Richard Johns's Blog Posts

There are neighborhoods in Tulsa that people brag about. And then there's Kendall Whittier — a neighborhood that did the hard work, told the truth about what it had become, and built something

The Day Leon Russell Looked Out a Window and Changed EverythingIt was a lunch break.Leon Russell and his Shelter Records partner Denny Cordell were sitting in a booth at The Ranch House Restaurant

It started as a boarding school for Native American girls in Muskogee with no money, no campus, and no guarantee it would survive the year.Today it sits on 230 acres of Collegiate Gothic

There's a neighborhood in Tulsa that most people drive through without realizing they're in it. It sits just east of downtown, bordered by the highway to the north and Route 66 to the south, and it

Before it was one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Tulsa, it was a cattle pond.Before it was a cattle pond, it was Creek Nation land.And before anyone called it Swan Lake, it was just a spring

Before it was a destination, it was a street named after a tree.Cherry Street sits just south of downtown, tucked between some of Tulsa's oldest neighborhoods. Way back before Tulsa had a grid,

Here's something that'll make you smile.Ask the music historians and critics what the Tulsa Sound is and they'll talk for an hour. Lay back blues groove. Shuffle beat. Blues, country, rockabilly,

There's a building at 423 North Main Street in Tulsa that has been standing since 1924. It started as a garage. Today Rolling Stone calls it one of the greatest live music venues in America, and

Brookside Tulsa — The Neighborhood That Never Goes Out of StyleThere are neighborhoods in Tulsa that people move to because the price is right. And then there's Brookside — the

This is part of the story of Black Wall Street. How much of the full story we'll ever know is another question entirely.What Was Black Wall Street?In the early 1900s, Tulsa's Greenwood District was

Most cities grow slowly. Tulsa didn't. Tulsa exploded.In the span of about twenty years — from 1905 to the mid-1920s — a small Creek Nation trading post on the Arkansas River became one

Before you can understand Midtown Tulsa real estate, you need to understand Midtown Tulsa. And the first thing you need to know is this — ask ten Tulsans where Midtown starts and ends, and you