Autobiography
A popular form of littrat
balltd on I.he art of sclf·dd~e.
COMIC DICTIONARY
Iv-.....d .......... (<..J '"' 1~ ~ al},e aul~ {X tJribnnt
-r., 1"-- f.tU
SECTION T 0
PACE ELEVEN
Saturday, April 17, 1965
edged to be the then smalt town's first perrmment building
to survive to this dtly.
a Jew with even longer memories knew it as the Lynch
Building. It was erected in 1894 and is generally acknowl-
3:" .... ,
-I_l-G~ t 1j
Oldest Surviving Building, Then and Now
a~
Tutsan.! with long memories recaL! this stnlcturc, at
First and Ml1in Strets, the Lyric Theater Building. But
Tulsa's
By Roger Devlin
'V"AT IS TVLS,\'S OLDEST STILL-STA."o.
ing building? Which. of aU the business
area's hundreds of "permanent" structures. has
survived the loogest--even though changed by
time?
The Rambler asked that question of the city's
property ownen and of its fast.vanishing dan of
pioneers several days ago.
Answers came in by the dozens.
Many of those ansviers were qualified heavily
v.ith "I think it .....as-.. or "I have been told."
And 5e\'cral different buildings, all dating back
to Tulsa's village days, wcre nominated,
But tbe 811Swer of tbe majorit,.-and apparently
the eorH!'c:t allSwer---sags in tired d~repitude
on the southeast corner of First and Main Streets,
Jl is a t....1rstory stone block building which
started out as the home of Tulsa's finest general
merchandise store, It later was collverted into a
theawr for vaudeville and motion picturesTulsa's
first formal theater-The Lyric.
Today the ground £loor is occupied by two
pawn shops and the dust-grimed face of a tavern,
now oot of business. The upper floors are empty
and sh~s of lin have been nailed over the
1windows, The stone walls on the First Street
side are weathered brown and stained, but a
cout of gray paint covers the Main Street face.
That building was erected In 1894, acCOrding to
Aurelia ",,.nch, daughter of Hobert E, Lynch ll'ho
put up the structure,
And the late J, M. lIal1. a pioncer merchant
himselr and authot' of a history of Tulsa, notes
in his book that Tulsa's fint two-story stone build·
ing rose ia 1894, • • •
TliE YEAR J894 WAS OS-LV It \'EARS AFTER
the "founding" of Tulsa. Tbe railroad had
reached Tulsa from Vinita only a few )"taTS
earliei'. The city's first man to wear the formal
title of "1aW)'er" did.,!'t arrive until 1~. And
the first "organized" bank didn't open for business
until that )·ear.• • * ON THE PORTICO OR MARQUEE OF TIlE
old building. pictured elsewhere on this page
as it was and as it is. a sign proudly proclaims
"R. E. L)llch. General MerchaDdise." Lynch and
his two brothers. Will and C, B., were major
factors ill the bUilding of early Tulsa.
Robert L)llch's daughter, Aurelia, Mrs. Fannie
(WilD Lynch. and Fannie's son, Herbert, of
Bartlesville. provided the uncient picture believed
laken in 1895. and also details which help
pin down the builrJing's claim to the "oldest"
title.
U was constructed of hand.cut. stone hauled
from a surface quarry near Dawson. The walls
are nearly two feet thick. And it not only was
the first "pennanen'" type building in a villagc
then made up almost entirely of lightl)··built
wooden stores and sheds raised above the dirt
and mud on rock piers, but it was by far the
largest.
It had replaced a frame building whieh had
housed an earlier Lynch general merchandise
store. And its grandeur-for that daY--<lnd its
merchandise attracted pioneers from a wide area
of northeastern Oklahoma.
But the Lynch store's suc:cess may have ~'cd
the .....ay for its dollillfall,
"I remember," says Aurelia Lynch, "that my
fatht'r sold II. For $10,000, It seemed like a lot
0,,(..m..oaey at the limt', but my mol.bt'r was vuy
·'But my fathet' had to sell it, lie had made
the mistake of uteudizlg eredit to too maDy
people-aod too maDy 0( them didn't pay their
bUll."
THE YEAR 1894* !itA*Y *NOT BE A.....CJEI':T
history if you're thinking of Boston or Phila,
delphia or Williamsburg, but it was only fivc
years after the Indian Territory was opened for
settlement. Tulsa's first formal mayor .....ouldn·t
be eleeted for another four years. Tile first telephone
didn't arrive here wltill898.
• • *
T"~: "THEN AND NO\\''' PICTURES POSE
one small mystery. The Lynch photogmph
reveals, in a small pointed ornament atop the
section of the building at the right, the words
"Tulsa Bank, 1894."
The section next to the original Lynch building
in the "now'· photograph shows slight archi-leetural
changes from the original:-the center
windows are different and the ornament at the
top is gone ulthough the basic structure seems
unchanged and the two seelions are of the same
stone.
Bnl atop Ihe right seclion today are two slone
blocks--one on each side of the roof line--and
on those blocks are carved "18" and "98."
That section may have been remodeled, or
course.
The Lpic Theater went into the Lynch building
some years later, The entire interior of ""lIat had
been a general merchandise store was tom out.
a sloping floor for theater seats was installed and
a brick addition for a stage and "fly" for
scenery were added to the back of the building.
The Lyric survived unlil 1943.
A smaU basement in the Lynch building was
Tulsa's first "Ice Cream Parlor," and it was
operated by the late Andy Stokes, v..ho served
for many )'ears as Tulsa coonty clerk. Thal
space later was taken over by the Lyric Barber
Shop, and the F'irst Street sidewalk still shows
.....here the basement entrance once was.
Today the LJric bulldlng-or L)'ncb buildlngIs
but a weary shadow of what it was in 1894.
But it can stili look do...·n on the other old
structures in the nt'ighborhood-the Shacklc, the
!\ult, the Vandever, the Archcr, the Rostnfield
buildings-as Johnny·come-latelies,
