Tulsa may rename landmarks that honor Klan member

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — When Wyatt Tate Brady arrived here in 1890, Tulsa was just a spit of a town — an untidy tangle of dirt streets and a handful of tents occupied by white men seeking their fortune in uncharted Indian lands.

A shoe salesman by trade, the brash and ambitious Missourian saw an opportunity and seized it. He opened a general store, followed by a hotel — the first with baths.

By the time Oklahoma became a state in 1907, Brady was a celebrated city father. He signed Tulsa's incorporation papers, started a newspaper and chartered a train filled with boosters, including humorist Will Rogers, to promote the new boomtown to people in the East.

But a lesser-known side of Brady has become the focus of debate in his adopted hometown nearly 90 years after his death. The son of a Confederate veteran, Brady was a member of the local Ku Klux Klan. And new questions have emerged about his involvement in the most notorious event in Tulsa history, a 1921 race riot that left 300 black residents dead.

The issue is especially sensitive because Brady's name is all over town — on a street, a mansion, a theater and a historic neighborhood. It's also the name of the city's most ambitious development effort in a generation — a glitzy downtown entertainment district.


http://bigstory.ap.org/article/tulsa-may-rename-landmarks-honor-klan-member