Deep Deuce lives
It’s wonderful to have people actually living in Deep Deuce again, and it’s good to see the city remembering its heritage, but there’s still the sensation that maybe they waited just a little too long to remember.
“Deep Deuce,” a stretch of East (now Northeast) Second Street a couple blocks east of the tracks, was for many years the center of black commerce in Oklahoma City, and as the city finally started outgrowing its years of segregation, the street fell into the usual urban desuetude. In recent years, some of the buildings that remained have been restored, which is a good thing; much of the history has been overlooked, which is not so good.
Enter local historian Doug Loudenback, who has assembled what he calls The Ultimate Deep Deuce Collection, a title which isn’t even slightly overstated: it’s the single largest Web archive of Deep Deuce history ever assembled, with over thirty articles, accompanied by dozens of clippings and pictures and maps. (And to the extent that anything I’ve posted about the area conflicts with anything he’s put up, believe him first.) Formerly an “amateur” historian, Loudenback published his first book, a history of the much-missed Springlake Amusement Park, last year; I wouldn’t be surprised to see him turning this collection into his, um, Second.
Doug Loudenback »
24 April 2009 · 9:11 pm
What a day! Praise by two of my heroes, Steve Lackmeyer & you, Chaz! I’ve got a smile on my face now (in what has otherwise been a fairly crappy day)! I’m very pleased that you liked the stuff and I thank you again.