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Tulsa
Tulsa is a city in northeastern Oklahoma, on the Arkansas River. Tulsa is the seat of Tulsa County and is also in Osage and Rogers counties. The city is a commercial, manufacturing, and financial center and is the hub for a number of industries. Major manufactures include aerospace equipment, oil-field supplies, refined petroleum, electronic equipment, fabricated metal, and building materials. Tourism, aircraft maintenance, and data processing are also important to the city's economy. The nearby Port of Catoosa is a major inland deepwater port. It is situated at the head of navigation on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, completed in 1971, which links the Tulsa area to much of the interior of the United States via the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. The city is served by Tulsa International Airport.
Among the city's institutions of higher education are the University of Tulsa (1894), Oral Roberts University (1963), Rogers University-Tulsa (1982), and a large junior college. Points of interest include the Tulsa Zoological Park and the Robert J. LaFortune North America Living Museum, both of which are in Mohawk Park; the Thomas Gilcrease Museum, which has a large collection of Native American artifacts as well as a comprehensive collection of art of the American West; and the Philbrook Museum of Art, which has collections of Native American and Italian Renaissance art. The Gershon and Rebecca Fenster Museum of Jewish Art has one of the largest collections of Judaica, or materials relating to Judaism, in the United States. The Tulsa Performing Arts Center, opened in 1977, is the home of the Tulsa Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tulsa Ballet Theater, and the Tulsa Opera. Expo Square, the site of the annual Tulsa State Fair, houses the large Exposition Center, an amusement park, and Fair Meadows, a horse-racing facility.
Creek people from Alabama settled in this section of the Indian Territory in 1836 and called the site Tulsee Town, derived from Tullahassee, the Creek word for "old town." The name was changed to Tulsa in 1879. Non-Native American settlement of the site began around 1882 when the railroad arrived, and the city incorporated in 1898. The community developed as a transportation center. With the discovery of oil deposits in the vicinity, Red Fork in 1901 and Glenn Pool in 1905, the city's prosperity was assured.
In 1921 Tulsa was the site of one of the worst race riots in U.S. history, when two days of violence and arson directed by whites against black neighborhoods left at least 36 people dead, hundreds injured, and more than 1000 black-owned homes and businesses destroyed. On the 75th anniversary of the riot, the city's spirit of reconciliation was signaled by the dedication of a black granite memorial in Greenwood, the neighborhood worst affected by the conflict. Tulsa grew rapidly in the 1910s and 1920s and again in the 1940s, when big industries related to the U.S. effort in World War II were established. A number of large buildings, including the Civic Center and office towers, were constructed in the 1960s and 1970s.
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