On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
And we’re back – good morning everyone!
Around the first of the year in 2020 we traveled with some friends (who are both architects) to Bartlesville Oklahoma. That may not sound like much of a tourist destination to your jaded elites on the left and right coasts, but it is worth a visit for the history and the architecture aspects. We stayed in the H.C. Price Tower, which is an arts center, and which also contains several hotel rooms and a great restaurant. The Price Tower is Frank Lloyd Wright’s tallest structure and only skyscraper, although at 19 stories, it also doesn’t really fit that description in most people’s minds. H.C. Price was an oil pipeline and construction magnate (as well as an aficionado of mid-century modern architecture), and his corporate offices were housed in the tower, dubbed the Prairie Skyscraper, after it was built in 1956. Wright compared it to “the tree that escaped the crowded forest”, and its unique cantilevered design is a marvel of both beauty and engineering. And you can stay there, IN a Frank Lloyd Wright building, which is an experience all in itself. See https://www.pricetower.org for more details.
Other attractions in the area include Woolaroc, formerly the ranch of Frank Phillips (Phillips Petroleum originated in Bartlesville), and the Phillips home, which you can tour and get an idea of how it was to be obscenely wealthy in the early 20th century in a place well away from either coast. Phillips was interested in Native American artifacts and art, and Wollaroc has a great museum and gallery devoted to those themes, as well as hiking trails, and a large collection of bison, elk and exotic deer and antelope.
The Price Tower on a crisp winter day
Detail of the Price Tower, which features a lot of copper on the exterior
The H.C. Price corporate logo, designed in copper and Cherokee Red paint by Wright in his inimitable style and proudly displayed on every floor. This one was on the 13th floor, where our rooms were.
The White Bison sculpture by Kevin Box, whose style imitates origami art in metals like bronze and stainless steel. This sculpture is on the grounds of the Price Tower.
The original HQ of Phillips Petroleum, reflected in the more modern HQ of Conoco-Phillips in downtown Bartlesville.
The Phillips HQ Tower reflected in the adjacent Plaza Office Building.
eclare
Interesting photos.
Mary G
Well, I didn’t have Oklahoma on my bucket list, but now I do. Fascinating and beautiful building and photos.
Ladyraxterinok
Wow! Never thought I’d see this here.
Bit away is the Philbrook art museum in Tulsa, in a house owned by a Philips brother and given to the city. Also downtown the Philtower, also owned by the family and given to the Boy Scouts. They also gave their ranch, Philmont?, to the BSA.
Wright was related to a prominent Tulsa family and designed a house for them, which you can drive by.
Tulsa also has the Gilcrease Museum on property owned by a very wealthy Native American and willed to the city. It has a fabulous art collection, including many Russell and Remington paintings and sculpture.
It alsohas an internationally known manuscript collection from the era of the Spanish exploration of the New World
Both museums have great restaurants.
And while in Tulsa don’t miss the Prayer Tower and
Praying Hands at Oral Roberts University!
OzarkHillbilly
I had to go find Bartlesville on a map because I always start with a map. I expected it to be a suburb of either Tulsa or OK City. Nope. Due north of Tulsa, most of the way to KS. According to Google maps it is the home of the Oklahoma and Wesleyan University and… A WalMart supercenter, the big must see tourist destination in any town. (I wonder how much Walmart pays Google for such prominent placement) The strangest Bartlesville municipal boundaries feature tho is due south of the city center, and I mean waaay south (google maps has many shortcomings, not the least of which is the lack of a mileage scale) down US Hwy 75. No doubt for the soul purpose of bringing a Walmart Distribution center within the city boundaries.
I wonder at the political machinations that went into the making of that dangling participle of tax abatements.
delk
Very cool building, very cool pics!
Wright’s Johnson Wax Research Tower is 14 stories.
David Evans
Fine photos. They inspired me to Google the Price Tower. I should have guessed it would be by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Steeplejack (phone)
@OzarkHillbilly:
You can see a mileage scale on Google Maps. Go to Settings (in the three-line “hamburger” by the search bar) and select “Show scale on map.” You can choose to show the scale all the time or just when zooming in or out.
Ladyraxterinok
Tulsa also has many Art Deco buildings. IIRC there was an international Art Deco conference here in the 90s.
A major Art Deco building is the Boston Avenue Methodist Church,. Also IIRC a building that sells tombstone material! And my HS WillRogers HS, built in 39 by the WPA to a pattern built in many places across the country.
See July 2019 article on Tulsa’s Art Deco buildings in Architectural Digest
Barbara
Great pictures. Some additional Wright arcana: the most Wright buildings in a single setting are in Lakeland, Florida, at Florida Southern University.
The book called Killers of the Flower Moon is about the oil boom in Oklahoma, and specifically about how one Native American family was exploited (and killed) for their wealth. Phillips and Hess are mentioned in the context of the development of Oklahoma. They aren’t the villains in the book.
Steeplejack (phone)
@OzarkHillbilly:
Looks like the Walmart distribution center (actually in Ochelata, per street address) is 15 miles south of whatever Google Maps takes as the center of Bartlesville.
That is an interesting-shaped city.
Ladyraxterinok
Tulsa also has a new large city park along the Arkansas .River–the Gathering Place–, paid for and given to the city by the George Kaiser Foundation. It’s free and very impressive. Pictures and articles found by way of google
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack (phone): Thanx! so very very very fucking much. That has been a big peeve of mine for some time. Now if they can only get the names of various rivers correct…
(the Gasconade River is, I think, the longest river wholly contained within the state of MO and also has, I think, the largest drainage basin of such rivers. They have it as “Spring Creek” WTF Google maps?)
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack (phone): I’m not finding it. I open up the menu and it’s not there. I assume it’s under one of the sub headings but struck out at the 3 or 4 I’ve tried.
Mustang Bobby
I’ve been going through Bartlesville on the way from the Tulsa airport to Independence, Kansas, for the William Inge Theatre Festival every year since 1991, and a few years ago we stopped to see the Price Tower. It was a Sunday so we were the only visitors, and we got the full tour, including riding the triangular elevator. It reminded me of some of the exotic buildings from the New York Worlds Fair; you liked to look at them, but you didn’t find them particularly practical to work in. Nevertheless, it is a magnificent building and a jewel in that city.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I squinted at the first pic and thought surely those balconies aren’t really made to look like dollar bills. Then I scrolled down and saw that of course they weren’t. My only excuse is it’s early.
Steeplejack (phone)
@OzarkHillbilly:
Damn, the Gasconade goes all over the place! I tried to trace it; looks like it rises near Morgan.
You should let Google know, either through “Send Feedback” or “Add a Missing Place.”
Steeplejack (phone)
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m on my phone let me go look on my computer.
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack (phone): But if I do that, what will I have to bitch about?
@Steeplejack (phone): Thanx, much appreciated.
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
Okay, “real” computer (Win10, Firefox), with detour to make coffee. The distance scale is at the bottom right of the map, at the end of the (small-text) line that says “Map data ©2020 – United States – Terms – Send feedback.”
Went to Help and asked about the display, saw this:
I thought you use a Windows computer. Are you on a different device?
zhena gogolia
PRICE TOWER FTW!!!!
Check out Prairie Skyscraper!
zhena gogolia
@Barbara:
Check out chapter 4 of this book:
https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo11590831.html
prostratedragon
Thanks for some new (to me) views of the Price Tower. I fell in love with it some years back during an architecture/planning course –have and recommend the <em>Prairie Skyscraper</em> book. The interiors and details of the building are just fabulous, according to photos and drawings. I might be willing to figure out how to live in it, though maybe a hotel is an easier use.
Citizen_X
If you want another Oklahoma tip and are going to OK City, check out the Skirvin Hilton hotel downtown. It’s OK City’s oldest hotel, is in the national registry of historical sites, has a gorgeous art deco lounge and bar, and (at least a few years ago) was reasonably priced.
Albatrossity
@prostratedragon: It’s even a bit sketchy as a hotel; the elevators are tiny and two people with luggage is just about the limit for them! The Wright furniture there, as you know, is not designed to be comfortable; building design he could do, but he should have left furniture design to folks who understood how human bodies work.
But it is a lovely building, and well worth the trip to Bartlesville!
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
Other Google Maps “points of interest”:
Fellow map nerd on a slow morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack: DOH! There it is, in the little tiny print in the little tiny box that is all but invisible at the bottom of the screen! Thanx, I’d never have found it without you.
Steeplejack
@OzarkHillbilly:
LOL, I sorta thought it would be that. If I had a dime for every time something like that happened to me . . .
Check out the “measure distance” tip just above. Very handy, and something I didn’t know about until now.
arrieve
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I thought the same thing! Very interesting pics.
Don
Tulsa is full of remarkable Art Deco buildings, most built during the oil boom of the roaring 20s. Worth a trip for architecture and art nerds. The city is downtown is walkable, and there are places to stay, and to eat.
The last time I was in Bartlesville was in 1962, as a member of the Will Rogers High School marching band. It was so cold we froze to the bleachers. Well, maybe I exaggerate…
joel hanes
There is exactly one hotel designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright that is currently operating as a hotel: the restored Park Inn, in Mason City Iowa.
http://www.stoneycreekhotels.com/hotel/travel/masoncity-parkinn/home.do
The restaurant and bar are fine. Try the lamb chops.
And it’s less than two blocks, across a park, to the billiards parlor that started all the Trouble, with a capital T, which is still run by the same family, and is still exactly as seedy as it ever was. Or you could walk a couple blocks in a different direction and visit the Music Man Square museum, which re-creates the 1912 downtown as it was depicted in the musical. Another block to the library, donated to the city by the local rich man, and another to the new version of the footbridge.
Barbara
@joel hanes: It occurs to me that I could knock out a few of the “Six States I Have Never Been To” by designing a cross-country tour to see Frank Lloyd Wright structures. I am not the biggest Wright fan, but it feels like something that would make a good trip. As would visiting those museums I have always wanted to see but never found a reason to go to the city where they are located. Among these are the glass collection in Toledo, Ohio, the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas and the Wollaroc collection in Oklahoma referred to in the OP.
Albatrossity
@Barbara: The Nelson-Atkins Museum is worth the trip, for certain! The Negro Leagues Museum is also worth your time. Throw in the bonus of Kansas City barbecue joints, if you like barbecue, and it is a pretty good trip all round.
tomtofa
Great pics and commentary. As a coastal person (east first, west later), I had no idea that so many interesting buildings and places existed in the areas I’ve blown by on various interstates. Now that we’re retired maybe it’s time for a US road trip mixed in with our overseas travels.
zhena gogolia
@Barbara:
There’s also a Frank Lloyd Wright church in KCMO.
J R in WV
It sounds like Bartlesville OK is a little like Columbus, IN, the headquarters of Cummiins Engines. A foundation set up by one of the Cummins founders pays for architectural services for public buildings as long as the folks building it select from a list provided by the foundation. So the municipal buildings, library, schools, churches are designed by world famous architects. I M Pei did the city library, for just one example.There’s one church built of poured concrete done in a single pour from bottom to top… an amazing feat if you think about it.
Nice small town, utterly dependent upon Cummins for its whole economy. Great buildings, tours to see some of them. And The Cummins HQ has a wonderful historic display of diesel engines from day one up till the most modern engines, along with an exploded engine with all the pieces suspended in midair. If you like engines.
Southern Indiana isn’t flat as much of the state is, the glacier that planed the flat parts didn’t make it that far south, so the rolling hills make for nice driving on country roads. Plus great geology for rock collecting, geodes and such with nice crystals.
Leumas
@Barbara: I live in Tulsa, and am familiar with the Wright Building in Bartlesville. Well worth seeing if you are interested in such things. Wollaroc is interesting, but be aware that it can be like a time capsule. The last time I was there, the Battle of Little Big Horn still glorified General Custer. Also, there is a Wright designed residence in Bartlesville, but I don’t think it is open to the public.
M.k.
The Comer house in dewey oklahoma is interesting
tokyokie
I never thought that the town in which I grew up would garner such prominent display in Balloon Juice. Growing up in a town with a Wright skyscraper tends to make one nonchalant about its architectural importance. H.C. Price basically made his fortune building pipelines for Frank Phillips, and the Wright-designed house in Bartlesville was built for one of his sons. That son, Joe Price, after World War II, used a sharp eye and a chunk of the family’s wealth to basically corner the market on Japanese art from the Edo period, as it had fallen out of favor among Japanese collectors. That collection was valued at $30 million to $40 million when he donated it to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1983. Seems nobody back in B’ville had much interest in his magnificent collection. But hey, what would you expect? We were all nonchalant about our local architectural masterpiece.
Ooosure
@OzarkHillbilly: The annexation of the Walmart Distribution center was so they (Walmart DC) would have water, sewer, police and fire protection.