Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum

Oklahoma City. Capital of the state. Cowboy culture. One of the world's largest livestock markets. Active oil derricks on the capitol grounds. Home of the Amateur Softball Association of America. But we didn't see any of that.

Instead we visited the Oklahoma National Memorial and Museum, site of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

On April 19, 1995 a home-grown terrorist parked a Ryder truck full of explosives in front of the downtown Oklahoma City building and drove away in a Mercury Marquis. The 9:02 a.m. blast killed 168 people, injured another 850, decimated half of the Murrah building and damaged 300 other buildings nearby. 

Displays in the museum depicted the fact that April 19 started like an ordinary day. We saw a room set up like a small board room where the Oklahoma Water Resources Board met in neighboring building. We heard an official recording of a meeting which started at 9 a.m.  A woman introduces herself and begins to discuss an application for a ground water permit. Then boom. A huge explosion. We hear what sounds like walls and debris falling. We hear chaos and a woman is yelling at people to go out a back entrance. That woman was Cynthia Klaver, an attorney who survived (two in her building died; another 28 were injured.) She was the first witness to testify in the bomber's trial. 

Another display detailed a credit union meeting. Nine people attended. Eight disappeared in the explosion. The one person who survived had only a small tear on her dress. The remaining clothing of one of the deceased fit into a small baggie. 

It was powerful memorial about what happened April 19, 1995, and how the families and the city mourned, coped, and hopefully recovered.

Aftermath of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing. 

168 glass, metal and granite chairs -- one for each person who lost his/her life -- sit on the exact land where the Murrah Building once stood.  Each chair has the name of the person it represents etched in the glass. The chairs are placed in nine rows; one for each floor of the Murrah building. Individual chairs are on the row that corresponds with the floor number that person was on at the time of the blast. Smaller chairs represent the 19 children under the age of six who died from the blast.

Jim and Bev in shadow looking at the Field of Empty Chairs from the Memorial Overlook. The truck containing the explosives was parked near the tree you see to the right.

This American Elm tree was just yards from the blast.  It was almost chopped down to help in the recovery of evidence that hung from its branches and was embedded in its trunk. Instead it was saved and is called the Survivor Tree.

We didn't mean to turn this into the Oklahoma tragedy tour,  but Bev wanted to visit the Edmond, Oklahoma post office ... site of a 1986 shooting at the Edmond OK post Office.  I worked for the PO for 30 years, and remember the shooting so well. Fourteen people were killed, including the wife of someone I had worked with, and another six were injured. This is a memorial erected at the Edmond Post Office.