The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

I've been photographing old buildings in and around Tulsa on the weekends, and I'm wondering why so many of them are constructed of red brick.  I assume that most were built around the same time, perhaps 80 to 100 years ago.  Many include some truly intricate brickwork not found in more modern buildings.  But why the enormous popularity of red?  It seems there are very few white or brown brick buildings.  The one below is Collinsville's city hall.

The armories are similar from town to town too.  They may be different scales but the pattern is largely the same.  Every one I've seen is made of sandstone.

(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_oET109EvqjE/TXQFvSH2mnI/AAAAAAAADcE/oUsGTSaZ_gk/s512/CRW_0085.jpg)

Red brick looks better and is timeless.

Of course I could be biased since I insisted on our new house being red brick when the wife and I first started discussing it. ;)

I agree. My wife and I had similar demands.

Acme Brick Company. I can remember when they had a facility along Dawson Road or near there in the 80's and seeing the kilns for fireing the bricks in use.

http://www.brick.com/company/history.htm (http://www.brick.com/company/history.htm)

My house has red Acme brick

Bricks come in a color other than red?
http://www.crayola.com/colorcensus/americas_favorites/display.cfm?color=43

How did your brick get acne?  Have you tried Clearasil?

We did our shopping at the A&P rather than Acme.  (Also the Penn Fruit Co but no one around here would know of them.)

Acme always reminds me of Wyl E. Coyote

De-hydrated boulders.....

Physics?  We don't believe in no stinkin' physics.

http://looneytic.com/products_instant.html (http://looneytic.com/products_instant.html)

So it has nothing to do with Red River clay to the South West of the State ?
Just a thought.  ???

Most of the red brick in the downtown area and the surrounding residential areas probably came from the Tulsa Vitrified Brick plant (the name may not be exactly correct) that was located roughly around the northeast corner of what is now the IDL.

As for the armories, they were built during the 30s by the WPA.   Somewhere I have a copy of an article that goes into detail re: Oklahoma having the highest number of preserved WPA buildings, art murals, etc.  I'll see if I can find it.

If you find it, I'd sure like to see it.  Is there a files area here on the forum somewhere?

Red brick was cheap, so they used a lot of it.

Armories built with stone because there is a lot of it around where they built the armories.

Don't forget all the state parks and lodges that were built by the CCC. (Civilian Conservation Corp)

If ever driving around in the country, there are still a lot of little concrete bridges built by the WPA in the late '30s and early '40s.  There is a WPA embossed on the end of the guard rail with the date built.  Earliest I have seen around NE Ok is 1939.  Most were '40 and '41.  And they are disappearing fast.  Until just a few years ago, there was one at 81st just west of 145th in BA.  Torn out when they widened the street.

There's a small Portland cement bridge on Broadway west of Main in Owasso.  It dead ends at the railroad yard, but I suspect it once went further west to connect onto 76th Street.  Jim Ross wrote that Portland cement was used for sections of roadway on Route 66, as well as curbing and bridges.  There are still some PC bridges along 66 between Claremore and Catoosa in the westbound lanes.  That's the original roadway before it was widened to 4 lanes.  I really like Ross's book.

Ed, I haven't forgotten your request.  It's buried somewhere in the file cabinet.

It seems like it was mentioned in Danny Globe's Architectural/Historical Survey of Tulsa done in 90-91; I'll see if I can find it.