Oklahoma Travel Guide

The shocking 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City left this Midwestern metropolis, as well as the rest of the nation, stunned and horrified. Five years later, the healing process took a positive turn with the dedication of the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, 620 N. Harvey (tel. 888/542-HOPE; www.oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org), an outdoor park honoring the victims of that national tragedy, as well as a museum that tells the story of the bombing, the 16-day recovery effort afterward, and a Gallery of Honor that holds a photo and personal object of importance for each of the 168 victims.
The Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge in Indiahoma (www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/oklahoma/wichitamountains/) is over 59,000 acres of preserved land where you can see bison, Rocky Mountain elk, and white-tailed deer, plus 240 species of birds, 64 species of reptiles and amphibians, and enough plant representations to keep a botanist busy for a mighty long time. Tours of the refuge are available, as well as opportunities for rappelling, fishing, rock climbing, and camping.
Frank Lloyd Wright was known for his groundbreaking home architecture, but you might not know that he also lent his talent to the building of one 19-story skyscraper during his career. This building became the Price Tower Arts Center, 510 Dewey Ave., Bartlesville (tel. 918/336-4949; www.pricetower.org), one of the few institutions in the country focusing solely on architecture and design.

In the early 1940s, famed Broadway composers Rodgers and Hammerstein didn't just give Oklahoma its state song from their Pulitzer Prize-winning eponymous musical, they also gave them back a bit of pride after surviving the painful Dust Bowl days during the Great Depression, when extreme summer temperatures and a rash of hot, dry dust storms turned the central prairie states into barren wasteland. But before and after those tough days of hunger and toil, the state remained the beating heartland of America, where the buffalo really did roam (in fact, it's the state animal) and some of the most famous icons of the American West—the Apache warrior Geronimo, beloved cowboy Will Rogers, and folk-singer and musician Woody Guthrie—were born and raised. Its American Indian heritage may well be one of Oklahoma's most celebratory distinctions today. The infamous Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of American Indians to the state during the 1830s, has given Oklahoma the second-largest American Indian population in the nation. The state's name, in fact, comes from the Choktaw words okla (people) and humma (red). Today, 39 tribes and nations are headquartered in Oklahoma and 67 tribes live here. Once a year, the largest American Indian event in the country, the Red Earth Festival in Oklahoma City (the only capital with an oil well beneath it!), honors Native American culture and the struggle to keep it alive. Read More

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