With over 411,000 people in the heart of America, Tulsa is the 47th largest town in the country.
Several major highways and interstates pass through, including the iconic Route 66.
The name Tulsa was originally spelled Tulsey or Tulsee, and it’s a shortened version of a contraction of Tullahassee, which means “Old Town” in the Creek language.
An old town it is.
Tulsa’s roots can be traced to the 1820s with the removal of the Creek from their ancestral homes in Georgia and Alabama.
After arriving in 1833, the Lower Creek settled in present-day Tulsa, negotiating a treaty with the Cherokee and positioning boundaries between the two nations.
In 1882, the St. Louis and San Francisco railroad established Tulsa as a city.
Tulsa’s first school opened in 1884.
Oklahoma Historical Society
At its incorporation on Jan. 18, 1898, Tulsa had churches, hotels, an ice plant, a Masonic lodge, and its first bank.
The oil boom helped erupt Tulsa into the town we see today, with unique art deco and nearly 100 homes, buildings and historic districts listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1919, four small rural districts consolidated to form Union Public Schools, and classes were held in a wood-frame building.
Oklahoma Historical Society
The first building built by Union was a two-story brick building in 1921. The building housed all K-12 students until the district’s first elementary school, Briarglen, was built in 1970.
The Union High School, seen now near 71st and Mingo, was built in 1972 and has undergone several renovations since, including the construction of the Union Collegiate Academy in 2012 and a new football stadium with the largest high school scoreboard in the state.
KJRH
For more history about Union Public Schools, click here.
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