Tulsa Founders: Chauncey A. Owen

On August 7, 1882 when the train tracks and crew reached the new site, there was a little community of tents set up that awaited them in what was to become Tulsa. The crew headed over to the largest one, Chauncey Owen’s wooden-sided “boardinghouse” tent which had hastily been put up. Owen had been following the railroad grading work from Vinita, hauling the large tent along the way and supplying the hundreds of workers, including the Hall brothers, with beef and produce from his farm near Broken Arrow. His tent was a store as well as a boardinghouse.

Chauncey A. Owen was a Pennsylvanian entrepreneur and Civil War veteran who conducted a freighting business in Kansas before coming to Indian Territory and marrying Jane Wolfe, a Creek Indian. He was already in the boardinghouse business on the bank of the Arkansas River before the railroad began heading this way and quickly moved his business to the new location. After the Hall brothers set up their store tent that summer evening in 1882, they made their way over to Owen’s tent to sample his wife’s home cooking.

Here is a map of Tulsa as a tent town in 1882 or 1883. The map and explanation is from "The Beginning of Tulsa" by J.M. Hall. (click on photos to enlarge)
1) Elm Tree Tent where the first baby in Tulsa was born. 2) The log house of Noah Partridge, a Creek Indian, and his family. The Partridges were the only family living here when the town was located. 3) The Frisco railroad grade stakes. The contractors were grading about where Madison Street crosses the railroad tracks. 4) T.J. Archer's Tent Store. 5) The Hall brother's tent while waiting for store building to be completed. 6) C.A. & Mrs. Owen's boarding tent while waiting for hotel to be built. 7) Mr. & Mrs. Slater's tent. Mr. Slater was a carpenter who worked on the depot, roundhouse and section house of the Frisco Railroad Company. Mrs. Slater organized the first Sunday School in Tulsa from their tent. 8) Dr. Booker's tent. Tulsa's first doctor. 9) Now known as Main Street.

Mr. Owen began immediately building the first hotel in Tulsa; a six-room, two-story wood frame building which was appropriately named the Tulsa Hotel and opened in the fall of 1882. Mrs. Owen (aka Aunt Jane) ran the boarding house along with Chauncey until 1890 when it was leased and renamed St. Elmo. Owen also owned and operated the first wagon and feed yard in Tulsa, next to the railroad.
Mrs. Owen died in 1902 and her heirs received an allotment of 160 acres from the Creek Nation which includes what is now Owen Park and the neighborhood. In the early 20th Century the lands of Owen Park were often used for public events such as Fourth of July celebrations, Labor Day picnics and family gatherings. Photo below circa 1911: On January 23, 1904 a tremendous explosion rocked west Tulsa and was heard as far away as Claremore. A replacement employee by the name of McDonald was working for Western Torpedo Company- which supplied oil workers with the needed nitroglycerin used for shooting oil wells. McDonald entered a wooden structure where the explosives were stored (on the land leased from Owen) and the entire stock was accidentally detonated. Mr. McDonald did not survive and the crater that was created became known as Owen Park Lake (now Owen Park Pond) after the city purchased the land in 1909. Tulsa’s first city park became a reality.People were concerned that it was “so far out” that the city promised (and delivered) a streetcar that ran from downtown to Owen Park to Orcutt Park and back.
This memorial maker in Owen Park denotes the Creek, Cherokee and Osage Indian Nations corner, where all 3 meet.The Washington Irving monument stands at West Easton St. and Vancouver Ave; it denotes where famed author Washington Irving camped in October of 1832.

photos courtesy of Beryl Ford Collection/Rotary Club of Tulsa, Tulsa City-County Library and Tulsa Historical Society