Historic Tulsa

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The old train depot in Collinsville now
houses the Collinsville Depot Museum, with
its displays of early twentieth century home
and mission-style furniture.
HISTORIC TULSA
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Dr. Collins after he agreed to move the post
office north to the community. Charlie Taylor
was the first mayor of Collins that changed its
name to Collinsville on June 16, 1898.
When the railroad did come, it missed the
original townsite by one mile. The town
incorporated and moved to the railroad in the
fall of 1899 onto land originally allotted to
Thad Morris. Some of the buildings were
transported on rollers across a field to
Collinsville’s present location.
W. L. Wright hauled printing equipment
from Oologah to Collinsville and established a
weekly newspaper. The first edition of the
Collinsville News was published on May 11,
1899. When the family newspaper was sold in
1987, it was the oldest newspaper in Tulsa
County. The first business in town was a
general store owned by W. B. Erwin.
In the early 1900s, gas was discovered in
the Collinsville area. The Henry Oil and Gas
Company drilled the first well, signaling years
of prosperity for the citizens of the
community. Large quantities of coal were
taken from shallow pits around Collinsville in
the first decades of the twentieth century. At
its height, more than two hundred tons of
coal were shipped from the area each day.
The abundance of inexpensive fuel
attracted the Coffeyville Vitrified Brick
Company to Collinsville. The company built
one of the largest brick plants in the state. In
1911, the Bartlesville Zinc Company built the
world’s largest zinc smelter in Collinsville.
In addition to industrial development, the
farm land around Collinsville produced
bumper crops of oats and wheat. Two grain
elevators were built to store the grain.
In 1915, the Carnegie Library was built at a
cost of $20,000. The following year, Solomon
Bayouth opened his first department store in
Collinsville. The family-owned business later
expanded to Skiatook, Jenks, and Sapulpa.
In 1918, Collinsville voters were asked to
consider the transfer of the Collinsville
Industrial District to Tulsa County. The area
had been part of Rogers County since
statehood, but citizens of the town wanted to
be part of Tulsa County. On August 24, 1918,
voters overwhelmingly approved the
annexation to Tulsa County, 1,828 to 8. The
change added nine thousand residents to the
population of Tulsa County and greatly
increased the Tulsa County property tax rolls.
Tulsa’s Advertising Club welcomed
approximately 150 of the new county citizens
at a banquet at the Hotel Tulsa in September,
1918. The Collinsville residents were driven to
the county fair after arriving by train. A local
newspaper reported, “At noon as the train
bearing the Collinsville delegation drew into
the Frisco depot, the city band broke forth
into jubilation and the welcome…followed.”
SPERRY
A flag station was established on the
present site of Sperry during the completion
of the northern section of the Midland Valley
Railroad at about the time oil was found in the
Bird Creek oil field. The railroad station was
called Buehler for Charles Buehler, an official
of the Creek and Indiana Oil Company.
The post office was established on May 17,
1902, in a ranch house on Hominy Creek.
When R. R. Martin became the postmaster
and opened a grocery store near the Buehler
station in 1907, the post office was moved,
and Buehler became Sperry.
Among the oil speculators drawn to the
Bird Creek field was Henry Spybuck, who
built the first residential dwelling in Sperry.