The Beginning of Tulsa
By J. M. Hall
© Karolyn Kay Garland 1997
Page # 13
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THE FIRST SCHOOL
In the summer of 1883 a man drifted into Tulsa, claiming to be a school teacher. He was dead broke but opened a school in a small shack on the south side of First street, between Main street and Boulder avenue.
The itinerant schoolmaster had not been teaching long, however, before he was found in one of the gambling tents. An investigation revealed that he was a regular gambler and his school did not last long. Fathers and mothers of the growing village did not want their children under this influence so they wrote to Rev. W. P. Haworth, then a Presbyterian missionary at Vinita and largely supported by the Presbyterian home mission board with headquarters in New York City.
Reverend Haworth was invited to come to Tulsa to talk about church and school conditions. He came at once and saw the needs that existed. The discussion turned to plans for opening a school and church under the church's home mission board.
He was very much interested and made a favorable report to the board. Not long afterward the board made the proposition through him that it would authorize the erection of a school building that could also be used for church services if Tulsa would subscribe what it could toward the cost of the project. The board also agreed to furnish two teachers, paying all their salaries and to payment of the salary of a minister to be sent here. Tulsa accepted and Reverend Haworth was transferred from Vinita to Tulsa and in the summer of 1884 began the
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