Oklahoma Surprise: Visiting Tulsa

Tulsa, Okla., is known for its art deco and history as an oil town. Henry Ninde

I am sitting on the front porch of a shotgun shack staring out at an ominous darkness on the horizon. A black blizzard grows and draws nearer, swallowing up the sparse plant life of the open range, erasing a truck until it begins to engulf me as the low whisper of wind rises to a roar. I turn my head and I can see that the entire yard is fading into a swirl of dust and that the house behind me is being battered as well. This is the Dust Bowl. Although it’s almost a century in the past, a virtual reality headset brings it to life with wicked effectiveness. Welcome to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Tulsa lies along the famous Route 66, the iconic American road from Chicago to Los Angeles. This road, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2026, was the site of many road trips before President Dwight Eisenhower’s highway system was built. Back during the Dust Bowl it was the “Mother Road,” a term John Steinbeck coined in his classic book “The Grapes of Wrath.” The environmental disaster that ruined farms and the farmers who owned them left folks scrambling west for work in California. These days are gone but not forgotten.

One of the figures of the time was an Oklahoman songwriter and voice of the working man, Woody Guthrie. If you ever sang “This Land Is Your Land,” you are familiar with his work. A colorful character, he followed the Okies west himself. Today, a towering mural of Guthrie and his guitar marks the side of the brick Woody Guthrie Center in the heart of Tulsa.

Woody Guthrie, commemorated by the Woody Guthrie Center, wrote more than 1,000 songs over his career. Many chronicled migration, labor struggles, and everyday American life during the Depression era. Courtesy of the Woody Guthrie Center

The Dust Bowl virtual reality experience sets the tone for Guthrie’s formative years of struggle, extreme poverty, and family tragedy—his mother was institutionalized and his sister died in a fire. At 14, he was already working odd jobs. The exhibits follow him to California with the Okies, then on to New York City, where his folk music brought him notoriety. Among the exhibits are his instruments plus a vast collection of personal history, letters, artifacts, and photos. Start your visit with a 15-minute biographical film featuring recordings of his songs.

“I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world, and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work,” he said.

The Folk Singer Next Door

But he isn’t the only folk troubadour in town. Right next door is the Bob Dylan Center. Wait, what? The legendary genius, a Minnesota native who has lived in Greenwich Village and Woodstock, New York, and now has a home in Malibu, California, has his dedicated space in Tulsa—and for good reasons.

Fans knew—and many of us perhaps learned from seeing the biopic “A Complete Unknown”—that Dylan greatly admired Guthrie. For years, Dylan frequently visited and sang to him when he became institutionalized—for what was mistaken at first for schizophrenia or alcoholism but later understood to be Huntington’s disease. Additionally, the Dylan archives and collection were acquired in 2016 by the George Kaiser Family Foundation founded by the namesake billionaire George Kaiser, a Tulsa native and one of the biggest philanthropists in the United States. Finally, its location in the American heartland compelled Dylan’s blessing; he had visited the Guthrie Center, and the quality and care of the collection impressed him.

The Bob Dylan Center houses many of the singer's notebooks, recordings, films, and personal correspondence. Courtesy of Bob Dylan Center

Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan first became fascinated by Woody Guthrie's musical style when he attended the University of Minnesota. Courtesy Visit Tulsa

In the first salon lies a scattering of boxes to sit upon as you watch a Dylan video montage projected on the walls that includes excerpts from two Martin Scorsese documentaries. Interviews and documentary footage appear in varying scales—full floor-to-ceiling shots, smaller images and fragments of them adjacent or overlapping. A large metal musical staff bends out from the wall, with flowing pages of sheet music like a jet stream of song curling out into space.

In those few minutes I felt that I understood Dylan more than I had my entire life. All the other articles I’d seen about getting to the root of who he is or taking his life apart like some sort of dissection seemed misdirected. A quote on the wall in the lobby, tantalizingly simple, seemed to say it best: “Life isn’t about finding yourself or finding anything. Life is about creating yourself and creating things.”

The rest of the exhibition spaces were chock-full of artifacts, interviews, album covers, photos, instruments, notebook pages filled with lyrics and ideas in his tiny scrawl, fan mail, and a virtual jukebox of his songs. In a small theater I watched his performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when he shocked fans—for better and for worse—by coming on stage with an electric guitar to mark a new direction in his music.

At times he seems bemused or even annoyed at fame. No one would tell him what to do, what to play, or when to play it. He believes in forward motion. Even now, he paints and creates metalwork art. Although he’s in his mid-80s, he still tours, mostly playing his most recent works. If he does repeat an old song, it’s typically reworked. Although fans and critics obsess over explaining who he is, I’d say that the Bob Dylan Center’s presentation went pretty far in helping a person understand. I came Dylan-curious; I left a fan.

Hard History

More history awaits down the street a bit, but a dark page of it. The Greenwood Rising Black Wall Street History Center is aptly named to honor and celebrate “Black Wall Street,” which once thrived in the Greenwood district right outside the center’s doors and was reborn years later. But central to the story is the 1921 race riot also known as the Tulsa Race Massacre. At the center, I sat in a barber’s chair before a mirror across the wall, where a virtual barber appeared to cut my hair in the reflection as he chatted with two coworkers, a conversation that painted the picture of a successful community but with a sense of foreboding.

Beyond that barber shop are the details of a two-day riot that saw the destruction of 35 square blocks of an affluent black neighborhood. Estimates of the death toll range from 30 to 300 neighborhood residents. Although the center presents an unflinching look at the infamous racially driven event, it also chronicles the community’s successful rise and its rebirth from the ashes. Three blocks away, a city street has been named Reconciliation Way. There is a memorial city park, as well as the Greenwood Cultural Center.

Still Cool in August

Gathering Place spans more than 60 acres and is dedicated not only to nature, but also to education and fun. Courtesy of Visit Tulsa

What I didn’t expect in Tulsa was a lush oasis along the banks of the Arkansas River, belying the city’s dusty past. This is Gathering Place, another George Kaiser Family Foundation project. This 66 1/2-acre riverfront park features walking paths, multiple gardens, thousands of trees, wooden decks and terraces, ponds, a skate park, and the Discovery Lab of 57,000 square feet, a hands-on-learning children’s museum dedicated to science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. Kaiser has a great interest in making opportunities for young people.

“No child is responsible for the circumstances of his or her birth,” he has said.

At the other end of the park is Williams Lodge, a lovely air-conditioned pavilion with floors of Wildhorse Swirl stone—a rare regional sandstone—ridged wood ceilings, and a wall of glass offering panoramic park views. Visitors lounge on abundant eccentric chairs and benches or refresh themselves with a bit of ice cream, candy, or drinks at Redbud Cafe. The lodge won an American Architecture Award in 2025.

Free activities include scavenger hunts and self-guided horticulture tours. The park even has cherry blossom viewings in spring. The three-story ONEOK Boathouse, with its open-air rooftop pavilion, rises 35 feet above Peggy’s Pond. You can make use of kayaks, canoes, or pedal boats for free or go inside for a restaurant and a museum of curiosities—a display of antiques, oddities, books, and collectibles, with drawers full of surprises.

More Kicks on Route 66

There are so many other surprises. Visit the Route 66 Historical Village, a free open-air museum where volunteers will chat with you about the train depot. It features a Frisco 4500 Meteor steam locomotive, 145-foot oil derrick, a recreation of an old gas station, and more. You’ll find plenty of photo ops with Route 66 signage. Route 66 is celebrating its centennial in 2026.

Roadside services became cultural landmarks during Route 66's golden age. Henry Ninde

Fans of “The Outsiders” can drive past the bungalow where Francis Ford Coppola shot the film adaptation of the book in 1982. The Curtis Brothers House where the Greasers lived is now a museum. Danny Boy O’Connor, founding member of House of Pain (the song “Jump Around”) is the executive director.

The Tulsa Drillers, a Double-A Minor League affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers, play in a stadium a short walk from the many museums downtown. This is also the home of FC Tulsa, a USL Championship league soccer team. And if that’s not enough American charm, get out to one of the great burger and root beer joints in town such as Brownie’s Hamburger Stand or Weber’s Superior Root Beer Drive-in, which serve versions of the state burger.