Take a road trip to Bartlesville for prairie skyscraper, history, nature
When the H.C. Price Co. moved into its newly erected corporate headquarters in downtown Bartlesville 60 years ago, Frank Lloyd Wright called the 19-story tower “the tree that escaped the crowded forest.”
The building was based on a design the architect originally conceived for a project in New York City, where it would have stood among many Manhattan skyscrapers. Here on the Oklahoma prairie it was the tallest building in town in 1956 and able “to cast its own shadow upon its own piece of land.”
In fact, Wright designed the 221-foot-tall tower like a tree: the trunk is concrete and steel, the branches – 19 cantilevered floors – taper upward with top floors becoming narrower, and the leaves are the exterior’s sun louvers and copper panels turned green with a chemical application.
Six decades later, “the tree that escaped the crowded forest” is no longer the tallest building in Bville but it is still the most interesting. Rather than the offices of an oil pipeline and chemical firm, Price Tower is now open to the public to explore as a museum, boutique hotel, restaurant and arts center, where a traveling exhibit toured by the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center of Santa Rosa, Calif., is on display through Oct. 9.
“‘Peanuts…Naturally’ is a show that focuses on various elements in nature and how to protect our natural world,” said Deshane Atkins-Williams, Price Tower curator. “It makes sense for Price Tower to be a venue for this particular exhibition, as Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture is known as organic architecture. Wright would often apply natural elements from nature and implement them into his concepts. Both Charles Schulz and Frank Lloyd Wright were advocates of protecting and respecting nature.”
“Peanuts…Naturally” showcases Schulz’s environmentally themed “Peanuts” comic strip panels paired with memorabilia and interactive stations with themes like weather, astronomy, animals, plants and trees. The exhibit appeals to all ages and is included with general gallery admission, $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and free for ages 17 and younger.
The permanent exhibits in the Price Tower Arts Center galleries focus on architecture, design and art and are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. The galleries include pieces by Wright and Oklahoma architect Bruce Goff, along with modern and contemporary art, works on paper, furniture, textiles and design.
Price Tower is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is one of the American Institute of Architects’ 17 most significant examples of Wright’s architecture. There are many ways to explore Wright’s tallest built project and one of his two vertical structures: take a guided tour, have dinner or drinks in the restaurant or spend the night.
Guided historic tours
The daily guided tours of Price Tower explore the interior and exterior of the building and offer a glimpse into the mind of the renowned and eccentric architect. The highlight of the tour is the elevator ride to 1956: Floors 17 to 19 have been restored to their 1956 appearance and include a corporate apartment, the company’s conference room and the penthouse executive office of H.C. Price and his assistant, all fully furnished with Wright’s mid-century modern interiors.
Tours last about an hour and are offered at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Cost is $15 adults, $12 seniors and $10 ages 18 and under (not recommended for children under 5) and includes gallery admission. Tours are limited to eight, so reservations are recommended. Call 918-336-4949.
Inn at Price Tower
The Inn at Price Tower has 19 rooms, including some two-story suites, on seven of the tower’s top floors. Rooms feature interiors designed in 2003 by New York architect Wendy Evans Joseph. Amenities and furnishings are contemporary and blend with Wright’s distinctive aesthetic to create a high-design, boutique feel. Rooms have refrigerators and heated bathroom floors; because of the triangular shape of the rooms, some bathroom spaces are small. Rates are $135-$245 and include continental breakfast, a historic tower tour and access to the Arts Center galleries.
Copper Restaurant + Bar
Even if you don’t stay at the Inn at Price Tower or take the historic tour, you can still see Frank Lloyd Wright’s interior design: Copper Restaurant + Bar is on the tower’s 15th floor and open to the public for lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday. The two-story glassed space offers views of the city and surrounding prairie and has outdoor seating. It has an upscale pub menu and a full bar, including specialty cocktails like the midnight oil or copper sunset. Check hours before you go by calling 918-336-1000.
Other Bartlesville attractions
A trip to Bartlesville is not complete without visiting a few of the attractions affiliated with the Phillips family and the oil industry.
Sooner Park Play Tower was commissioned in 1963 by the wife of H.C. Price as a gift for the city’s new park. The 50-foot tower, one of architect Bruce Goff’s few public works of sculpture, has an enclosed spiral staircase that takes visitors up to a steel mesh sphere at the top. Deterioration closed the tower for several decades before it was restored in late 2014.
Johnstone Park is named after the Nellie Johnstone No. 1, Oklahoma’s first commercial oil well. It was discovered in 1897 on the site where a working replica of a derrick and cable tool rig sit today. The rig and static displays are open year-round; call 918-333-8062 to arrange a free docent-led tour and demonstration using water March through November. Johnstone Park is also home to Kiddie Park for ages 12 and under. Nearly 20 rides, including a train, carousel, Ferris wheel and bumper cars, are 50 cents each. They are open in the evenings, from May through the last Saturday in August, and only cash is accepted.
The discovery of oil attracted the railway to Bartlesville and an oil boom ensued. The city’s visitors center is inside the 1909 Southwest-style train depot. Outside on a display track, visitors can climb in the crew cab, ring the bell and blow the whistle of locomotive No. 940, the only survivor of 332 steam locomotives like it built for the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. A group of local citizens restored it to its 1903 condition and it sits alongside Santa Fe caboose No. 2259, restored to its 1948 as-built interior and exterior, and a restored 1914 Flying A oil tank car.
During the oil boom, brothers Frank and L.E. Phillips made their way to the area and, according to legend, hit 81 straight gushers. The company they formed in 1917, Phillips Petroleum Co., became the city’s largest employer and one of the country’s top oil companies. Phillips-related attractions include the Phillips Petroleum Company Museum; the Frank Phillips Home, a 26-room neoclassical mansion built in 1909; and Woolaroc Ranch, Museum and Wildlife Preserve, the 3,700-acre country estate of Frank Phillips.
Frank Phillips created the name Woolaroc by combining the words for what makes up the property: woods, lakes and rocks. A 2-mile drive through a preserve with free-roaming bison, elk, longhorn cattle and other wildlife takes visitors to the estate’s main grounds, where there’s a welcome center, a 1927 lodge whose great room is open to tour and a museum with a massive collection of Native American and Western fine art and artifacts, and even the Woolaroc Travel Air 5000 monoplane built in Wichita and winner of the 1927 Dole Air Race.
Earlier this year, the museum opened a new exhibit that re-creates Phillips’ office in New York City, complete with original furniture and desk accessories. There’s also a new gun exhibit to showcase Woolaroc’s extensive collection of Colt firearms, including several of the first revolving cylinder repeating weapons made in the U.S. From July 1 through Sept. 5, Woolaroc is hosting an exhibit of miniature paintings by Wes and Rachelle Siegrist.
There’s also a petting barn and walking trails at Woolaroc, which is open year-round with summer hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is $12, $10 for seniors and free for ages 11 and under.
This story was originally published July 15, 2016 at 1:27 PM with the headline "Take a road trip to Bartlesville for prairie skyscraper, history, nature."