We wanted to get a head start on our drive back to Dallas from Wichita, so we ended up stopping at a known quantity: a Sleep Inn and Suites in Guthrie, OK with a relatively big parking lot just off the highway. It didn’t hurt that there was a Braum’s within walking distance. What we hadn’t discovered on any of our previous three overnights in Guthrie, OK is that its downtown is a sprawling National Historic District. Armed with this knowledge overheard during dinner at Johnny’s Original Rib Shack, we delayed our morning departure for a visit to downtown Guthrie.

Guthrie, OK History

In 1889, Unassigned Lands (about two million acres of Indian Territory) were opened for settlement by non-Native Americans in what was called “Harrison’s Hoss Race” or “The Great Land Run of 1889.” At high noon, cannons were fired. During the next six hours, an estimated 50,000 settlers grabbed sections of land up to 160 acres, and claimed their new homes. In an afternoon, the city of Guthrie, OK became one of the country’s largest cities west of the Mississippi. This first land run was a free for all, and numerous legal battles ensued over who was where first. Incidentally, the term “sooners,” now used for the fans of OU football, was used to identify those who hid out early, before the “official” time, to then pop up and snatch up the prime homesteading spots. Residents continued constructing buildings of brick and stone, a mass transit system, and perhaps most interesting: underground parking for horses and carriages. You can still see the foundations of many downtown buildings extending below the street. Tunnels connected many of these buildings. In 1907, Oklahoma was admitted as the 46^th state to be admitted to the union. Guthrie was the first capital of the new state, but this was also its downfall, as politics within the state government succeeded in moving the capital three years later. The city lay quiet for many years, until historic conservation efforts recently restored many of the old buildings.

Guthrie’s National Historic District (one of the largest in the US) now contains 2,169 buildings, 1,400 acres and 400 city blocks. One favorite was the Post Office, built after the newly appointed Postmaster spent many months under a tent passing out mail by hand with the help of volunteers to hundreds of people anxiously waiting for news of when the wife and kids would arrive. The Oklahoma Frontier Drugstore Museum houses an amazing collection of turn-of-the-century medicines, tonics, pills, advertisements, prescriptions and an authentic soda fountain. Mark Ekiss, the proprietor, is a pharmacist himself, and can provide a wealth of information on the collection and its history. Click here for some photos of Guthrie.