Stanley Draper

The Civic Legend Behind The Scenes

Stanley C. Draper., Sr., was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1957. Courtesy Oklahoma Hall of Fame Archives.

CHILDHOOD

Long before becoming Oklahoma City's most renowned and pragmatic urban planner, Stanley Carlisle Draper came from humble, rural beginnings. He was one of nine children born to Chesley Winfield and Cornelia Rosetta "Rose" Draper on a farm near the small village of Lasker in Northampton County, North Carolina, on November 21, 1889. Draper and his eight siblings routinely assisted their parents on the family farm, working long hours clearing pine trees and underbrush, and planting corn, potatoes, cotton and peanuts. The land around the Draper family farm was known as Dismal Swamp country, as much of the land in the region was inhospitable. As a result, the nearby community of Lasker had a population of less than two hundred people.

EDUCATION

The years Draper spent growing up in these relatively quiet surroundings stood in stark contrast to the noisy life he would later lead in Oklahoma City. Farming was not the career Draper had in mind for himself when he came of age. By the time he was nineteen years old, he had moved out of the family home, earning a teacher's certificate and working at a school in Virginia. He enrolled at the Shenandoah Collegiate Institute and School of Music in Dayton in the fall semester of 1910, earning a bachelor's degree in 1915. 

MILITARY SERVICE

Draper went on to pursue a master's degree at the University of Chicago, but when the U.S. entered the First World War in 1917, he put his studies on hold and enlisted in the U.S. Army. Following his honorable discharge from service in March 1919, Draper resumed his graduate studies at the University of Chicago, but soon dropped out. He briefly returned to teaching at a rural school in Illinois, lodging with the family of fellow officer John D. Brown, whom he had earlier befriended in the military. 

A NEW OPPORTUNITY

Brown eventually took a job as a city development researcher in Oklahoma City, and it was through him that Draper first learned that the city's Chamber of Commerce had been looking to hire a new membership secretary. Having reached out to the Chamber through telegram, he was soon delighted, if not a little surprised, to hear such good news from the Chamber so quickly. The job was his.

Oklahoma City's Huckins Hotel, located at 1626 N. Broadway Avenue, was the site of many Chamber luncheons which resulted in businesses forming in or relocating to the capital city. The hotel was torn down in 1971 as part of the Pei Plan, a series of major urban renewal projects that took place in downtown Oklahoma City during the 1960s and 1970s. Photo by Meyers Photo Shop. October 1957. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

DRAPER JOINS THE OKLAHOMA CITY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

On August 19, 1919, 29-year-old Draper arrived in Oklahoma City for the first time. He was about to begin his new job as membership secretary of the city's Chamber of Commerce, then called the Board of Trade. Draper was placed in charge of organizing and hosting luncheons with business and civic leaders to build membership in the Chamber, secure funding, and create collaborative development opportunities, but quickly learned that the Chamber's lack of a dining room made this task difficult. With assistance from hotel owner Joe Huckins, Draper secured a new dining room and began organizing luncheons weekly. Draper proved an impressive host at these events, establishing many important business connections and dramatically improving the Chamber's influence. After enticing the Taggart Bakery Company to come to the city in 1920, he went on to bring in fifty more new businesses in 1921 and 1922. In the year 1928 alone, he brought in 330 companies.

Draper led other successful efforts in his early Chamber years, most notable of which was renaming the city. Before 1923, it had still been known as "Oklahoma Station." After initiating a petition and acquiring 25,000 signatures, Draper convinced the state and city officials to change the name to "Oklahoma City." He then pressured federal officials until they agreed to do the same on the city's official postmark. 

The original terminal building at Oklahoma City's first municipal airport, later renamed Will Rogers World Airport, when the structure first opened to the public in 1932. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

WILL ROGERS WORLD AIRPORT

From his days of military service in World War I, Draper had a keen interest in aviation. When Oklahoma City got its first air mail service in 1926, he initiated an effort to establish a city-owned airline. Forming a Chamber Aviation Committee composed of veteran war pilots, Draper convinced city officials to lease part of a city park to the Chamber. Soon Oklahoma City's first passenger service, which grew to become Braniff International Airways, was established at the park, carrying passengers to and from Tulsa. An airline industry was thus born in the city, and as more airlines were established, Draper realized they would soon need a public airport. In 1930, he began a public relations campaign for an airport terminal in Oklahoma City and secured a 640-acre tract of land southwest of downtown, where the city's first airfield was built in 1911. In 1932 a terminal was built there and it began its operations that year. More facilities were subsequently built and expanded, and in 1941 the whole site officially became known as Will Rogers World Airport.

Stanley Draper, left, and Dudley C. Sharp at the dedication of the Tinker Air Force Base Hospital on January 23, 1960. Courtesy Oklahoma Hall of Fame Archives Tinker Air Force Collection.

MIDWEST AIR DEPOT

Of all the civic developments in which Draper played a key part, perhaps none were more indicative of his hard work ethic and sheer determination than the development of the air depot that Oklahomans know today as Tinker Air Force Base. 

U.S. PLANS NEW AIR BASE

In the late 1930s, U.S. Army Air Corps officials began discussions on establishing a new air depot in the Midwest to serve as a manufacturing site and point of service for military aircraft traveling to and from the east and west coasts. Oklahoma City was just one of a number of other cities considered, but Draper was determined to make it the next location. He knew that having such a site would create thousands of jobs for Oklahomans still recovering from the Great Depression. 

DRAPER FORMS INDUSTRIES FOUNDATION

Draper teamed up with fellow Oklahoma civic leaders Edward K. Gaylord (inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1930), Wilbur E. Hightower, Tom Braniff, Frank Buttram (inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1940), and other Chamber associates to organize the Industries Foundation, replete with $300,000 to spend on sites for future war industry facilities. The foundation acquired 960 acres of land, which was offered to the U.S. government at no cost. The War Department officially selected the site on April 8, 1941. A $928,000 bond issue was voted in by local citizens later that month and the ground-breaking ceremony for the depot's airfield took place on July 30, 1941. 

NEARBY DOUGLAS AIRCRAFT PLANT MERGES WITH AIR DEPOT

After the airfield was officially activated by the War Department on March 1, 1942, the privately-owned Douglas Aircraft Plant was built east of the runway. By 1943, roughly 13,000 Oklahomans were employed at the air depot, while another 23,000 worked at Douglas Aircraft. By the conclusion of World War II, Douglas Aircraft had discontinued its operations and on November 18, 1945, was absorbed by the air depot to form Tinker Field. After the formation of the U.S. Air Force in 1947, Tinker Field was officially renamed Tinker Air Force Base on January 13, 1948. 

Lake Hefner boat docks under construction in May 1947, roughly two years after the lake was completed and dedicated. Photo by Meyers Photo Shop. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

LAKE HEFNER

At roughly the same time that he had been at work securing an air depot for Oklahoma City, Draper was leading another effort to provide a new water supply for the city's expanding population. With the important political and financial backing of City Mayor Robert A. Hefner and Coca-Cola Bottling Plant Owner Virgil Browne, Draper began a campaign in 1939 to secure public support for a bond issue to fund construction of a new reservoir. His efforts soon paid off. In February of the following year, citizens voted in a $6,911,000 bond issue, and a large section of land northwest of Oklahoma City was subsequently purchased. Construction began almost immediately, and by 1944 the new Bluff Creek Reservoir was finally completed. In honor of the Oklahoma City mayor, the reservoir was renamed Lake Hefner the following year.

The Federal Aviation Administration named its Aeronautical Center in honor of Mike Monroney in 1958. Photo by Bob Newkirk. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

CIVIL AERONAUTICS ADMINISTRATION CENTER

In 1942, Draper began a campaign to relocate the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) Standardization Center to Oklahoma City through correspondence to Bennett Griffin, who had originally established the center in Houston, Texas. Griffin accepted the idea but was called to military service that year. In late 1945, Draper and Fred Jones (inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1965), the Oklahoma City Aviation Committee Chair, convinced the Houston center's then acting director, L.E. Shedenhelm, to move the center to Will Rogers Field located next to Will Rogers World Airport. Development of the new center began in March 1946, and in a few weeks its newly constructed CAA academy building began holding its first classes. Over the following decades, the center would go on to add several new buildings to its location, including the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, which was built in 1958 and named in honor of Oklahoma Senator Mike Monroney (inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1961) who wrote the Federal Aviation Act establishing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The entire site has since been known as the FAA and is today one of Oklahoma City's ten largest employers, housing over 6,300 Federal employees, contractors and students.

The National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Museum in Oklahoma City. Photo by Clayton E. Soule. Ca. 1955-70. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

COWBOY HALL OF FAME

In the 1950s Draper was determined to make Oklahoma City a Western cultural center and helped establish what is today the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, formerly the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center. Built in 1955, today the museum is home to over two-thousand works of art and is considered one of the nation's premier centers of Western art, culture and history. 

Stanley Draper, right, and Oklahoma City Mayor George Shirk at the dedication of Stanley Draper Lake. Photo by Bob Heaton. 1964. Courtesy Oklahoma Hall of Fame Archives.

STANLEY DRAPER LAKE

By the early 1960s, Oklahoma City was again in need of a new water supply. Continued population growth, the development of new industries and public institutions, and recurring droughts in the prior decade had all played a considerable part in the city's increasing water demand. Draper initiated a campaign to promote the development of a new reservoir and pipeline south of Tinker Air Force Base. His efforts proved successful and in 1961 development of the new lake began. Two years later construction of the reservoir, along with six pump stations, a water treatment plant, and a 100-mile pipeline connecting the new water supply to Lake Atoka, was complete. In 1964 the reservoir was dedicated as Stanley Draper Lake.

The newly-opened Stanley Draper Expressway. Photo by Russ Crowder. January 8, 1966. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

STANLEY DRAPER EXPRESSWAY

Since his early Chamber days, Draper had been a major advocate of improving Oklahoma City roads and highways. As the city grew, its streets faced increasing traffic congestion, and motorists were further held up by the old railroad tracks that still ran through the center of the city. With the help of Draper and the Chamber, a crosstown skyway in downtown Oklahoma City was proposed in the early 1960s. On January 8, 1966, a section of the highway was completed and named Stanley Draper Expressway. Additional sections continued to be added to the highway over the following years. Today the Draper Expressway is no longer in use as a result of the amount of daily traffic exceeding its 76,000-vehicle limit by the early 2000s. Virtually all of the old Crosstown Expressway has been deconstructed as well, and since February 17, 2012, a new highway has been in use roughly five blocks south of the original location. Oklahoma City Boulevard now runs where the old Draper Expressway existed.

Stanley Draper at the Anthony Oklahoma Heritage Gardens outside the Oklahoma Heritage Center, formerly known as the Hefner family mansion. Ca. 1974. Courtesy Oklahoma Hall of Fame Archives.

OKLAHOMA HERITAGE ASSOCIATION

Following his retirement from the Chamber in 1968, Draper began working as an unsalaried volunteer for the Oklahoma Memorial Association. After helping secure the donation of the Robert A. Hefner Mansion to the organization in 1970, Draper began a fund-raising campaign to restore the building to its former glory and install what became the Anthony Oklahoma Heritage Gardens on its grounds. By 1972, renovations were complete, the organization made the building its new headquarters, and renamed it the Oklahoma Heritage Center. By that year, Draper had also become vice president of the organization, which was renamed the Oklahoma Heritage Association. As he had earlier done with the Chamber, in his new position he personally took charge of virtually all aspects of the OHA's operations. Most significant were the changes he made to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which he shortened considerably to make it less drawn-out and give it more of an Oklahoma flavor. The annual ceremony continues in its "Draperised" fashion today. Draper remained devoted to the OHA and its activities until his death.

Stanley Draper at the unveiling of his statue at Bicentennial Park in Oklahoma City. January 1975. Courtesy Oklahoma Historical Society.

STANLEY DRAPER MEMORIAL

When Draper passed away from heart failure on January 8, 1976, Oklahoma City lost one of the most profound urban planners of the twentieth-century. A statue of Draper by Leonard McMurry (inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1981) was dedicated in 1974 and installed in the city's Bicentennial Park, located between Oklahoma City Hall and the Civic Center Music Hall. Draper's tireless efforts in city development helped transform Oklahoma City into the sprawling metropolis it is today.

*Not all Oklahoma Hall of Fame images depicted in this Virtual Exhibit Page are accessible online. You may view them in person by making an Archive appointment with Olivia Reyes in the Museum Services department at 405-523-3205 or or@oklahomahof.com.