October 24th

Pilot Flying J Travel Center

Muskogee, Oklahoma

October 25, 2022

A day of heavy rain. Around noon I decided I couldn't sit around in Big Cabin anymore so I headed out. My plan was not to travel far which was good -- driving in the hard rain was taxing. Bad roads, leaves on the roads, wet pavement -- lots of concentrating!

Some photos as I left Big Cabin:

Pump Back was a bit of a disappointment -- just a rural area on Lake Hudeson, a resevoir created by the Corps of Engineers.

Pump Back is a census-designated place in Mayes County, Oklahoma. The population was 175 at the 2010 census compared to 155 at the 2000 census, a gain of 13 percent.

Lost City is a sad place -- the school is closed and overgrown and the baseball field is overgrown as well. There is no Main Street, no businesses that I saw.

Lost City is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Cherokee County, Oklahoma. The population was 770 at the 2010 census, a 4.8 percent decline from the figure of 809 recorded in 2000. It was the site of the first meteorite fall in the US to be recorded by a camera network.

On January 3, 1970, four stations (Hominy OK, Woodward OK, Pleasanton KS, and Garden City KS) of the Prairie Meteorite Network simultaneously photographed the track of a meteoroid fireball. (The fireball was visible for approximately nine seconds. It was accompanied with a sonic boom.)

Analysis of the photographs indicated that a meteorite might have landed within an area east of Lost City. This was the first time in the US that simultaneous photography of a fireball from multiple observation points was achieved, making it possible to calculate a trajectory and delimit a search area on the ground.

An example of what the 1970 experience might have been like:

This 272-g fragment was discovered on January 17, 1970. A cattle farmer found it while walking through his cow pasture.

The farmer who found the 272-g fragment also found this much smaller fragment on the roof of his house.

Six days later Gunther Schwartz, a field manager for the network, went to the Lost City school to ask questions to see if anyone had seen or heard anything about it, at that time a maintenance man and bus driver by the name of Isaac Gifford told the scientist he had seen it while he was raccoon hunting. Gifford took Schwartz to the spot where he had seen the meteorite in the air close to where he was hunting, they walked to the location and soon discovered the meteorite. "Suddenly there was the black rock in the road, and I wondered what it was doing there, and got out to look at it," Schwartz said. "And then you get hysterical. Just think of the odds against finding it there. Fantastic."

Three additional smaller meteorite fragments were recovered later: on January 17, a fragment weighing 272 grams; on February 2, one weighing 6.6 kilograms; and on May 4, one weighing 640 grams within one-half mile of Lost City. The Lost City meteorite proved to be an H5 chondrite.

The photos that were taken by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory enabled scientists to reconstruct the meteorites orbit...concluding that it originated somewhere in the asteroid belt.

The Fort Gibson Dam is a gravity dam on the Grand (Neosho) River in Oklahoma, 5.4 mi north of the town of Fort Gibson. The dam forms Fort Gibson Lake. The primary purposes of the dam and lake are flood control and hydroelectric power production, although supply of drinking water to local communities, as well as recreation, are additional benefits. The project was authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1941 and construction began the next year. During World War II construction was suspended and it recommenced in May 1946. In June 1949, the river was closed and the entire project was complete in September 1953 with the operation of the last of the power plant's four generators. Rights to construct the project originally belonged to the Grand River Dam Authority, but were seized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1946.

Fort Gibson Dam plays a role in the development of the Arkansas River. Water stored during periods of high flow assures adequate water is available for year-round operation of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, as well as providing needed water supply to area communities. Another benefit includes the many recreational opportunities offered by various agencies and concessionaires. Fort Gibson is a 19,900-surface-acre lake at normal pool; however, during flood events, the size of the lake can dramatically increase to 51,000 surface acres.

Okay is a town along the east bank of the Verdigris River in Wagoner County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 620 at the 2010 census, a 3.9 percent increase over the figure of 597 recorded in 2000.

Etymology and history

Okay's history as a community began circa 1806, when a French trader named Joseph Bogy established a trading post in the Three Forks area of what would eventually become the state of Oklahoma. The firm of Brand and Barbour took over the post later. When Barbour died in 1822, A. P. Chouteau, who had already established a trading post at Salina bought the Three Forks post. At the time, the post included twelve houses and a ferry.

Chouteau expanded his business by bringing in Creole carpenters to construct keelboats that local traders needed to transport the goods they obtained from the local Indians to New Orleans and St. Louis. For a while, the Osage tribe claimed ownership of the land, which they ceded to the Western Cherokees before the Trail of Tears. Then the Western Creeks were allowed to settle on part of the land. In 1828, the Federal Government bought Chouteau's land for construction of a Creek Agency.

The settlement had various names before 1919. The St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway called a nearby switch Coretta, and the US Post Office adopted the name in 1891. The Cook Gang robbed the train at Coretta on 1894. The name Falls City was also current, from nearby rapids on the Verdigris River. The post office name changed to Rex in 1900 and North Muskogee in 1911. The name Okay was adopted on 18 October 1919 after the "O. K. Trucks" brand of oil tankers made at a factory built there in 1915 by the Oklahoma Auto Manufacturing Company, which later renamed itself the "O. K. Truck Manufacturing Company". Okay has been noted for its unusual place name.

A fire destroyed most of the business district in 1936, including two general stores, a church, the post office, and two vacant buildings. Only two businesses, a filling station and a blacksmith shop, survived the disaster.

Notable people

Lou Henson, born in Okay in 1932. He is a former NCAA Division I college basketball coach and a member of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

Katie Rain Hill, transgender writer and activist.