Oklahoma City: The City
Tumbleweeds no longer roll through downtown Oklahoma City, but the city center remains a quiet affair, with low-key skyscrapers and little in the way of commercial activity. The hub of activity is around the renovated warehouses of Bricktown , on Sheridan Avenue east of the Santa Fe Railroad, which has developed into a reasonable eating and nightlife center. Myriad Gardens on Sheridan Avenue, prettily landscaped with hills, gardens and waterways, gives great views across to the brick-towered downtown skyline, and on a sunny day the Crystal Bridge tropical botanical garden, in a glass tube in the middle of the park, abounds in garish exotic blooms (daily 9am-6pm; $4).A few blocks north, at 620 N Harvey Ave, where the Federal Building stood until its 1995 bombing, throngs of tourists mill somberly about the Oklahoma City National Memorial (open 24hrs; free). The site, which dominates the center of the city, includes a field of 168 empty bronze and glass chairs, and a black reflecting pool flanked by two massive gold barriers marking 9.01-9.03am - the moment of destruction. Nearby, an elm tree that continued to bloom after the blast stands as a lone sentinel. The Memorial Center Museum behind it (Mon-Sat 9am-6pm, Sun 1-6pm; $7), is also worth a visit, recounting the tragedy in gruesome detail, with TV news coverage from the day, interviews with survivors and items pulled from the wreckage, such as shredded clothing, cracked coffee mugs and twisted filing cabinets. Other sections describe the ensuing FBI investigation and McVeigh trial, and on the ground floor are tributes to the victims, and gift shop. Outside, the complex is surrounded by a chain link fence weighed down by tokens and talismans left by grief-stricken mourners.
Just northeast of downtown, a working oil well pumps crude from underneath the Capitol Building (Mon-Fri 8am-4.30pm; free), which, at the time of publication, was being fitted with a $22 million dome, slated for completion in late 2002. The Capitol Complex includes the State Museum of History (Mon-Sat 8am-5pm; free), which is expected to move in 2003 to a new building across from the Governor's Mansion. The Heritage Hills area nearby, where the cattle barons, oil millionaires and bankers used to live, is worth a visit for the Victorian-style Overholser Mansion , 405 NW 15th St (Tues-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 2-4pm; hourly tours $3), the Oklahoma Heritage Center , 201 NW 14th St (Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; $3), is not as impressive, but the Harn Homestead Museum , 313 NE 16th St (Mon-Fri 10am-4pm; $3), is worth a wander for its old barn, wagons and general pioneer spirit.
The National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Heritage Center at 1700 NE 63rd St is a real treat (June-Aug daily 8.30am-6pm; Sept-May daily 9am-5pm; $8.50). Sitting atop Persimmon Hill overlooking Route 66, it combines "high art" and popular art in one loving collection. In the works of Remington and Russell the link between Western art and Western movies is very clear. The paintings look like film stills, and titles such as Waiting for Trouble evoke the cinema's endlessly reworked myths of the West. Large exhibitions focus on contemporary Native American work, much of it colorful, bitter and subversive. John Wayne's collection is a delight for the cowboy fetishist, and the Western Performers Hall of Fame pays homage to movie cowboys and cowgirls in hilariously reverent oil paintings and memorabilia. The poignant End of the Trail sculpture, eighteen feet high, portrays an Indian slumped exhausted - or dead - over his horse. You can also venture into Prosperity Town (a mock-up of a Western town with details down to hoof marks in the road), the American Rodeo Gallery and a learning center for little buckaroos. In the garden, dotted with horse graves, corny epigraphs give the much-loved deceased beasts a fitting send-off to "Hoss Heaven."
Lincoln Park, squeezed between Martin Luther King Drive and Hwy-35, contains the Firefighter's Museum, City Zoo , and the Omniplex (ten acres of futuristic exhibits, and an aquarium and planetarium). On the northern end, the modest World of Wings Pigeon Center (Mon-Fri 10am-4pm; free) specially breeds homing pigeons for racing. You can inspect the small museum and aviary that houses racing breeds and "fancy" pigeons bred for their looks.
Oklahoma City's stockyards , on Agnew Avenue and Exchange Street, are the busiest in the world, having sold over one hundred million cattle since 1910. They're well worth a visit, though vegetarians and animal-lovers should steer clear. This is the real thing, stomping, snorting and smelly, with scrawny animals shunted in and out of tiny pens for auction. The roughnecks that spend their lives here, smoking, chatting, even sleeping, take no apparent notice of the quick-fire auctioneer, but nonetheless millions of head of cattle are bought and sold each year, and it can make for addictive entertainment. Morning sales, starting at 8am (Monday and Tuesday only), are the most intense and fizzle out by late afternoon.
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