We’d spent the day before at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum on the outskirts of the city (highly recommend so see post here) and stayed that night in the parking lot of a Harvest Host called Core 4 Brewing Company. We grabbed some Mexican food at The Lazy Donkey downtown and dessert at Perets Dessert and Coffee Bar before turning in for the night.
With just one day in downtown Oklahoma City we visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum, walked around downtown, and visited the state capitol.
OKLAHOMA CITY NATIONAL MEMORIAL MUSEUM
The Oklahoma City bombing occurred at 9:02 am on April 19, 1995, the second anniversary of the fiery end to the Waco siege. It was the deadliest cat of terrorism in U.S. history until September 11th and remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.
It was perpetrated by two anti-government, white supremacists, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. The detonation of a rental truck full of explosives parked in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killed 168 people including 19 children, injured 850, destroyed 1/3 of the government building, damaged 324 buildings within a 16-block radius, shattered glass in 258 buildings and destroyed 86 cars. The bombers were tried and convicted in 1997. McVeigh was executed in 2001 and Nichols was sentenced to life in prison.
Today’s memorial designed by Hans and Torrey Butzer is called “The Gates of Time”. The twin gates – one marked 9:01 representing the innocence before the attack and one marked 9:03 representing healing – stand at either end of a reflecting pool that was once N.W. Fifth Street where the building stood. On the lawn next to these symbols are 168 Chairs, including 19 smaller ones that represent the victims killed. They are arranged in 9 rows representing each floor of the Federal Building and they bear the names of someone killed on that floor.
We didn’t have time for the museum, but the reviews on line are good.
DOWNTOWN
We enjoyed the clean downtown mix of new and older buildings, including some Art-Deco. Installation art can be found around town and the Myriad Botanical Gardens was in full bloom.
OKLAHOMA STATE CAPTIOL
Oklahoma City is the state capitol. The original design of the capitol included a dome but it was eliminated before construction began in 1915 due to budget constraints. It’s framework is concrete but exterior walls are clad with Indiana limestone and pink granite quarried from Oklahoma. Floors were Alabama marble but wall bases, stairways and columns in the supreme court are Vermont marble. The outside steps were built with Oklahoma black granite and the second floor rotunda’s rail was carved from Oklahoma alabaster.
It wasn’t until 1999 during planning efforts for the state’s centennial began that adding a dome became a priority. $15 million was raised to match the $5 million in public funds for dome construction. The inner dome is one of the prettiest we’ve seen. It features the colors of the state wildflower, the Indian Blanket and below it sits the Oklahoma evening sky. Sitting atop the the outer dome is a 17-ft tall bronze Native American statue called “The Guardian”. The dome was completed in 2002.
In 2010 an assessment of the building’s plumbing, electrical, fire safety, and structure concluded that more work was needed on the building. With $245 million dollars in bonds, the restoration was begun in 2016 and the work was complete in 2022 with gorgeous results!
Two interesting facts about this capitol – it’s the first state to feature a Native American on its dome and its the only capitol that has working oil wells surrounding it.
That concludes our one day in downtown Oklahoma City! Next stops, Medicine Park and the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge.
