Do You Remember These Old Oklahoma Stores?

As he gets older, my dad is just now getting to the point in life where he's recalling his own upbringing. One thing he loves sharing are stories of the heyday businesses in his ultra-small hometown.

Western Auto, Gibson's, and Otasco.

Back in the day, those names meant something, and there's almost always a memory tied to the business.

For instance, Dad got his first bicycle at his hometown Western Auto when he was about 9 years old. He had a little job working for the local milkman, making $2 a week helping him stock shelves, and the old guy who ran the Western Auto let him buy that bicycle on credit. That's unthinkable today.

He also loves to talk about buying his favorite shotgun at Gibson's when he was a senior in high school. He traded it to buy my mom an anniversary present in the 80s, but he still talks about how great a gun it was. I eventually tracked it down and gave it back to him for Christmas one year. He cried, it was awesome.

The Stores That Used To Be Everywhere

Those are just a few of my family's memories. Nearly every little town in Oklahoma had its own collection of stores where people bought the stuff they needed before Walmart and the big-box chains came rolling in.

TG&Y was a big player in Oklahoma back then. It's where you could find everything from toys to household stuff. Western Auto sold bicycles, tires, tools, and auto parts. Otasco was another Oklahoma-centric place, especially in the smallest Sooner State communities.

And then there were the local hardware stores, drug stores, grocery stores, and department stores that lasted generations before being priced out of business. Imagine surviving the Great Depression just to go out with the internet.

Even the idea of driving to OKC or Tulsa to hit the mall wasn't a thing until the mom-and-pop stores closed their doors for good. Until then, almost every town had a store for everything you needed.

That's probably what I find most interesting about all of this. These weren't necessarily fancy stores, and nobody was posting pictures of their shopping trips on social media.

They were just part of everyday life.

When The Big Stores Came To Town

Then the big corporations figured out how to buy more stuff for less money, put enormous stores along the highway, and eventually make it harder and harder for those little independent stores to compete.

The old signs came down, the storefronts changed hands, and most of those buildings are now just empty shells without roofs dotting the old downtowns across Oklahoma.

But mention Western Auto, TG&Y, Gibson's, or an Otasco to somebody who grew up shopping there, and there's a pretty good chance you'll get a story.

That's the part of Oklahoma's retail history I think we miss.

We didn't just lose stores. We lost the places where a whole lot of ordinary Oklahoma life happened.

What stores do you hear or talk about the most?