Oklahoma 'ghost town' still alive and kicking

BY MICHAEL OVERALL World Staff Writer
Monday, January 29, 2007
8/20/08 at 7:32 AM

Read other stories in the series: A funereal existence :: Last real Coyote hunter :: Big-City Cuisine in Small-Town America :: Reaping what we sow :: Prairie family persevered :: 'Not much left' of town except strong local pride :: ‘We’re all characters around here’ :: Hominy warms to Mexican cuisine :: Remnant of boom days :: Cut from the same cloth

Editor's Note: During 2007 -- Oklahoma's centennial year -- Tulsa World staff writer Michael Overall is traveling the state, writing about uniquely Oklahoma personalities.

In Oklahoma, you can gauge the size of a town by the McDonald's. If it has a playground, that's a big town.

My sister and I, we grew up in Ponca City, which ranks as a medium-size town because it has a McDonald's, but a McDonald's without a playground.

At least it was better than a small town like Tonkawa or Newkirk, where kids subsisted without Happy Meals.

I don't know where to rank a place like Kendrick.

On the one hand, it has a McDonald's playground. On the other hand, it doesn't actually have a McDonald's.

Obviously, as a kid, I would've been rather confused by Kendrick. As an adult, I'm completely baffled.

It's a ghost town where people still live. On a road that my state map doesn't show. With a gigantic Mayor McCheese in a park 30 miles from the nearest drive-through window.

'Nice, quiet people': Somewhere between Stroud and Davenport, old Route 66 goes past a small sign advertising the "historic B&B" general store. The arrow points down a winding country road that crosses a rusty metal-frame bridge.

My sister was driving to Norman for a football game, and never mind how we got sidetracked to the B&B. It's a long story.

The store seemed destined for a wrecking ball until Dorothy Stewart decided to renovate it after she moved here from California -- and that's a long story, too.

Let's just say she wanted to find a quiet place to raise her kids, and you can't find anywhere quieter than Kendrick. The last census counted 125 people here and, according to ghosttowns.com, "only remnants of a town remain."

Hanging on a wall near the B&B's cash register, a 100-year-old black-and-white photo shows Main Street with horse-drawn wagons parked in front of wooden storefronts. In the background stands just one brick facade, so new the scaffolding is still up.

"I'm pretty sure that's my store," Stewart says. "There's been a general store here ever since."

You can buy a ham sandwich, a camouflage hunting cap, a quart of oil and four kinds of corn bread mix all in one trip. And if Stewart doesn't call you by your first name, it's because you haven't been here before.

When she came to town in 1980, the B & B had a water pump out back, but no running water inside. The stockroom still had old boxes of dynamite, and the previous owner bragged about being the last store in Oklahoma to sell it over the counter.

Back then, most homes in Kendrick used septic tanks, and a lot of them were leaking.

"People used to come to the town meetings just to complain about the smell from the neighbor's yard," says Stewart, who was elected to the town council and then spent several years as the mayor.

At one meeting, somebody suggested they apply for a grant to build a proper sewer system.

"But I had never done anything like that," Stewart says. "I didn't know how to apply for a grant. I didn't know what I was doing and I was scared."

Of course, being afraid never kept her from doing anything.

She was afraid to move to Oklahoma. Afraid to renovate a historic building by herself. Afraid to run a general store in a town where the nearest gas station is 20 minutes away.

"Everybody was supportive. Nobody was negative," she said. "What I like about Oklahoma -- maybe it's different in the cities, but in a small town like this -- everybody is friendly. Oklahoma is full of nice, quiet people."

'Off the list': Never underestimate nice, quiet people. Being quiet can hide a calm determination to let nothing stand in your way.

Kendrick was a nice little town that was quietly fading away until a nice, quiet shopkeeper decided to get her fair share.

She kept filling out paperwork until the government ran out of red tape. Kept calling politicians until they called back. Kept asking questions until she found answers.

"The way to get things done," she says, "is to never give up."

The first federal grant paid for a state-of-the-art sewer treatment plant, and the next grant connected Kendrick to Stroud's city water system.

Another grant built a community center across the street from the B&B. And grant money also built Kendrick's first public park, with slightly used playground equipment from McDonald's.

With the improvements, the population stopped declining and a few young families have even moved into the area, bringing fresh business to the B&B.

Officially, Stewart is retired now, having sold the store two months ago to local investors. But most of the time, she still hangs out near the old sandwich counter, still making big plans for her small town.

"I know about that Web site that calls us a ghost town," she says. "We need to find them and tell them to take us off the list."

Michael Overall 581-8383
michael.overall@tulsaworld.com

Associated Images:

Whether it’s a sewer system or a playground, if you want to get anything done in Kendrick, it pays to go through Dorothy Stewart. The general store she renovated, and recently sold, houses many memories of Kendrick, such as the sports trophies above, which have no other home with the school now closed.

Dorothy Stewart wanted to find a quiet place to raise her kids when she moved from California. She found it in the Lincoln County town of Kendrick, where the most recent census counted 125 people.