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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from dot Com. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast I'm Crazy B. Wilson and

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Speaker 1: I'm and Today we have another frequently frequently requested episode.

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Speaker 1: Lots and lots of people have asked us to talk

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Speaker 1: about the destruction of black Wall Street. Black Wall Street

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Speaker 1: was a nickname for Greenwood, which was essentially a suburb

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Speaker 1: of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was destroyed in a race riot

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Speaker 1: in n So the name black Wall Street makes it

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Speaker 1: sound kind of like it was a business district, but

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Speaker 1: Greenwood was really a vibrant neighborhood of businesses and homes

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Speaker 1: and schools that even had its own hospital. And race

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Speaker 1: riot also makes it sound as though it was a

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Speaker 1: fight instigated by people of more than one race. But

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Speaker 1: while Greenwood's destruy action was definitely the product of racial tensions,

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Speaker 1: the actual event was a whole lot more one sided

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Speaker 1: than that. This all happened during a period of extreme

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Speaker 1: racial tension in the United States. Race riots and lynchings

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Speaker 1: and vigilante justice were really widespread, and the Tulsa race

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Speaker 1: riot was one of the deadliest and most shocking events

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Speaker 1: from this era. And yet a lot of people knew

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Speaker 1: nothing about it until maybe twenty or thirty years ago.

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Speaker 1: It got brushed under the rug for a long time.

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Speaker 1: And to set the scene, the economy of Tulsa, Oklahoma,

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Speaker 1: really boomed during the nineteen teens thanks to the discovery

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Speaker 1: of oil in the area, and the population in this

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Speaker 1: area of Oklahoma grew very quickly, including an influx of

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Speaker 1: African Americans, many of whom were leaving the Deep South

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Speaker 1: in the hope that they could build a life in

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Speaker 1: a less pressive environment, and so Tulsa's population actually grew

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Speaker 1: tenfold in the span of ten years. Also growing during

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Speaker 1: this time in Tulsa were crime and lawlessness. A federal

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Speaker 1: agent actually conducted an undercover investigation in April of ninety

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Speaker 1: one and found quote gambling, bootlegging, and prostitution very much

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Speaker 1: in evidence at the leading hotels and rooming houses. The

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Speaker 1: bellhops and porters are pimping for women and also selling booze.

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Speaker 1: Regarding violations of the law, these prostitutes and pimps solicit

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Speaker 1: without any fear of the police, as they will invariably

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Speaker 1: remind you that you are safe in these houses. And

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Speaker 1: that's where the quote ends. And in addition to that,

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Speaker 1: automobile theft was so common that insurance companies started just

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Speaker 1: canceling all their policies in Tulsa, and at the same time,

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Speaker 1: the suburb of Greenwood was really flourishing. By one there

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Speaker 1: were about ten thousand African Americans living in the Tulsa area,

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Speaker 1: and the vast majority of them were living in Greenwood.

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Speaker 1: They fell all along the economic spectrum, so you had

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Speaker 1: everyone from doctors and invest worth hundreds of thousands of

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Speaker 1: dollars to families that were living in extremely modest homes

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Speaker 1: along dirt roads. Greenwood itself was simultaneously the product of

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Speaker 1: segregation and of black entrepreneurship. O. W. Gurley and JAV

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Speaker 1: Stratford were two prominent African American investors who really get

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Speaker 1: a lot of credit for making the town what it was.

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Speaker 1: In the early nineteen hundreds, Gurley, who was a real

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Speaker 1: real estate developer, bought some land, plotted it out, and

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Speaker 1: then sold it to other African Americans. Stratford built a

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Speaker 1: fifty four room hotel that was also home to a restaurant,

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Speaker 1: a banquet hall, and other amenities, and Stratford's hotel was

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Speaker 1: one of the largest black owned businesses in Oklahoma at

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Speaker 1: that time, These and other businesses became the seeds of

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Speaker 1: a really robust community that was also deeply segregated from

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Speaker 1: the rest of Tulsa uh. It, in a way and

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Speaker 1: a lot of ways, was really self sufficient. It had

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Speaker 1: two newspapers, the Tulsa Star and the Oaklah Home a Son.

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Speaker 1: It also had its own library, branch, schools, a hospital, theaters,

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Speaker 1: and lots of small businesses that were owned and operated

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Speaker 1: by the black community. There were also many many churches,

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Speaker 1: but most of its residents, while they were living and

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Speaker 1: conducting almost all their business in Greenwood, worked for white

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Speaker 1: employers elsewhere in the city, and this was the case

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Speaker 1: for a man important to our story by the name

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Speaker 1: of Dick Rowland. Dick Roland was a young black man

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Speaker 1: who worked in a downtown building shining shoes. Restrooms at

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Speaker 1: this point were segregated, and his workplace didn't have a

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Speaker 1: bathroom for black people, so his employer had arranged for

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Speaker 1: him to use one that was on the top floor

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Speaker 1: of the nearby Drexel building. Sarah Page was a young

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Speaker 1: white woman who ran the Drexel Buildings elevator. An incident

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Speaker 1: passed between Roland and Page on May exactly what happened

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Speaker 1: is completely unclear. Her story changed at various points, and

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Speaker 1: there seems to be no testimony on record of Dick Rowland. However,

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Speaker 1: a clerk at a clothing store in the Drexel Building

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Speaker 1: thought he heard a scream and he saw Dick Roland

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Speaker 1: hurrying out of the building, and he called the police.

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Speaker 1: The story that spread through Tulsa was that Dick Roland

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Speaker 1: had either raped or tried to rape Sarah Page in

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Speaker 1: broad daylight in the elevator. Roland was arrested the next

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Speaker 1: morning and held on the top floor of the Tulsa Courthouse.

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Speaker 1: The Tulsa Tribune, which was an afternoon paper, covered his

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Speaker 1: arrest on the thirty first, and reported his crime as

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Speaker 1: a physical attack, quote scratching her hands and face and

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Speaker 1: tearing her clothes. The paper also reportedly published an editorial

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Speaker 1: calling for Roland to be lynched. However, no original copies

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Speaker 1: of these articles exist. There are pieces torn out of

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Speaker 1: the bound copies of the paper that were kept on record.

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Speaker 1: The text of the story reporting Roland's arrest is reprinted

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Speaker 1: from ninety six Masters thesis. Yeah, there are multiple eyewitness

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Speaker 1: testimonies of people who who saw these articles in the newspaper,

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Speaker 1: but the actual copies of the note of the newspaper

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Speaker 1: no longer exist. Before we talk about how this turned

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Speaker 1: the scene at the courthouse to one of a mob scene,

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Speaker 1: let's take a brief moment for a word from a sponsor.

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Speaker 1: By about seven thirty in the evening on May the

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Speaker 1: thirty one, a lynch mob had started to gather outside

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Speaker 1: the Tulsa Courthouse and the mob was demanding that Roland

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Speaker 1: be turned over to them. The sheriff refused to do this,

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Speaker 1: and we'd spread to the Greenwood district about what was

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Speaker 1: going on. People were positive that Roland was going to

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Speaker 1: be lynched. There had been thirty three recorded lynchings in

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma between the time it had been declared as a

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Speaker 1: state in nineteen o seven and nineteen and seven. Of

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Speaker 1: the victims of those lynchings had been black. They also

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Speaker 1: had ample reason to doubt that the courthouse was a

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Speaker 1: secure place to keep Roland safe. There had been a

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Speaker 1: couple of really dramatic jail breaks from the courthouse and

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Speaker 1: the months leading up to this event, and the black

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Speaker 1: community was quite positive that if they did not protect Roland,

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Speaker 1: no one would, and that he was going to be lynched. So,

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Speaker 1: with all of that in mind, about twenty five African

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Speaker 1: American residents, many of whom were veterans of World War One,

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Speaker 1: armed themselves and went from Greenwood to the courthouse to

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Speaker 1: offer their assistance in defending him. The sheriff refused and

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Speaker 1: insisted that Roland was safe, and so the men went

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Speaker 1: back to Greenwood. However, the arrival of twenty five armed

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Speaker 1: black men on the scene really stirred up a lot

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Speaker 1: of fear and anger among the white mob outside the courthouse.

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Speaker 1: Word got to Major James A. Bell of the National

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Speaker 1: Guard that things were starting to look really ugly, and

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Speaker 1: even though the sheriff told him things were okay, he

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Speaker 1: quietly sent word to the other National guardsmen in the

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Speaker 1: area to come down to the armory. This was fortunate

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Speaker 1: because some of them ib from the courthouse then went

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Speaker 1: to the armory to try to get rifles and ammunition

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Speaker 1: for themselves, and they were stopped by the National Guard

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Speaker 1: members that Major Bell had summoned. Tensions continued to grow

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Speaker 1: for another couple of hours. The crowd at the courthouse

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Speaker 1: got bigger and bigger. Small groups of Greenwood residents started

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Speaker 1: patrolling the streets, armed both as recon and to try

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Speaker 1: to show that Greenwood was not entirely defenseless, and the

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Speaker 1: white community began to fear that an uprising was imminent.

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Speaker 1: Soon rumor reared its head again. At about ten PM,

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Speaker 1: word got back to Greenwood that a lynch mob was

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Speaker 1: breaking into the courthouse, and so this time it was

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Speaker 1: about seventy five armed African American men who made their

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Speaker 1: way there to once again offer their aid in keeping

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Speaker 1: Roland safe. So again the sheriff refused their help, and

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Speaker 1: as they turned to go back to Greenwood, one of

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Speaker 1: the white men tried to disarm one of the black men,

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Speaker 1: and in the ensuing scuffle, a shot was fired. It

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Speaker 1: was this spark that started the riot in Earnest. More

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Speaker 1: shots were fired in front of the courthouse, with as

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Speaker 1: many as a dozen people being killed there, and as

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Speaker 1: the dust settled, the black men, who were vastly outnumbered,

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Speaker 1: began falling back to Greenwood in a fighting retreat, with

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Speaker 1: the white mob in pursuit. Once the men were back

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Speaker 1: in Greenwood, things continued to get worse. Car loads of

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Speaker 1: white men started driving through black neighborhoods, just shooting and

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Speaker 1: discriminately into houses and at people On the street. White

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Speaker 1: vigilantes also broke into downtown Tulsa sporting goods stores to

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Speaker 1: steal guns and ammunition. Others went to some of the

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Speaker 1: white neighborhoods, all lent cafes, and started a plan to

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Speaker 1: invade Greenwood the next morning. The law enforcement's action at

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Speaker 1: this point and Telsa was to begin deputizing people, including

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Speaker 1: members of the original lynch mob. Soon the National Guard

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Speaker 1: was ordered to aid local authorities. They did this by

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Speaker 1: setting up a perim it are around the northern edge

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Speaker 1: of Tulsa's white neighborhood to defend it against a counter attack,

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Speaker 1: a counter attack which never actually happened. People started setting

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Speaker 1: fires in Greenwood at about one am, and then the

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Speaker 1: mob prevented the fire department from trying to put the

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Speaker 1: fires out, so the fires spread really rapidly throughout the night.

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Speaker 1: Both the National Guard and local law enforcement wound up

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Speaker 1: responding to false reports of shots fired by black people

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Speaker 1: in white neighborhoods all over Tulsa, and they were doing

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Speaker 1: this rather than responding to the real reports of violence

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Speaker 1: and arson that we're going on in Greenwood. At one

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Speaker 1: thirty six am, the Chief of Police and a telegram

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Speaker 1: to the state capitol, which read race riot developed here

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Speaker 1: several killed, unable handle situation, request that National Guard forces

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Speaker 1: to be sent by special train. Situation serious. This telegram

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Speaker 1: was signed by the Chief of Police, the sheriff, and

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Speaker 1: a district judge. A train was scheduled to leave Oklahoma

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Speaker 1: City bound for Toll at five am that morning, carrying

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Speaker 1: about one hundred additional National Guard troops. During the night,

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Speaker 1: a lot of Greenwood residents stayed behind to try to

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Speaker 1: defend their homes and businesses, but many others fled. They

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Speaker 1: took cards, taxis, and other transportation north out of the city.

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Speaker 1: Greenwood was on the northern side of Tulsa, so the

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Speaker 1: smith that they didn't have to go back through Tulsa

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Speaker 1: to try to get away. Some people were able to

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Speaker 1: take refuge with their employers or other compassionate citizens on

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Speaker 1: the Tulsa side of town, but a lot of people

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Speaker 1: were really left, mostly defenseless. Before the sun came up

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Speaker 1: on June one, an armed mob had gathered around the

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Speaker 1: fringes of Greenwood. Some of them were carrying weapons that

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Speaker 1: had been provided to them by public officials. In addition

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Speaker 1: to the deputized members of the Lynch mob. Some of

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Speaker 1: this crowd were uniformed police officers and members of the

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Speaker 1: National Guard. There are also multiple eyewitness reports of airplanes

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Speaker 1: in the skies over Greenwood as their ryotlae on, although

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Speaker 1: exactly what was done from the airplanes is a little

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Speaker 1: harder to substantiate. There are reports that bombs are dropped

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Speaker 1: that there's not clear evidence to support that. It's pretty

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Speaker 1: likely that there were definitely people firing their guns from

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Speaker 1: the airplanes. Though. The train carrying the additional National Guard

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Speaker 1: troops got to Tulsa around nine fifteen am. These out

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Speaker 1: of town troops became known as the State troops, and

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Speaker 1: this helps differentiate them from the local National Guard that

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Speaker 1: were part of the rioting. But by that point most

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Speaker 1: of Greenwood had already been burned to the ground. Martial

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Speaker 1: law was declared at eleven nine am on June one,

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Speaker 1: although by then the riot had really mostly run its course.

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Speaker 1: Once martial law was declared, the State troops moved through Greenwood,

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Speaker 1: putting out fires, disarming the rioters who were still there,

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Speaker 1: and forcing them to go back to Tulsa. Order was

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Speaker 1: restored around eight pm on June one. The State troops

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Speaker 1: also took custody of African Americans who had been imprisoned

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Speaker 1: by vigilantes during the riot. But this was not exactly

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Speaker 1: a rescue. The state troops took every black person they

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Speaker 1: could find into custody in a mass arrest. People who

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Speaker 1: had fled the city were detained when they returned. It

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Speaker 1: was supposedly for people's own protection, but a clear part

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Speaker 1: of the motivation was the white community's ongoing fear of

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Speaker 1: a black uprising. In the end, about six thousand African

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Speaker 1: Americans were held at the convention Hall, and when they

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Speaker 1: ran out of room there at the fair grounds in

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Speaker 1: the ball field. Some black citizens were held for more

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Speaker 1: than a week. No one was released until a white

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Speaker 1: person could vouch for them and also take responsibility for

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Speaker 1: their future behavior. So before we talk about the aftermath

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Speaker 1: of this riot, let's take another brief moment for a

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Speaker 1: word from a sponsor. So, in this riot, Greenwood was

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Speaker 1: virtually destroyed. Thirty five city blocks were burned to the ground,

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Speaker 1: and at least eight hundred people sustained injuries that had

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Speaker 1: to be treated. One thousand, two hundred fifty six homes

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Speaker 1: were destroyed, plus the hospital, the library, some of the schools,

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Speaker 1: and both of the newspaper's offices. A couple of weeks

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Speaker 1: after the riot, the Nation reported that the damages totalled

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Speaker 1: one point five million dollars, although more recent estimates are

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Speaker 1: multiple times higher than that, and from the Tulsa Daily

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Speaker 1: World the next day is this quote. Personal belongings in

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Speaker 1: household goods had been removed from many homes impiled in

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Speaker 1: the streets. On the steps of a few houses that

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Speaker 1: remained sat feeble and gray negro men and women, and

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Speaker 1: occasionally a small child. The look in their eyes was

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Speaker 1: one of dejection and supplication. Judging from their attitude, it

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Speaker 1: was not of material consequence to them whether they lived

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Speaker 1: or died harmless themselves. They apparently could not conceive the

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Speaker 1: brutality and fiendishness of men who would deliberately set fire

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Speaker 1: to the homes of their friends and neighbors, and just

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Speaker 1: as deliberately shoot them in their tracks. Doctor Robert Bridgewater

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Speaker 1: and his wife Maddie were two of the fortunate few

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Speaker 1: to have had their homes spared by the fire, but

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Speaker 1: they got to it to find that their possessions had

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Speaker 1: all been destroyed. Doctor Bridgewater wrote quote, I saw my

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Speaker 1: piano and all of my elegant furniture piled in the street.

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Speaker 1: My safe had been broken open, all of my money stolen,

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Speaker 1: also my silverware, cut glass, all of the family clothes

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Speaker 1: and everything of value had been removed, even my family bible,

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Speaker 1: my electric life pictures were broken. All of the window

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Speaker 1: lights and glass, and the doors were broken. The floors

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Speaker 1: were covered literally speaking with glass. Even the phone was

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Speaker 1: torn from the wall. And there's actually a photo that's

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Speaker 1: part of the historical record of this event, and it

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Speaker 1: shows massive columns of smoke rising from the Greenwood District.

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Speaker 1: Written across it and misspelled is running the Negro out

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Speaker 1: of Tulsa. A photo of the charred body of one

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Speaker 1: of the victims was also used as a postcard. At

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Speaker 1: the time, official estimates put the death toll at nine

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Speaker 1: white people and twenty six black people, but pretty much

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Speaker 1: immediately everyone knew that those numbers were way too low.

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Speaker 1: We'll never really know the official number because birth records

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Speaker 1: at the time are incomplete and many of the African

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Speaker 1: Americans who were killed were buried in unmarked mass graves

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Speaker 1: or thrown into the Arkansas River. Funeral Home records report

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Speaker 1: burials of many people identified only as quote unknown Negro

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Speaker 1: in the days after the riot. More recent investigations suggest

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Speaker 1: that more like three hundred people were killed, with the

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Speaker 1: overwhelming majority of them being African American, and the riot

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Speaker 1: forced most of Tulsa's African American population into homelessness. The

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Speaker 1: city and its residents made things hard on those who

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Speaker 1: had lost their homes in the hopes of forcing people

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Speaker 1: to resettle elsewhere. They even passed a fire ordinance specifically

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Speaker 1: designed to keep people from rebuilding, although it was overturned

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Speaker 1: as unco institutional about four years later. Even so, Tulsa's

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Speaker 1: black community set to work rebuilding Greenwood, but it was

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Speaker 1: a slow process, so many of them spent the following

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Speaker 1: winter living in tents. With the exception of the Red

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Speaker 1: Cross and white residents of surrounding communities, the black community

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Speaker 1: got very little help in its rebuilding efforts. The city

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Speaker 1: of Tulsa, as we mentioned, actively discouraged the rebuilding effort.

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Speaker 1: On the legal end of things, UH, Dick Roland's charges

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Speaker 1: were ultimately dismissed. A grand jury convened to investigate what

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Speaker 1: had happened UH, and they found Tulsa's black population responsible

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Speaker 1: for the riot. About seventy black men were charged with

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Speaker 1: inciting the riot, although none of them were ultimately convicted. J. B.

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Speaker 1: Stratford was one. He fled Oklahoma for Illinois, eventually building

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Speaker 1: a law practice in Chicago. He died in ninety five,

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Speaker 1: and in ninety six, following his family's fight to clear

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Speaker 1: his name, he was finally cleared of all charges. No

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Speaker 1: white person was ever tried for any of the murders

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Speaker 1: or arsons that took place, or with any other criminal

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Speaker 1: act associated with the riot. Immediately after the riot, the

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Speaker 1: event was international news, and in the weeks that followed,

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Speaker 1: papers across the US published skating editorials condemning what had happened.

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Speaker 1: Journalists called it both a disgrace and a horror. But

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Speaker 1: then it really fell from view for pretty much everyone

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Speaker 1: who did not directly live through it. History books that

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Speaker 1: were published in Oklahoma made no mention of it for

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Speaker 1: more than twenty years, and even then it was very

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Speaker 1: brief and glossed over. People began to investigate and write

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Speaker 1: about this riot following the Civil rights movement, although the

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Speaker 1: first people to blaze this trail were really met with

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Speaker 1: threats of violence. Eventually, in the state of Oklahoma formed

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Speaker 1: a commission that was meant to investigate what had happened

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Speaker 1: and to create clear documentation of the riot. The commission

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Speaker 1: was also to make a recommendation of whether reparations should

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Speaker 1: be paid to the survivors and their descendants. Calls for

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Speaker 1: reparations had actually started almost immediately after the riot was over.

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Speaker 1: In one, Judge Loyal J. Martin, who had been the mayor, said, quote,

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Speaker 1: Tulsa can only redeem herself from the countrywide shame and

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Speaker 1: humiliation into which she is today plunged by complete restitution

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Speaker 1: and rehabilitation of the destroyed black Belt. The rest of

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Speaker 1: the United States must know that the real citizenship of

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Speaker 1: Tulsa weeps at this unspeakable crime and will make good

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Speaker 1: the damage so far as it can be done to

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Speaker 1: the last penny. The report of the Oklahoma Commission to

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Speaker 1: study the Tulsa Race Riot of one called the event

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Speaker 1: quote late to be acknowledged and still to be repaired,

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Speaker 1: and the commission's report argued really strongly in favor of reparations,

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Speaker 1: including direct reparations paid to the survivors who were still

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Speaker 1: living in their descendants. At this point, so many of

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Speaker 1: the people who had lived through the riot had died.

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Speaker 1: When the Commission put out its final report. The riot

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Speaker 1: was almost eighty years in the past, but still alive

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Speaker 1: were the children and grandchildren of the people who had

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Speaker 1: survived the riot and of some people who had been killed.

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Speaker 1: The state legislature established scholarships, a memorial, and an economic

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Speaker 1: development initiative for Greenwood, but it declined to make actual

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Speaker 1: reparations to survivors and their descendants. As sort of a

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Speaker 1: side note, a lot of articles about the Tulsa race

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Speaker 1: riot and about the destruction of what was known as

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Speaker 1: Blackwall Street say that the riot was a result of

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Speaker 1: clan activity, and while the Ku Klux Klan had been

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Speaker 1: re established in Atlanta in nineteen fifteen and it was

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Speaker 1: definitely growing all around the United States, there's not really

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Speaker 1: evidence to suggest that the Ku Klux Klan specifically was

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Speaker 1: active in Tulsa or was part of the riot. However,

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Speaker 1: one of the consequences or the ramifications after the riot

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Speaker 1: was that the clan really started to flourish in Oklahoma

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Speaker 1: once the riot was over. We've had so many people

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Speaker 1: request this particular subject, and it's one that, unsurprisingly, based

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Speaker 1: on having learned that it was so conscientiously not discussed

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Speaker 1: for so many years, is one that I was not

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Speaker 1: really familiar with before doing research on it. You and

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Speaker 1: I have had several episodes where we had to stop

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Speaker 1: recording because the material was upsetting and we needed to

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Speaker 1: take a minute. And this is one where I had

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Speaker 1: to stop researching because the material was upsetting and I

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Speaker 1: needed to take like a step away from it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's hard. I mean I had to stop earlier

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Speaker 1: while we were recording. I know you and I had

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Speaker 1: been talking about it while you were researching, and you

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Speaker 1: messaged me at one point where like, I can't handle

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Speaker 1: this right now. It's a lot to take in, and

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Speaker 1: it's hard to think about sort of the the mob

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Speaker 1: mentality and how hurtful, uh, and sort of dispassionate these

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Speaker 1: situations become where people stop thinking about other people as

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Speaker 1: people and they just get in that mode of like violence. Well,

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Speaker 1: and there's also a lot of ongoing controversy about the

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Speaker 1: idea of reparations and when a government should pay reparations

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Speaker 1: and how long is too long, And this seems like

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Speaker 1: a case where there was a really clear case for

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Speaker 1: reparations argued really strongly in the Commission's report, because it

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Speaker 1: wasn't just this happened. People's homes were destroyed. There's also

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Speaker 1: the part where the people who were meant to be

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Speaker 1: protecting the population were instead taking part in this violent activity. Uh.

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Speaker 1: People's insurance claims were not able to be paid out

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Speaker 1: because most insurance claims don't or most insurance companies don't

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Speaker 1: offer coverage in the case of civil unrest, which this

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Speaker 1: counted as so UH. I think the thing that shocked

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Speaker 1: me most about it was in the face of all

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Speaker 1: that evidence, the final decision was still that that direct

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Speaker 1: reparations would not be paid to the survivors and their descendants.

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Speaker 1: In Peppier News, do you have mail for us to

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Speaker 1: kind of end on a more upbeat note? I do, uh,

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Speaker 1: and this in a way it's it is in a

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Speaker 1: way it's not. This is from Francy, and Francy says.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure I can adequately describe how much I

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Speaker 1: am truly enjoy your podcast. It's just my favorite and

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Speaker 1: makes my grueling commute actually quite enjoyable. I'm writing today

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Speaker 1: because I recently listened to your episode about the Grove

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Speaker 1: park in and immediately perked up when hearing Tracy mentioned

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Speaker 1: her grandmother had spent time at a tuberculosis asylum in

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Speaker 1: Black Mountain, North Carolina. Well, I'm fairly certain that there

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Speaker 1: was only one TV asylum in Black Mountain. The town's

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Speaker 1: not that big, and if so, then that former asylum

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Speaker 1: would eventually be converted into the grounds of a girl's

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Speaker 1: summer camp, Camp Merrimack, where I spent nearly every summer

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Speaker 1: of my childhood. The Big House, as we called the

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Speaker 1: camp's main building, was once the asylum's mary facility. In

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Speaker 1: my day, it housed the dining hall, the infirmary, and

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Speaker 1: the camp's offices. Besides being a creepy name for a

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00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:09,160
Speaker 1: building in the South, merri Max Big House still had

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Speaker 1: some features of a former medical facility, making it all

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Speaker 1: the more eerie. I particularly remember the buzzers aisle along

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Speaker 1: the walls, as well as one night that I spent

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Speaker 1: in the infirmary with a nasty cold. I felt the

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Speaker 1: whole time like I was in some old war movie,

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Speaker 1: with the long hospital ward room lined by old fashioned

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Speaker 1: metal framed beds. Merrimax Obligatory Camp ghost story is rooted

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Speaker 1: in its history as a tuberculosis asylum. As I remember,

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Speaker 1: the story is about a young woman named Myrtle who

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Speaker 1: was in love with a young man, but either her

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Speaker 1: family or his or both were against the match, and

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Speaker 1: so although she wasn't six, some ill intentioned family member

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Speaker 1: had her interned at the Tuberculosis Asylum. Eventually she was

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Speaker 1: able to get word to her beloved and they plan

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Speaker 1: to meet on the grounds of the asylum late one

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Speaker 1: night and then a loope together. As the story goes,

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Speaker 1: he waited for at the bottom of a stone staircase

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Speaker 1: that was built into the side of the mountain. That

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Speaker 1: staircase no idea when it was actually built. This still

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Speaker 1: part of the summer camp, or was when I was there,

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Speaker 1: and was called the Myrtle Stairs. So he was at

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Speaker 1: the bottom of the staircase and she was at the top,

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Speaker 1: or maybe it was other way the other way around.

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Speaker 1: Either way, as Myrtle was running down or up the

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Speaker 1: stairs to greet her beloved, she tripped on the thirteenth

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Speaker 1: step and fell the rest of the way, breaking her

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Speaker 1: neck and dying. Of course, Myrtle is said to haunt

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Speaker 1: the steps to this day. Furthermore, for some reason, maybe

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00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:26,640
Speaker 1: it's the supposed anniversary for death, July three was known

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00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 1: to be Myrtle Day among the campers, and uh sort

433
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 1: of a Halloween type day when Myrtle's spirit was most powerful.

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00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: Lots of pranks and mischief would go on during the

435
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 1: night of July three, as I remembered. So that's the

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00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: story of Myrtle's ghost and of my random connection to

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00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:42,440
Speaker 1: the hosts of my favorite podcast. A side note, all

438
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 1: of this makes me think that the history of American

439
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,320
Speaker 1: summer camps would be an interesting episode to do one

440
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 1: day now. Personally, I'm curious to know the history behind

441
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:53,399
Speaker 1: summer camps, appropriating the names of American Indian tribes, and

442
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:57,160
Speaker 1: incorporating pseudo Indian rituals and tradition into camp life. It's

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00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:59,879
Speaker 1: weird and creepy and also fascinating to me. Thanks for

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00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,680
Speaker 1: your time, ladies, and keep up the good work. Francy.

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00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: I wanted to read Fancy France's email for two reasons. One,

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00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:10,440
Speaker 1: I love the whole story about how the Tuberculosis Asylum

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00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: was turned into a summer camp, in part because where

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00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:17,399
Speaker 1: I grew up, the Science Museum used to be an

449
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 1: insane asylum, which made it a very weird place for

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00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 1: them to have a haunted house at Halloween time. Yeah,

451
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 1: the most the main part of the Science Museum was

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00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:34,120
Speaker 1: actually like a newly built building that all the old

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00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: asylum buildings were still there. Um. The other is that

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00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,159
Speaker 1: Holly and I did an episode in our previous podcast

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00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: that was called pop Stuff called Let's Go to Camp,

456
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: in which we talk about the history of summer camps

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00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:48,400
Speaker 1: in the United States, and we do talk a little

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00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: bit about, uh, the appropriative names that happened um in

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00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: a lot of summer camps around the United States. Yes,

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00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: that the story that she tells that letter makes me

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00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: feel like it's the setup for a Western Orsan film.

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00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:03,160
Speaker 1: It does kind of sound like that, because I feel

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00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:07,159
Speaker 1: that way about a lot of fun stories. If you

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00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 1: would like to write to us about this or any

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00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 1: other subject, you can write to us at History Podcast

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00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. We're also on Facebook

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00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:16,159
Speaker 1: at facebook dot com slash miss in history and on

468
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 1: Twitter at miss in History. Our tumbler is missing History

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00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: dot tumbler dot com, and we are also on Pinterest

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00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 1: at pinterest dot com slash miss in History. If you

471
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 1: would like to learn a little more about what we

472
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: talked about today, you can come to our parent website,

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00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: which is how stuff Works dot com. You can put

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00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: the word riots into the search bar and you will

475
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:37,440
Speaker 1: find how riots work. And if you want to come

476
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:40,640
Speaker 1: find show notes and all of our episodes in one

477
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: giant archive. You can come to our website, which is

478
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: missed in history dot com. For more on this and

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00:27:50,680 --> 00:28:05,680
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, is how stuff works dot com