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2262735

Sand Springs, Oklahoma

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2262735

Sand Springs, Oklahoma

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Sand Springs, Oklahoma

Sand Springs is a city in Osage, Creek and Tulsa counties in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. A western suburb of Tulsa, it is located predominantly in Tulsa County. The population was 19,874 in the 2020 U. S. Census, an increase of 5.1 percent from the figure of 18,906 recorded in 2010.

The city was founded in 1911, by philanthropist Charles Page, a wealthy businessman in Oklahoma. He envisioned Sand Springs as a haven for orphans and widows. Page helped found and develop Sand Springs as a model city that included all components of a total community.

Page bought 160 acres of land in Tulsa County in 1908, intending to build a home for orphan children. The first 27 children, who had been abandoned by the Hook & Anchor Orphanage in Tulsa, were housed in a tent. This was soon replaced by a frame building large enough to house 50 children.

Page decided to form a model community, to be called Sand Springs, on land west of the children's home. He offered free land to any person who wished to move there, and a $20,000 bonus (the amount varied and he also offered free utilities) to companies that would relocate there. In 1911, Page created the Sand Springs Railway, an interurban connecting Sand Springs to Tulsa. The townsite was laid out the same year. Sand Springs was incorporated as a city in 1912, with a population of 400.

In 1911, Page also built the Sand Springs Power Plant, on the southeast corner of Main Street and Morrow Road. It anchored an area that Page intended to use for industrial development. Several significant additions were made to the facility, and it was the sole source of electric power for Sand Springs until 1947.

Some of the earliest manufacturing industries were: Kerr Glass Manufacturing; Commander Mills, Kerr, Hubbard and Kelley Lamp, and Chimney; Southwest Box Company; Empire Chandelier Company; and Sinclair Prairie Refining Company. Medical and social welfare institutions other than the Sand Springs Home included the Oakwood Sanitorium for nervous and mental diseases, Poole Hospital, the Salvation Army Maternity Home, and the Sand Springs School for the Deaf. Sand Springs became a center of glass production in Oklahoma. Kerr Glass Manufacturing moved to Sand Springs from Chicago in 1913. It and the Alexander H. Kerr company, which made fruit jars, were the only glass companies remaining in business as recently as 1955. In 1965, Sand Springs annexed Prattville, on the south side of the Arkansas River, an event that would explain the large jump in population in the 1960s.

In 1935, Commander Mills' workers picketed against purported incompliance by mill administration following the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Parleys between mill officials and workers were initiated February 14, with unionized mill workers demanding full accordance with the act's codes and ordinances. The disagreement between mill officials and workers was over section 7-A of the N.R.A., stating that employees had the right to self organization. Mill officials disagreed, stating section 7-A was invalid by decree of the courts. On April 4, a brawl between union and non-union workers broke out at the gates of Commander Mills, ending in several injuries and one arrest. The following month, multiple mill workers subsequently began with acts of violence and terrorism in retaliation against mill officials and non-union workers. Totaling eleven explosions (twelve attempts in total, one failed to explode), four shootings, and one assault, the criminal campaign lasted from May 5 to July 4.

Sand Springs Children's Home is still operating, caring for school-age children in a family-style setting, and with an Independent Living program for graduated students. The facility supports Camp Charles, which is an eight-acre camp in Grove on Grand Lake, where the kids get to camp, cookout, swim, ski and take boat rides. The Charles Page Family Village, formerly known as the Widow's colony, provides duplex housing to 110 mothers and their children at no cost for rent, utilities or home maintenance.

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