By William D. Welge, Arcadia Publishing, 2007, in print.
Review: Mr. Welge’s book is a welcome addition to the various Images of America series of books which focuses on Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City Rediscovered focuses on downtown Broadway, particularly “Automobile Alley,” Capitol Hill, Deep Deuce, and the “Warehouse District,” i.e., “Bricktown” in today’s vocabulary.
I consider the element which makes this book particularly unique is its coverage of Deep Deuce and Bricktown, covered in more depth than any other publication I’ve seen, and its coverage of Capitol Hill isn’t far behind.
Only one area gives me some pause: on quick review, I’ve noticed a few obvious errors which should have been picked up before publication. Some are harmless, e.g., using “capital” when used in the context of the state’s “capitol” city (as did Lucyl Shirk’s book even in her book’s title!) but some are not. For example, on page 18 a very nice aerial photo of the warehouse district says that the picture was taken “around 1913” which is not possible since it also shows a 3-wing Skirvin Hotel in the lower right corner, each with 14 stories — the 3rd (east) wing of the Skirvin wasn’t added until around 1925 and the other wings’ elevation to 14 floors didn’t occur until 1930. The image also shows the Calvary Baptist Church which was constructed in 1921.Whether this mistake was a careless proofreading error (1913 instead of 1930) or some other kind of mistake doesn’t matter — things such as that give reason for pause in accepting text as “factual” when it is not.
Notwithstanding, the author is very well credentialed and the research put into the book, particularly as concerns Capitol Hill, Deep Deuce, and the Warehouse District, is obviously extensive and impressive. In this book you will find more images of Deep Deuce (which were apparently not always easy to obtain) than in any other book and they are a treasure to have.
– Doug Loudenback, www.dougdawg.blogspot.com
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