Here Today: Oklahoma’s Ghost Towns, Vanishing Towns, and Towns Persisting against the Odds

by Jeffrey Brian Schmidt

The history of Oklahoma runs through the thousands of towns that sprang up in the wake of statehood and even before then—readable in the traces of bygone days, if you know what to look for. In Here Today, Jeffrey B. Schmidt conducts readers, armchair travelers and adventurers alike, through places that tell Oklahoma’s towns all but disappeared, waning, or persisting despite the odds. Part travelogue, part field guide, part history, the book—replete with photos, maps, and GPS coordinates—documents the rise and fall of one hundred of these towns, from the arrival of pioneers and settlers to the rise of buildings and businesses to the decline that came with natural disasters, manmade crises, and cultural change.

Schmidt provides an enlightening look at what has made these towns work—the role of roads and railways, public schools and churches, community building and commerce, and, perhaps most significant, the official recognition that a post office conferred. He notes the oil strikes, coal mines, intriguing crimes, violent weather, and twists of fortune that played into the fate of each; points out the landmarks that still stand and the shadows of those that have succumbed to indifference, destruction, or the passage of time; and puts the story these towns tell into the larger context of westward expansion, Native American history, and, in the case of the many all-Black towns, discrimination and segregation.

Whether visiting ghost towns or small towns that still draw on the power of rural resilience to survive and even thrive, Here Today offers a rare chance to travel through the state’s history before its remnants may be gone tomorrow. Representing the extraordinary extent of Schmidt’s research, legwork, and mining of archives and data sources, the book preserves for all time a vanishing vision of Oklahoma.
 

304 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 21, 2024

Reviews

[juliet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Factual guidebook to the vanishing era of small towns in Oklahoma

This book covered a lot of ground in Oklahoma. Literally and figuratively. It is sectioned by the area of the state and gives the town’s history, anecdotes of each town’s main historical characters, and what you will find there now. It is a travel guide with the intent to be a companion while driving in the state. However, Schmidt does make interesting observations about the importance of the post office (or lack there of), how the state was settled and the role of natural disasters, fires, and shifts in primary means of transportation can put a thriving town on the path to oblivion. It will give you new perspective on your own state’s vanishing towns.

[Lexi Piper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched and not dry at all. I really enjoyed learning more about Oklahoma history and the towns that have come and not quite gone.

[Jerry Edward Stephens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oklahoma has many ghost towns, vanishing towns, and small towns hanging on to life despite all the odds against their survival. These towns all began with real hope of flourishing into the future. But the railroad's route, the change in highway location, the nature of weather conditions, or any of a multitude of social conditions impacted on that future. Jeffrey B. Schmidt has cataloged 100 of the more prominent and interesting of these Oklahoma towns. He actually began his project with a much larger list of 800 or 1,750 suggested towns. The book's twin purposes, as described early in the book, are to 1) teach the reader about these often very interesting towns; and 2) provide a resource guide to help the reader actually explore these towns on short road trips around Oklahoma. The author's very thorough introduction defines how each town can be viewed as "barren site", "neglected site", "abandoned site", "semi-abandoned site", or "historic community". Special attention is given to the 50 or so all-black towns which arose in Oklahoma. These historic all-black towns underscore the one time interest in identifying Oklahoma as an all-black state in the national union. This idea, along with the similar interest in creating an all-indian state, soon floundered on the realities of American social and political conditions. The author is a business professor at the University of Oklahoma. It is a seemingly odd project for a scholar whose normal pursuits are in business marketing. But, this is a truly excellent compilation and travel guide to a very needed and useful topic in Oklahoma state history. I just can not recommend this book more highly. It is a must buy book published as a high quality paperback. It is a tremendous addition to the libraries of every reader who has even a passing interest in Oklahoma history.