The Day the Jail Burned Down

The United States Jail in Muskogee burned to the ground February 21, 1893. Some of the prisoners housed in the jail were awaiting trial in federal court. Other inmates were awaiting delivery to federal prisons.

Inmates ignited the wooden jail on purpose. Maybe a few hoped to escape during the chaos it caused.

The six cells of the jail were in one building near the center of the courtyard. A wooden wall formed the jail's outside. The wall, made out of thick sawed planks, stood fourteen feet tall. A catwalk along the top of the wall allowed guards to watch for trouble on the ground outside of the cellblock.

Inmates apparently had smoking privileges. They started a fire at the back of cell number six using their straw mattresses pushed against the back wall. As one mattress was consumed, they piled another on top to keep the fire going.

The cold weather likely prompted the guards in the jail to focus more on keeping warm than on watching for trouble. Negligence on the guards' part enabled the thick plank walls to finally start burning. No account reports how long it took for the walls to catch fire.

The interior guard in the cellblock remained in the office up front because the pot bellied stove provided more warmth there. Prisoners could have alerted him, but they chose not to until it was too late. Alarm was given only after the fire was well established and began to be a threat to inmates. Most at risk were the six to eight prisoners in cell number six.

The sudden hollering by the inmates alerted the guards. Grabbing shotguns, they rushed into the cellblock to unlock the cell doors. There were sixty or more prisoners in their custody that day. Smoke billowing in the air joined the crackling of burning wood. Judging the fire's progress to be extensive, the guards quickly began removing the prisoners from jail.

Assistant jailor Chambers Adams was in charge while the warden was home sick. Adams brought the guards down off the catwalk to join the other guards in the burning cells. Under their watchful eyes, the prisoners marched out of the jail and across the street to the federal courthouse. The courtroom was just big enough to house both inmates and guards.

Alarmed citizens rushed to the burning jail as soon that they learned of the fire. The bucket brigade was the town's only firefighting ability that day. Merchants and farmers alike began lining up to put out the fire. It was shortly clear, however, that the cellblock could not be saved. Nor could the cook shack and storage shed on the jail grounds nearby.

The men and boys in the bucket brigade next turned their attention to saving the town. Because the wind was calm, some of the adjacent buildings did not catch afire. The fire endangered the courthouse, but was saved.

The Wellington House sat south of the jail. This hotel and stores west of the jail were also saved because of the bucket brigade.

After the fire burned out, townsmen could only recover the iron railings that covered the windows and doors of the jail. The metal plates and cups for feeding the inmates were warped beyond use. So, too, were the buckets used for night pots in the cells. The jail was completely destroyed.

Pleasant Porter built the jail specifically for leasing it to the federal government along with the courthouse. His losses from the fire totaled $1,500. The jail was only a couple of years old. Within two days, Porter vowed to rebuild.

The dangers brought by the inmates upon Muskogee were real. Almost exactly six years later, Muskogee's business district where this jail once stood burned to the ground. The later bucket brigade was unable to prevent the destruction of many blocks of downtown businesses. Muskogee dodged the bullet in 1893, but not in 1899.

National Day of Listening

The first National Day of Listening is coming the day after Thanksgiving. This event promotes the recording of someone's recollections. That someone might be a family member or an acquaintance. The National Day of Listening. It is an outgrowth of StoryCorps' effort to promote the preservation of memories.

StoryCorps travels across the United States conducting interviews with everyday people. The group has recorded over 40,000 sessions since 2003. A StoryCorps bus spent the past week in Tulsa gathering stories from Oklahomans.

The National Day of Listening promotes spending one day during the year for preserving a single hour of memories. This is the first year for celebrating a day devoted to this effort.

The agenda on that day is for a person to pick a quiet corner for the interview. Select a location that is free of background noise that might mar the recording session. Hopefully, it will be possible to avoid the loud clock or noisy kitchen appliance as well as television.

When the moment of recording is at hand, start with your name and the name of the person being interviewed. Then record the date and place of the recording so that future listeners will know something about the people participating.

Begin with an open-ended question. These questions do not have a "yes" or "no" answer. One might begin by asking the interviewee to "Tell me about the time that (blank)." Fill in the blank with a topic you are interested in. On the other hand, perhaps there is a story you have heard before, but now want retold for preservation.

There are times to ask direct questions. I often do so during interviews I conduct. I will ask for clarification if a vague point is made during an interview. For example, it is common to refer to a grandparent as "grandmother" or "grandfather." Clarification is needed here because each person has two of each. Therefore, clarifying which grandparent is important for understanding the message in the interview.

I am asked sometimes if an interview should be conducted in chronological order beginning with birth. My answer is that it depends on the agenda of the interviewer. Some interviews might best begin at the beginning in order to lay the groundwork for future questions.

Don't be surprised if an interview question prompts a memory about a different subject. If this happens, let the speaker tell their story. Then gently redirect the discussion back to the original topic.

There are brief interviewing instructions online. A search for the "National Day of Listening" will lead to their website.

There are additional links under the "Participate" sublink. The "Do It Yourself" link provides fuller guidelines for conducting an interview. The "Question Generator" has many ideas for interview questions.

By the way, if you only have a chance to interview someone on Thanksgiving Day, or any other day of the year, do so. I can assure you that you will later be thankful you did.

The Three Rivers Museum on the corner of Elgin and Third Streets in Muskogee would like to receive copies of your interviews. The museum wants to be the depository for you. History will not be complete without your stories.

The Crash of a P-38 Lightning

Daniel Haston was nine when his mother urgently called him into their back yard. It was a sunny day in late July 1944. His mother was hearing an unusual noise coming from the sky. The sound was a P-38 Lightning airplane undergoing "compressibility."

The P-38 first came off the assembly line in 1939. Initially unknown, the plane's design had a flaw that only showed up at high speeds. Yet another pilot was to find out about the problem.

The US Army Air Corps sent 2nd Lt. Gene Aabel to the Muskogee Army Airfield for training in the twin-engine, twin-boom Lightning. That day's flight was just another training flight at the 36th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron stationed at the Muskogee field.

The reconnaissance models of the P-38 had cameras mounted in place of the usual .50 caliber machine guns. With its long-range capabilities, the Lightning plane was an ideal platform for making flights to the heavily fortified home islands of Japan.

Lt. Aabel's flight on July 28th began without any problems. The sunny sky made perfect flying weather. He had a series of familiarity maneuvers to perform that Friday afternoon. His section of students was alternating classroom studies with flying practice with another section that day. The student that flew the same Lightning that morning had no problems.

With the day's assigned flight maneuvers accomplished, Aabel decided to spend the remaining amount of his flight time in high altitude flying. He was already wearing his oxygen mask when he reached 30,000 feet. The plane was operating perfectly.

With his fuel gauge showing only 20 gallons left, Lt. Aabel peeled off to return to the Muskogee Army Airfield. As the plane's altimeter unwound, the speed gauge steadily increased.

Compressibility began somewhere about six hundred miles per hour. That was when air ceased flowing over the wings. Instead, it began packing up in front of the wings. The first indication to Lt. Aabel was the plane's sudden unresponsiveness. He found he could neither turn left or right, nor pull up out of his dive.

Now in a nearly vertical dive with increasing speed, Lt. Aabel knew he was in trouble. His remaining control was only increasing or decreasing his speed. He knew increasing speed was a fatal option. Yanking back on the throttle to reduce his speed produced a loud bang.

Being thrown against the canopy caused a moment of confusion. When he looked around, he found part of one wing and one boom broken off. There was also fire pouring out of the surviving wing near the wheel well. The plane ceased diving, but instead began falling at a much slower rate.

Sgt. Bob Bell, now a Tulsan, was driving from the airfield back into Muskogee when he heard the loud bang. Bill Lowery, who lived on Baltimore Street, was lounging in the shade of a front yard tree when he spotted the falling plane. Dale Gilbert was rounding up livestock on the family farm near present-day Gulick Street when he heard the noise of the Lightning breaking up.

With the plane no longer accelerating toward earth, Lt. Aabel was able to crawl out of the cockpit. When he looked up, he found the plane above him. He was certain that if he pulled his ripcord, the airplane's fuselage would fall on top of his parachute and collapse it. As the pilot and plane parts continued to fall, slowly Lt. Aabel floated far enough away to open his parachute. The plane crashed to the ground into a field without hitting man or beast. Lt. Aabel quickly landed nearby because his chute opened just soon enough for him to land safely.

Sgt. Bell arrived first. He helped Lt. Aabel gather up the parachute and walk to the highway. Shortly thereafter, the base ambulance arrived to carry him back for examination. A base fire truck arrived to put out the grass fire caused by the crash.

Extensive evaluations revealed that Lt. Aabel had too little training to have avoided compressibility. He quickly re-entered his training cycle and shipped out. He served until the war's end flying reconnaissance missions in P-38 Ligthnings. He was one of the few who lived to tell investigators about Lightning compressibility problems.

An Earlier Electorial Mandate

In Muskogee, Central High School students voted on Monday. The next day, November 2nd, 1920, the candidates rested after a hectic campaign while adults voted. The students' voting results were to be kept a secret. There was concern that their balloting might "influence" the real election. On election day, the Phoenix scooped the news that Republican Warren Harding won the student election.

Democrats in Muskogee County bucked the national trend in the 1920 election. The national Republican landslide notwithstanding, they voted five to four for James M. Cox in the presidential race. In the Congressional race, incumbent W. W. Hastings led Miss Alice Robertson by the same margin.

Election day activities, however, seemed subdued. Miss Alice maintained her composure throughout the day. Muskogee County had forty-eight precincts, many in rural areas. Getting the ballots counted and delivered to the county seat slowed the tallying of votes.

The big question hanging over all voters in Oklahoma was whether ballots cast by women would alter the political landscape that year. The previous statewide election in November 1918, finally granted suffrage to adult mothers, daughters, aunts and grandmothers. This election was their first test of electoral influence in Oklahoma.

It was clear the next day that America would have a Republican president. Republicans would also be controlling both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The voting results in Oklahoma showed that it was Oklahoma's first time for solidly supporting the elephant party.

Two days later, Miss Robertson continued to trail her Democrat opponent. However, Hastings' lead was narrowing. Miss Alice claimed a win. She vowed to contest the results if told she lost the election.

For days after the election, political news dominated local discussions. Telegraph wires relayed tantalizing tidbits such as the fight at a polling precinct that left one combatant dead in San Antonio, Texas. Another paragraph reported the news that a New York Democrat Party was overdue on the party's office rent.

Local tidbits included the local high school balloting results. Despite earlier prognostications reported in the newspaper, the students mirrored their parents voting for president. Cox's plurality of 272 votes surprised many observant teachers because the students voiced loud support for Warren Harding.

Democrats with long faces finally accepted defeat in the local congressional race, too. Muskogee County voters voted for Hastings 6,508 to 5,088. McIntosh and Cherokee Counties also favored the Democrat. Balloting in the remaining counties, however, carried the day for Miss Alice. She won 23,886 to 23,613. By just a margin of 267 votes, Oklahomans elected the second woman to serve in the United States House of Representatives.

The historic election of 1920, with women having the right to vote for the first time in Oklahoma, is largely considered "old history." This week's election will soon fall into the same category.