsince we started this project
that Don and I both had black,gray, or more gray hair.

(55:57):
Way less gray hair
then. In fact, we probably both hadblack hair 25 years ago.
But, yeah, Don and I have worked togetherfor many, many years.
In fact, 1978, we got a chance to meet
when a carpenter here in town,
Neal Horton, said he wanted to dosome of the old warehouse buildings.
He hired a young architectwhen other firms wouldn’t touch it.

(56:19):
He was hungry.
Reached out to me,a graduate student
about to graduate from OSUwith a PhD and had me put buildings
on the National Register,and that was the beginning of Bricktown.
(BECK) That was a great project,great opportunity.
And you’re right,no one else wanted to touch it.
And I was working with Neal Hortonon some renovation work at the Colcord
Hotel, which later we end up owning andand developing as a hotel.

(56:42):
And, the Devon, Larry Nichols took it over.
But, Neal, one day he said, lookout the window out here, over to the east.
What do you seewith all these brick warehouses?
And, he had the visionfor what it could be.
And Bob and I got to help himdevelop that vision.
(THOMPSON) Did you ever thinkit would be what it is today?
Entertainment district,
a place that draws people from all overand kind of the hub.

(57:05):
If you come to Oklahoma City as a visitor,you got to go to Bricktown.
(BLACKBURN0 Well, you know, the West Endat the time was really booming in Dallas.
So that was the goal.
Let’s do West End here in Oklahoma City.
And I think probably,
I don’t know if Neal use that terminology,but it was already going
because I was goingthere as a graduate student to party,
and it was really hopping.

(57:25):
Of course, it declined,whereas Bricktown has only gotten better.
But, I think Nealhad that vision of, well,
you know, a Spaghetti Warehousekind of eatery that would go into those
old places and, developersgetting the tax credit,
which is soon-to-be 25% tax credit,for what they spend, just a federal’s dime.
But yeah, I think, Neal,what do you think, Don?

(57:49):
(BECK) Yeah, I agree.He loved the West End.
And then also he looked at Larimer,Larimer Square up in Denver
and the canal down in San Antonio.
And so when I developed the masterplanfor Neal, he wanted this canal.
So I located, drew it, and actually
as it turns out, it’s built exactly
in the original locationthat I had put it on the master plan.

(58:12):
But I said, Neal, we’ve got a problem.You know, at the beginning,
you know, the elevation at the beginningof the canal is, a lot higher than
the end, so how are wegoing to get water?
We’re going to have to pump waterto make that happen.
So ultimately, I think that’s exactlywhat did happen.
And, but at the time,when Neal came up and,
you know, came up the phrase Bricktown,a lot of people thought he was crazy.

(58:36):
Bricktown, what’s what? And that name really, really took a hold.
And you see Bricktown Brewery,you use that,
you see that termall over the place.
for the name.
He should have patentedor copyrighted that or something.
(BLACKBURN)And, you know, the leap of faith
is hard to appreciate nowbecause it looks so prosperous over there.
But at the time, there literally was grassgrowing in the brick streets.

(58:58):
There was so little traffic over there,
and it was largely a placefor the homeless.
A few businesses had some storage there
because, you know,you could probably get $10 a square foot.
You could buy a lot of those old buildings.No one wanted them.
And they’d been vacatedwith the development of
of industrial districtsafter World War II.
So when they put in the SantaFe Industrial District,

(59:19):
Industrial District near the airport,
and then the trucking companiesall had to go out to the suburbs
because trucks couldn’t get down there,
because everything went by railin Bricktown.
So things had changed.
And Neal saw really a pile of junkand saw a dream there.
And so he died in poverty.
And a few businessmen here in OklahomaCity were paying his hotel bill

(59:43):
when he, he finally, wrapped up his life.
But, I admire people like Neal Horton,
who saw something out of nothingand made it work.
Ultimately, he didn’t make it work,but others would follow in
his visionwould eventually become a reality.
(THOMPSON)Yeah, transformed the city.
Don, tell me a little bitabout your history

(01:00:05):
and what made you interested
in becoming an architect, andhow did you get here?
(BECK) Well, I grew upon a farm in northeast Iowa.
Then my family moved to the Quad Citiesin, Illinois, Moline, Rock Island area.
So I, in high school, I was looking foran, you know, easy class to take.
So I took architectural drafting,

(01:00:26):
and I thought, well,this would be an easy A, but it wasn’t.
It was tough.
I got the A, but Ireally had to work hard for it.
So I thought, well, hey, you know, I got an Ain this class, I could be an architect.
So I told my high school counselorabout that, and he laughed.
He said, no, no,you just need to be a ditch digger.
You know, you’ll never amount.
You could neverget accepted into a college,

(01:00:47):
let alone an architectural program.
That’s a tough degree to get.
So I walked down there, and I thought,I’m not going to let him tell me what to do.
Hell, you know, I’m 18 years old.
I know everything.You know how we are when we’re 18.
So I thought, you know, I can,if I go to college, I will.
And then I thought, well,what if he’s right?
So I went to an architectural firm.
I thought I’ll just try it out.

(01:01:08):
I’ll try before I buy.
So I went to a firm in Rock Island,Illinois and said, I’m here to apply for
a job. I wanted to work for an architectto find out what it was like.
And they said, well, we’re not hiring.
I said I’ll make you a deal.
Let me work here one week free.
It won’t cost you anything.
And at the end of the week, if you thinkI’m worth keeping, you have to hire me.
And you decide what you want to pay me.

(01:01:30):
You pay whatever I’m worth.
But at the end of the week, you know,if I can’t cut the mustard,
if I’m no good, youjust tell me, and we’ll go on our way,
and you don’t owe me anything.
And you got a whole week’sworth of work free.
But if you if you think I havepotential, you got to hire me.
So we shook hands, and I ended up workingthere about a year and a half.
That was a great experience.(THOMPSON) That is what we call pluck.

(01:01:51):
Well, that is bold.
So at the end of the week,
I’m assuming that you felt likeyou liked that profession.
(BECK) I did, andone of the partners in the firm,
it was a firm called Parkhurst,
Appier, Marolf.
And, the senior partner, Parkhurst, Howard Parkhurst,
was also a licensed structural engineerand a licensed architect.

(01:02:12):
So I learned a lot about
structural engineering from himbefore I went to architecture school.
So working for a firm,I actually designed a couple of buildings
before I went to architecture school,and they gave me a huge head start.
So I fell in love with
and I thought, well,at least this is something I can do.
(THOMPSON)Now what brought you to Oklahoma?
(BECK)Well, I met an individual late one night,

(01:02:33):
at a bar up in Rock Island, Illinois,and he was going to school at OU,
Jay Larson, and he had convinced meto come down to Oklahoma.
And I was looking at northand northeast schools.
And, you know,I got down here and I loved it.
And I loved the people.
Didn’t care a lot for the weather.
I’d never been in temperatures over100 degrees coming from northern Illinois,

(01:02:54):
but the people in Oklahoma are wonderful.
They just have a good soul.
And so I just really kindof fell in love with the place.
And I had this opportunityto study under Bruce Goff.
He came back my last semester,
and so I just always seem like I’ve beenin the right place at the right time.
I’ve been really, really lucky.(BLACKBURN) And Trait,
if our listeners don’t know the nameBruce Goff, they should.

(01:03:17):
Bruce Goff was kind ofrun out of the state,
in my opinion, unfairly,but it was a sign of the times of the 1960s.
But Bruce Goff cut his teeth in Tulsaas a young architect apprentice.
At that time,
he didn’t have to go to schoolto be an architect.
But he was significantly involvedwith designing Boston Avenue Methodist,
which is still, it’s NHL,known around the world.

(01:03:40):
And then he wouldwork in a variety of offices
around the regionand end up at OU as a professor.
And there’s so many architects,
Don, you would be one of the youngestof his students, but, Bill Peever,
who worked for the Historical Societyfor years, one of my heroes, studied
with Bruce Goff, Jim Loftis, anotherarchitect here in town, studied with Bruce.

(01:04:05):
Well, Bruce Goff was a genius,a creative genius.
His specialty was design.
Not so much building buildingsthat don’t leak,
or work, but our beautiful pieces of art.
And he would play music in the classroom.
We have his record playerin our collections.
I was able to get thatfrom his last partner,
who was in north Texas at the time.

(01:04:27):
He would play records during design class,
and he would say, let your minds roam free,and you’ll be listening
you know, to Debussy, andorchestral pieces and designing.
And he liked the weirder the better.
He wanted you to stretch your imagination.
So Bruce Goff was very important,
probably the greatest architecturaldesigner, at least in Oklahoma history.

(01:04:48):
You know, Solomon Layton, his firmwould be more successful financially.
And, you know, 72buildings are on the National Register,
but Bruce Goff only has a few.
But to do it, his designswere exceptional, world class.
(THOMPSON)Yeah.
So let’s fast forward a little bitand let’s get to this project here.
Don, how did this projectto build this iconic building,

(01:05:13):
the Oklahoma History Center,how did it come into your lap?
How did you become aware of it?
(BECK) Well, we first were notifiedwhen the an advertisement went out
for the projectand in requesting submittals,
submissions from qualifiedfirms of interest.
And as I recall,I think there were 44 submissions.
And we went through an interview processof eight and got down to the final three.

(01:05:37):
But when it first came in the office,
I looked and thought,wow, this is a dream project.
This is what this iswhy you become an architect
is to work on a project like this,
and we don’t have a snowball’s chancein hell to win something like this.
And, but then there was also a request
to team with a nationally recognized
architect who specialized in museums.

(01:05:59):
And so we finally,we connected with Gyo Obata with HOK.
And, Gyo and I became close friends, andwe really worked on the design together.
And, you know, we werejust talking about Bruce Goff.
A lot of the things I learned from Goff onhow to how to approach a design project,
the form giver, problem solving,

(01:06:19):
a lot of those things thatreally came into play for this project,
I learned from Bruce Goff.
And then they were just enhancedwith working with Gyo Obata.
Gyo was just an internationally famousand extremely talented design architect
and so Gyo and I were workingon the project, and we teamed up,
and on the design competition,I got to the final three.

(01:06:44):
And so Gyo and Iwere working together.
So I flew to St. Louis to Gyo’s officeand walked in to HOK.
Now they’re like the large,
one of the largest firms in the world,over 3,000 people.
And we had at that time, maybe 20 or 25.
His marketing departmentwas larger than our whole firm.
So I walked in
his conference room,and there were like nine suits in there.

(01:07:05):
And then this one Japanese-Americanindividual very casually dressed.
So I knew I’m going straightto see Gyo. Sat down.
We became instant friends,
and all the suits were therebecause they wanted to talk about
splitting the money and theresponsibility, and who’s liable for what.
But Gyo and I got down to, you know,right down to the design concepts.
And he said, have you lookedat the site? And I said, yes.

(01:07:26):
I’d been out to the site. He said let’s talkabout the site parameters.
And he said, so what do you think?
How do you think the building shapes up?
And I said, well, Gyo, you know,we’ve got this curved off and on ramp.
The State Capitol is rightthere at the southwest.
It currently does not have a dome,but there’s a lot of talk,

(01:07:46):
and I think the domeis going to get built.
And that could bea great backdrop to our project.
And I think, you know, director Bob Blackburn has an interest
to really showcase the “Winnie Mae,”because we have two famous Oklahomans
that need to be profiled.
(BLACKBURN) And that was in the project brief that Donreceived, like the other architects.
(BECK) Yes, and so that was a great working toolthat must have been 200 or 300 pages

(01:08:08):
of kind of a direction,
or almost like a set of instructionsof what needs to go in the building.
So Gyo and I talked about it,and our approach was that the building
should be more like a memory box for allthe Oklahoma special events that happened.
Not really a building,but a place to hold special memories.
So in talking about the siteand I said, you know, we got this curve.

(01:08:32):
And what if we faced the buildingsouthwest
in, in right on the axis of the Capitol.
So if you draw a line from the centerline of the dome right through the center
line of your main hall,they line up perfectly.
And then you extend that line and,and focus on downtown Oklahoma City.
So I said, Gyo, why don’t wejust wrap it around that cloverleaf?

(01:08:54):
And we thought that was a good idea.
And that was the approachwe took. Built the model, did the drawings.
On the selection committee was the deanof the architecture school from OU and
and OSU, and Frank Lloyd
Wright was kind of a big friendand fan of Bruce Goff,
so he had visited OSU.
So Gyo and I, we talked about, well,how do we win this design competition?

(01:09:18):
So we talked about the drawingsand I said, well, why don’t we do this?
We know we got two architectson the selection committee,
and we know they’reFrank Lloyd Wright fans.
And Frank Lloyd Wright always renderedPrismacolor on sepia paper.
So let’s design,let’s do our drawings in that style.
So we did, and I have those here today.
I brought them back with me.

(01:09:39):
And so that’s how we rendered.
And that’s kind of howthe design concept came about.
You know, every building has a form giver.
And then on the exterior materials,we looked at the,
you know, the exterior curves south facing
as kind of drumsticks, representingsome of the Oklahoma heritage.

(01:09:59):
The shaping of the domeover the main hall
is really kind of an Indian headdress,
and a lot of the materials and colorswe looked at, what would you know,
what are the kind of colors of northwestOklahoma, the wheat and the colors,
and so that’s kind of howit pulled together,
and it was really kindof a brainstorming session

(01:10:20):
and a really exciting opportunity.
Not anything we
thought we had a chance to be able to doand kind of hit a home run
teaming up with Gyo Obataon the project.
(BLACKBURN) And really Trait,Don had two advantages
when he walked into that room.We put together the committee
with the two deans, and we had

(01:10:41):
several historians,a couple of elected officials.
And, when they came in, one was Gyo Abata.For the listeners who had never heard
that name, Gyo had already designedthe Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian.
He had designed,
he was designing the Lincoln Memorialin Springfield, Illinois, at the time,

(01:11:02):
and he had just done the JapaneseAmerican Pavilion in LA.
And so he came in with the resuméthat was just, you know, premier.
Secondly, the other asset was Don Beck,his personality.
Don came in, and we had several civilians.
Yeah, we have the two architects.
And of coursethey were going to be instrumental
in the conversation afterwardsas we all tried to grade the three.

(01:11:25):
But Don’s personalitycame on that Midwestern
kind of slow-talking a little bit,
but to the point, sincere, clear, responding to what we said
we wanted and, and then the design,I guess I’d need to say three things.
The design itself was uniqueamong the three submittals.

(01:11:46):
The other two submissions that camefrom two other firms with national experts
had the building
at the back of the lot, with a parkingbetween the Capitol and the building.
And when I saw their model, hey,what do they think?
Well, Don pushed it.
In fact, we’re on highway right away.
Yeah, we had to get permission from ODOT.
They keep reminding me, remember,that’s still our land.

(01:12:06):
Well, repossess it then.
(THOMPSON) Come and get it.(BLACKBURN) Yeah. That’s right.
So we were on highway land, andDon pushed it right up to the edge.
And he also, another thing that I liked,knowing about the future
and the past,the past is that we had outgrown
the historical buildingthat was built 1930.
And, gosh, by the 1960s,we were out of space.

(01:12:29):
No one ever thoughtwe would be out of space there.
Well, Don
designed into this expandability.
So the wings that go out eitherside of the central atrium
curve, it’s actually, there’snot a straight line in this building,
and partly so you could add another pod(THOMPSON) And just as an aside,

(01:12:50):
I know that because one timewhen I first arrived here,
I wanted to hang a whiteboard in my office,and I couldn’t find a flat wall hanging on.
So, I learned that very quickly.
(BECK) Well, we did make a mistakein the design of the building
because there is a square corner,and I know where it is.
(laughter)(BLACKBURN) You never told me that.

(01:13:11):
But then, that process went realwell. And the model,
we still have the model somewhere downin the bowels of the of the collections.
(THOMPSON) Actually, Don wasjust telling us he has it.
(BECK)We do have it.
We borrowed it back a couple months ago,
and then for your event tomorrow,we thought it might be nice
to bring it back.
And we had the original hand renderings

(01:13:31):
if you wanted to set that upas a display for the 20th, but
you know, it’s on loan to us, the model,like when you borrow something
from the Smithsonian,we’re happy to loan it back to you.
Well see, we actually bought it.
Part of the deal waswe wanted to own the good ideas
that might be partof the three submissions.
And so we paid, I don’tknow what it was.
It wasn’t much. Probably paid for

(01:13:53):
your travel would be my guess.Not your time.
But we wanted to own it.
So in the in the contract was, once
you make the final three,whatever you come up with, we own it.
So I want to be able to pick and choosewhat we needed to.
Didn’t have to. Don’s andGyo’s design just nailed it.
We did not really change anythingsubstantially.

(01:14:13):
You know, interior, we probably did.
But on the exterior, the onyx walls,you know, the drum sticks there.
The it all worked very well.
The precast was going to save usmoney over
using limestoneor some other material, and
probably the only thing if I,if there’s only one mistake in that

(01:14:35):
is that that southwest sun from 3:00 to5:00 in the summer was a killer.
But we went in, and Don worked with usto add the shades that we had today.
Yeah. Within a year, we added them.
It was just
you almost had to give sunglassesto people coming in that time of day.
But, other than that,the design worked beautifully and,
you know, we have an imagethat was created by Don Beck and Gyo Abata.

(01:15:00):
(BECK) Well, on that glass, we designeda ceramic frit to go on that glass.
So at the top and I thinkthat glass is 104 feet tall,
but at the top of it,it was about 95% dense coverage.
And then as it filtereddown to the bottom,
it was supposed to go down to zero.
Well, the manufacturer’s ceramic frit

(01:15:21):
didn’t work as wellas what they were telling us.
But the, theroller shades do the job.
Yeah, well, I was convincedthat was going to work as well. So.
And Bob Thomas,we have to put Bob because Trait and I
have talked about him.
Bob Thomas, an architect on our staffworking with you and your staff

(01:15:41):
and Gyo and Sammy.
Yeah, we need to mention Sam.
Sammy, what was his last name?
(BECK)Dominco.
Sammy
Dominco.
He was part of Gyo’s teamand very instrumental in,
working with us on the design.
(BLACKBURN) After that, I maybe saw Gyoonce or twice before the opening,
but we saw Sammy a lot.
He was heremeeting with Don and his staff.

(01:16:02):
And because the details continueto unfold for that first year,
and that first phase,the state had not yet adopted
a design build concept oreven a construction management concept.
It was design bid.
And so, and we only had enough moneyfor phase one.
So Don found a way to break out componentsof the project to do just phase one,

(01:16:28):
and it came in under budget.
Manhattan went low. I don’t know
that Manhattan ever made anymoney on that project
because they wanted it badly,because they, you know,
the oldest state corporation,you know, built so many courthouses,
and Francis Rooney just wanted it.
So he said boy, get it, and they got it.
And by the time we got to the second phaseand we got the money that we were

(01:16:49):
talking about, Don and his teamfinished up the interior,
and a lot of things I would say changed,as, you know, to fit the budget.
But you were very good about saying,you know, how much money we had work with?
What kind of materialscan we use in getting the best we could
at the time.(BECK) And Manhattan was a great partner.
(THOMPSON) Oh, and Bob, you wrote inyour Chronicles article that, particularly

(01:17:12):
about the dome on this building,it was tilted toward the State Capitol.
So it was asymmetricaland with horizontally
concentric bands of steel tubesthat weighed 40 tons.
And the steel worker firm said,I don’t know that we’ve ever come across
such a complex design.
So there were elements ofthis building that are,
that are pretty difficultto actually put into practice.

(01:17:33):
(BECK) Well, originally wedesigned the dome,
it was erected rectilinear tubes,
you know, basically squareor rectangle tubes.
And when we started to roll those tubeson the radius, then they would start
the pucker and fold and crimp,and it just wasn’t working.
So we worked and worked and triedto figure out how would we do that.
And then the idea came up that, well,

(01:17:54):
if you’re down at Six Flags,and you’re on one of those roller coasters
like the corkscrew,those are big round tubes rolled.
So actually the way that dome came about,
there was a roller coaster manufacturer upin, I think it was Washington state,
and they rolled those big ten,12-diameter-inch tubes
and built that basket,that frame up there.

(01:18:17):
And then they made a templatefor all the columns and anchor bolts
for it to set on.
So they made the template,sent it down here, Manhattan
built all the port and placed concretecolumns and placed all the anchor bolts.
Then that dome, it wasit was assembled up there
like a big basket, then taken apart,disassembled, shipped down,

(01:18:39):
I think on three flatbedtrailers, reassembled here on the ground,
picked it up with a craneand dropped it over,
and it fit perfectlyover the anchor bolts.
(BLACKBURN)Yeah, it was a miracle. Yeah.
(BECK) So here we had a roller coastermanufacturer building the building.
I've never done that before. Or since.
(THOMPSON)That's phenomenal.
Were there any other challengesyou came across when it came to putting

(01:19:00):
the design that's onpaper actually into practice?
(BECK) Well, there was when we were workingon the design, we built the model.
We had this idea of this backlit onyx
for the drumstickson the west side of the building.
Well, backlit onyx was very expensive.
And back then, LED lightingreally hadn't come out yet.

(01:19:21):
So we thought, well, if we backlight this,eventually those lights are going
to have to be replaced or the transformer.
So how do we get in there?
And then all materialsexpand and contract as they heat up,
expansion contraction.
And so there weren't any tables to tell us
how much backlit, orhow much onyx would expand and contract.

(01:19:41):
So when you put that in the frame,so when it's 105 degrees
outside, that has to have a place to move.
And so that was a real challengeguessing because of that.
That was just kind of pioneering.
You know, what's our best guess
on how much this isgoing to expand and contract?
Because if you don't give it roomto do that, all that's going to crack,

(01:20:01):
you know, and just drop out of its frame.
So we were customdesigning still frames to hold that,
and then find a way to get in thereand work out so that one,
we kind of sweat,we're sweating bullets over that
because there'sa lot of liability with it.
And there weren’t reallyany guidelines or rules
or regulations on that type of detailing.

(01:20:22):
So there were a lot of interestingchallenges.
And then dimensioning the building,
you know, how do youdimension a curved building.
So if you move the dimension linethree feet over, the dimensions change.
So we had to do special dimensioningoff the center line of the columns,
and then every beam was rolled on a radius.
So we had to predetermine all the curvesand the length of the beam

(01:20:45):
and had those rolled in
the steel factory. They’re come out and youput them in place, and they fit perfect,
but it was just a lot of coordinationon this, on this building.
(BLACKBURN)Yeah.
(BECK) It’s a unique,one-of-a-kind project.
(THOMPSON) How is the relationshipworking with Manhattan?
(BECK)It was great.
They were a great team.
They would call and say, hey,

(01:21:06):
we think we may have an issue here, andwe’d sit down together and work it out.
And, you know,I’ve worked a lot of construction.
My dad was a superintendent for 30 years,so I grew up working construction.
So I related really wellto all the guys in the field,
you know, and how we’regoing to build it.
And, you know, I told Manhattan right
upfront, look, there’s no such thingas a perfect set of drawings.

(01:21:26):
This is one way to build a building,but it may not be the best way.
And as you guys are movingthrough the construction process,
I’m counting on youto find a better way or a way
to improve upon what we’ve done,and they did on several places.
So it was a reallyit was a great team effort.
(THOMPSON)Yeah, yeah. And that’s great.
That’s not always the case,particularly in the construction style

(01:21:49):
that Bob mentioned. The design, bid, build.
(BLACKBURN)Yeah.
(THOMPSON) Sometimes the architectand the contractors are actually put
as adversaries in projects like that.
That’s one of those thingsthat the design build process was meant
to eliminate, to make the architectand the contractor partners on projects.
And that's the way we did iton the Capitol Restoration Project.

(01:22:10):
So it’s greatthat you all had that relationship,
and I worked
with Manhattan for almost seven yearson the Capitol Restoration Project, and,
a lot of great contractorsI’ve worked with over the years.
And, Manhattan,
I loved working with them becausethere was, there’s no challenge too big.
You know, they reallytake a challenge head on.

(01:22:32):
And it’s almost like, yeah,we can figure that out.
(BLACKBURN) And Trait,one thing we knew going in is that
the way the
state had always done this,which is always design, bid, build,
is that a lot of contractorswould just try to cover their cost
with the original bid,and then their real profit
would be change orders,and then they’d have you over a barrel.
Well, the plans didn’t solve this.

(01:22:55):
When we got a problem,and we’ll solve it for you.
But for an amount of money.
We had almost none of that.
And part of that was BobThomas on our staff working with Don
and his staff and Manhattanthat was willing to step up.
Fortunately, the second phase,we were able to do
a construction management.That saved our bacon.
I don’t think we ever could have broughteverything in under budget,

(01:23:17):
including the exhibits.
Manhattan ended up doing a lotof the partitions within the galleries,
and we couldn’t, we didn’t have timeor the money to go out and bid it.
And, you know, those drywall people,you know, they knew
we had to get things done,and they would have jacked their price up.
Well, Don and his staffwas there every turn.
We had several trailers there.We had,

(01:23:38):
OHS had a trailer on site.
And then Manhattan had at least two.
I remember two.
I still had my hard hat that I used.When you went on the site,
if you didn’t have that hardhat on, you were going to get scolded.
So I learned to put that hardhat on going over there.
But I think Bob was over there every day,you know, and Jerry, his friend,
who was on site every day on the project.(BECK) We were out here a lot.

(01:24:01):
We would eat, breathe, and drinkthis project, and it took it and needed it.
I mean, with the complexity of the curves.
And to Manhattan’s credit,we sat down with Manhattan
really
like on phase twobefore the drawings were finished
and went through and worked togetheras a team, as a partner,
so there werevery little change orders.
But that’s part of the issueyou mentioned earlier.

(01:24:21):
It’s unfortunate that a lot ofarchitects have never worked construction
and then and I grew up, you know,I went through my carpenter apprenticeship
and worked with, you know,steel erectors and concrete people.
So that construction knowledge. I had workedin several years of construction
helped tremendously onhow do you put together a set of drawings
and how do you where doesthe building expand and contract?

(01:24:44):
And what about flashing and doingroofing details? Things like that.
So to me, it was a natural fitdealing with Manhattan Construction
and then having Bob Thomas and othersand another group of set of eyes
reviewing your work because, you know,we’re really good at what we do,

(01:25:05):
but we can become better, and and so that was always
the goal looking for the best solutionfor whatever we were working on.
And so the more people involvedreally helped the project
come along faster and betterquality drawings, nad
minimal, really minimal change orders.(BLACKBURN) Trait, one
thing and impressed me about Don andhis team is that they were very,

(01:25:28):
they were peaking at that time,and now maybe it can continue to grow.
But they had received the contractfor the Jim Norick Library downtown,
part of MAPS.
They had received the contractto build a new business college at OCU.
And I don’t know what else you had.
Those are two visible,
because one was right before us and onewas kind of going on as we were finishing.
But Don was able to keep focus.

(01:25:50):
And sometimes you go to the next client
because architects typicallywill get a lot of their profit up front,
and then they try to
try to make enough moneyin the latter stages to pay the bills.
,And then you go on to the next one because you got to have that profit
margin going up
on the first part of a project on design.And so, but
Don kept focus, and we never losthis focus on the whole thing.

(01:26:12):
(THOMPSON) Now, Don, you’ve designeda lot of incredible buildings
over the course of your career.
You don’t get 200-something awardsif you haven’t.
How do you rankthis project in comparison?
You know, I knowevery building is different,
but in your own personal account,how do you rank this in comparison
to some of your other work you’ve done?
(BECK)For me, this is a special project.

(01:26:32):
I mean, I’ll never designanother history center,
certainly not a buildinglike this ever.
So really, for me,this was kind of like winning,
you know, the Olympics or an Oscarto be involved this project.
So it’s special. I love the project.
I have a lot of, you know,I spend a lot of personal time on this,

(01:26:53):
so it’s really special to me.
We have designed a lotof other important projects,
but this one is special in the regard
that what’s inside of it, what it holds.
You know, the artifactshere are replaced, irreplaceable.
And when we were going through the design,Bob took us through at the old building.

(01:27:13):
We’re looking at that,
so much of the collectionthat was in storage.
And I learned a lot about Oklahoma historyby working on this project,
so that meant a lot to me.
You know, I say I,
you know, I didn’t grow up in Oklahoma,but I wish, I wish I did.
I mean, I came here in 1976, andI think the history of Oklahoma

(01:27:35):
is fascinating, and sothis project opened that up for me.
So in that regard, it’s probably the mostunique project I’ve ever worked on.
(THOMPSON)Well, I can
say, you know, as someonewho wasn’t born here but got here
as fast as I could, you’re a trueOklahoman, and your heart is in Oklahoma,
and it shows in the workthat you do, for sure.

(01:27:58):
Well, Don, I want tothank you for being a part
of this episodeand for coming to visit with us today.
(BECK)Thank you for having me.
It’s just really a pleasure.
It’s an honor to be here and be backin this building after 20 years and
be with all of you that inspired usto do this.
You know, we’ve talkedabout the design

(01:28:19):
quite a bit, but a lot of the ideasand concepts came from Bob Blackburn
because he challenged me early on.
Don, can you find a special placefor the “Winnie Mae”?
And I thought, I can’t let Bob down.Can’t let Bob down.
And so we worked really hard,and that’s what drove the design.
But you may not realize that, Bob,but you were really the architect
on the project.(BLACKBURN) Well, thank you as well.

(01:28:42):
We owe so much to you and the whole team.
And it was truly a team effort.
And can you take any one part outthat was there?
We don’t have the quality projectthat we have.
So thank you fornot just for your professional
delivering all of thisbut your friendship.
And you’ve stuck with us all this time.
Any time we ask you to come backand do something,

(01:29:02):
yeah, I’ll be right there.
So thank you for being Don Beck.
(BECK) Well, thanks
for having me.
(THOMPSON) Well, thanks.We’ll talk to you soon.
Well, Bob, it’s fascinating story about theOklahoma History Center and everything
it took. Eight years, from 1997 to 2005,to get this thing built,
and it’s a testament to you.
As you mentioned, it’s a team effort.

(01:29:23):
So many people that worked herefor the OHS, so many people
that are part of the communityin Oklahoma City and all throughout
the state of Oklahoma contributedto making this a reality.
And this building today is as vibrant
and as vital as it was back in 2005.
(BLACKBURN) Yes, and Don Beckwas a big part of that.

(01:29:45):
Bob Thomas, Dan Provo, SandyStratton, it goes on.
Bill Welge,
Chad Williams, Laura Martin,
and we had such a great team.
And it was just fun to be there
with them as we justrushed into, you know,
we didn’t know what was ahead of us,but we were rushing into it anyway.

(01:30:06):
And I think that we had to make
a lot of detours and a lot of,you know, shuffles sideways.
But we were able to get itdone despite, you know,
a lot of lossesalong with a lot of victories.
But in the end, I think it came out okay,
and I’m very proud of the place,
and thank you fortaking care of it now.

(01:30:26):
It looks as goodnow as it did when we opened.
(THOMPSON)Well, I’m so excited.
You know, we’ve been able to put, continueto invest in this building,
not only in the exhibitsand the things that people see, but
in taking care of it.
And just this last legislative session,we were able to get $2.8 million
out of the legislatureto completely replace the HVAC system

(01:30:47):
in this building,so that we continue to maintain
those standards for the Smithsonianand the National Archives,
in which we’re storingall of our important historical artifacts.
So we continue to stand on your shouldersand the shoulders of those who came
before us and continue to make this aviable building well into the future.
(BLACKBURN) Thank you for all that you’re doing.(THOMPSON) Bob, it’s been great talking

(01:31:12):
to you as always, and we’ll talk to you soon.You have been listening to “A Very OK Podcast,” 1773 01:31:16,095 --> 01:31:22:098 hosted by Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn. The podcast is
produced by the Oklahoma Historical Society.Visit us at okhistory.org and
find us on social media bysearching for @okhistory.
I encourage you to purchasea membership OHS to help us continue

(01:31:34):
our mission to collect, preserve,and share Oklahoma’s unique
and fascinating history.(upbeat music playing)

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