Claremore’s O’Brien-Bridwell Building – Winds of Change
Postcard: Christa Rice Collection.
A tempest intensified by a strong gust of wind and a falling brick wall on Father’s Day 2023, radically changed the course of the O’Brien-Bridwell building, located in Claremore, Oklahoma’s downtown historic district. The result was an unforeseen sale of the building and a restoration project instigated by Vines Properties, Inc. with Piotter Construction.
Aug. 19, 1910, the Claremore Messenger announced, E.W. O’Brien, “purchased the fifty-foot lot of C.A. Warner, located on the corner of Third (aka Will Rogers Blvd.) and Cherokee. He will move the frame buildings off and erect a nice modern two-story business block.” Construction began that October.
When completed, O’Brien’s building contained two expansive ground floor business rooms divided by an arched brick street-side stairway leading to the second floor. The building, with artistically designed interior pressed tin ceilings, boasted large glass storefront windows with more windows lining the first and second stories in front and along Cherokee Ave. In an era when electric lighting was in its infancy, the natural light of large windows was an asset to business owners.
The Rogers County News, Jan. 12, 1910, called the O’Brien “one of the most imposing and substantially built brick blocks in Claremore” when R.S. Saunders’ store occupied the east corner and E.E. North’s New York Store filled the west.
The county judge and sheriff moved their offices to the second floor of the O’Brien, toting a heavy safe with them.
Change was in the wind, March 8, 1912, when the Progress reported O’Brien’s building was sold. “E.W. O’Brien to Ida K. Bridwell, lot 10 and part lot 9 block 113, $18,000.” After 1921, the block would be called the Bridwell building.
In 1916, the O’Brien-Bridwell housed a billiard hall and grocery. S.P. Blakley’s American Café would locate there. G.H. Shafer would buy the café renaming it The Sanitary Waffle House in 1920.
The Claremore Messenger printed, Aug. 23, 1923, “Extensive improvements and the enlargement of the Bridwell block… (newly) occupied by the Parrott Chevrolet Co., has been announced… The addition to the building will be in the form of a 30-foot extension to the alley, while a frontage will also be had on Cherokee street which will provide a repair room and service station… The original building will be used by the Parrott company for a display and parts room.” Nearly 100 years later, this extension held the wall that crumbled in Oklahoma’s June 2023 whirlwind.
When Parrott moved out, Talley’s Hardware, moved in (Oct. 22, 1923). When Talley’s moved out (April 1926), The Oaks Café moved in. Then, Piggly Wiggly opened its grocery store in the business room next to the Oaks (1927). Renovating and remodeling would become the recurring cycle each time the building’s leases and furnishings were sold.
In the 1930s, a succession of transient business owners blew through the second floor’s hotel space. The Hotel Lahoma was renamed the Hotel Marvin, a quiet and respectable lodging house where “No musical instruments, boisterous noise or improper conduct” were permitted, according to the Claremore Messenger’s Nov. 27, 1930, edition. Due to ill health, the Marvins sold the hotel lease and furnishings to J.N. Steele (1931) who renamed the hostelry the Hotel Frisco, Steele having been a former Frisco railroad employee. Clara Keyes bought the lease calling it Hotel 66. She sold it to Tom Carroll who sold out, advertising in the Progress, Feb. 12 & 19, 1932, “For Sale or Trade – All furniture in Hotel 66 for good as new Ford or Chevrolet auto (or $300). Quick, got job in Ohio.” Mrs. Cannon took charge by July, followed by Elmo Murray who renamed the business Elmo’s Hotel & Apartments in 1935.
Below stairs, S.H. Bayouth moved in his Claremore Mercantile Company (1932). Next, came Boyd & Stanfill’s grocery which Chalk Market purchased in 1935. A new concrete floor was installed downstairs with other improvements made by owner Ida Bridwell in 1937.
The second floor changed markedly when Dr. R.C. Meloy located his new Claremore General Hospital in the Bridwell building from 1935 until about 1954. The Progress informed, July 2, 1935, “The twenty-two rooms over the Stanfill and Piggly Wiggly groceries are now being redecorated and prepared for occupancy… when completed, they will be absolutely sanitary in every respect. A large, modern surgery will be installed in the northeast corner of the building, which is well lighted with large, double windows on the north and one on the south… Modern x-ray, dressing and sterilizing rooms will also be located on the west side of the building. Two rooms for patients in the front of the building will separate the surgery from Dr. R.C. Meloy’s suite of offices, five rooms which will be operated separate and apart from the hospital. Private rooms and wards will be located on the east side of the building, with a modern and complete diet kitchen in the rear.”
Long-time Claremore residents still remember Dr. Meloy’s Hospital; Albert L. Cloniger’s “Home owned. Home Operated” Western Auto Associate Store (1939 – circa 1964), “first door east of the Piggly Wiggly store”; and Laura Hawks’ Claremore Hotel residing upstairs in the Bridwell from about 1955 – 1973.
But times were changing. Ann’s Cleaners and Laundry leased the east side, ground floor room of the Bridwell building in 1978. As the cleaning business grew, Ann Pate purchased the entire building. Tim Pate shared, the west side store space was filled with exercise equipment that had to be removed and upstairs residents needed to vacate their apartments. When Tim bought Ann’s Cleaners from his mother, the entire first floor was being used while the second floor remained vacant.
Change is the constant, moving Claremore’s 11-decades-old O’Brien-Bridwell building forward. With Vines Properties, Inc.’s purchase of the building in 2023, Piotter Construction has begun a new wave of renovation, picking up the pieces the stout winds dismantled. Winds of change are blowing through the expansive corridors of the O’Brien-Bridwell building once more, promising change – change for the better.
By Christa Rice, Claremore History Explorer
This story was originally published in the Claremore Daily Progress, weekend edition, Saturday & Sunday, January 20&21, 2024.
You can read the longer, more detailed, unabridged edition of “Claremore’s O’Brien-Bridwell Building – Winds of Change,” by clicking here.
Explore Claremore History 
You must be logged in to post a comment.