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Medicine Park: 100-year-old playground
Tuesday, June 9--After our tour of Ft. Sill, we drove up toward the Wichita Mountains and stopped at the old, old resort village called Medicine Park. It opened on July 4, 1904, the brainchild of a developer who hoped to attract the rich and famous to this playground near the fort and the Wichita Game Preserve that was started the same year (it later became the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge.) On a hot June afternoon, nothing looks more inviting than the cold waters of the natural swimming pool ($2 per person) in Medicine Creek. The Medicine refers to the belief of the Native Americans that the mountains (one of them, Mt. Scott, is in the background) are sacred and that a visit to them confers special powers, or medicine.
As a resort, Medicine Park flourished through the 1920s, but after the Depression began to fall into disrepair. My mother's parents used to talk about spending time here in their early married life, dancing at the pavilion (now a restaurant) by the creek and enjoying themselves. By the early 1950s, my grandmother lamented that everything was "just falling down." Recently some people have started to revive and renovate some of the unique cobblestone studded cottages into small businesses and even vacation cabins. And there is a village government, fire truck, and police officer to keep law and order and make sure folks pay that daily user fee. We had left our swim suits at the hotel, so we just walked and gawked.
Norm and I sat on a stone wall in the shade and ate the lunch we had packed. Then we took a stroll down the creek, looking at buildings, people and some bird life. We think this abandoned structure was once a bath house. We know the resort was promoted as a spa. There is a large concrete oblong trough in the middle of it, and pipes leading in and out.
A one lane bridge connects the east and west sides of the village along the creek. Currently there is a fund raising drive to repair it. We didn't drive over it but saw many other vehicles do so.
The creek reminds anyone from Eastern Missouri a little bit of Johnson's shut-ins. The water tumbles along pink granite boulders that still retain some of their sharp edges although this layer of granite was lifted up by volcanic activity some 500 million years ago.
Medicine Creek appears to be fed by some natural springs as well. This part of Oklahoma is surprisingly wet, getting around 30 inches of rainfall a year, and this year has been wetter than usual.
As we walked along the creek, we were honked at by some domestic white geese standing on a rock in the middle of the stream. We saw several families of Canada geese, including some half-grown goslings. Walking downstream, we saw this pair of ducks swimming. Walking back, we found them perched on this rock, one of them already fast asleep. We should have taken a nap, too, probably, but we hopped into Gracie and headed up toward the Wildlife Refuge, with a goal of driving to the top of Mt. Scott. But that's the next story.
Tuesday, June 9--After our tour of Ft. Sill, we drove up toward the Wichita Mountains and stopped at the old, old resort village called Medicine Park. It opened on July 4, 1904, the brainchild of a developer who hoped to attract the rich and famous to this playground near the fort and the Wichita Game Preserve that was started the same year (it later became the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge.) On a hot June afternoon, nothing looks more inviting than the cold waters of the natural swimming pool ($2 per person) in Medicine Creek. The Medicine refers to the belief of the Native Americans that the mountains (one of them, Mt. Scott, is in the background) are sacred and that a visit to them confers special powers, or medicine.
As a resort, Medicine Park flourished through the 1920s, but after the Depression began to fall into disrepair. My mother's parents used to talk about spending time here in their early married life, dancing at the pavilion (now a restaurant) by the creek and enjoying themselves. By the early 1950s, my grandmother lamented that everything was "just falling down." Recently some people have started to revive and renovate some of the unique cobblestone studded cottages into small businesses and even vacation cabins. And there is a village government, fire truck, and police officer to keep law and order and make sure folks pay that daily user fee. We had left our swim suits at the hotel, so we just walked and gawked.
Norm and I sat on a stone wall in the shade and ate the lunch we had packed. Then we took a stroll down the creek, looking at buildings, people and some bird life. We think this abandoned structure was once a bath house. We know the resort was promoted as a spa. There is a large concrete oblong trough in the middle of it, and pipes leading in and out.
A one lane bridge connects the east and west sides of the village along the creek. Currently there is a fund raising drive to repair it. We didn't drive over it but saw many other vehicles do so.
The creek reminds anyone from Eastern Missouri a little bit of Johnson's shut-ins. The water tumbles along pink granite boulders that still retain some of their sharp edges although this layer of granite was lifted up by volcanic activity some 500 million years ago.
Medicine Creek appears to be fed by some natural springs as well. This part of Oklahoma is surprisingly wet, getting around 30 inches of rainfall a year, and this year has been wetter than usual.
As we walked along the creek, we were honked at by some domestic white geese standing on a rock in the middle of the stream. We saw several families of Canada geese, including some half-grown goslings. Walking downstream, we saw this pair of ducks swimming. Walking back, we found them perched on this rock, one of them already fast asleep. We should have taken a nap, too, probably, but we hopped into Gracie and headed up toward the Wildlife Refuge, with a goal of driving to the top of Mt. Scott. But that's the next story.
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