Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Oklahoma, it's where the wind comes sweeping down the plain, a land of great tall grass
00:08prairie where herds of buffalo roam free and wildcat oil rigs gush black gold.
00:15But Oklahoma is much more than this.
00:18It's a state that's endured great suffering.
00:22It's here where thousands fled dust bowl devastation during the largest migration in American history,
00:28where deadly twisters ripped through towns in the dark of night, and where families still
00:34gather every year to remember an act of terrorism that shook the world.
00:40But it was also in Oklahoma that thousands of hopeful settlers lined up on a river for
00:45a shot at the American dream, including the ancestors of Oklahoma-born megastar Brad Pitt.
00:53On an Oklahoma ranch, America's favorite cowboy, Will Rogers, learned his skills, and it was
00:59here that an early explorer discovered a giant lake of salt.
01:05In Oklahoma, oil workers have been the state's heroes for more than a century, and Cherokee
01:11blood runs deep.
01:14People here know they belong to the land, and that the land they belong to is grand
01:21indeed.
01:23Oklahoma.
01:51A dusty ribbon reaches to the horizon.
02:04It may not look like much, but it's one of the most legendary roads in America.
02:10Route 66.
02:13John Steinbeck was the first to dub this route the Mother Road in his famous novel The Grapes
02:18of Wrath.
02:20Commissioned in 1926, it ran from the Midwest across the Great Plains to California, cutting
02:27the drive from Chicago to Los Angeles by 200 miles.
02:32In Oklahoma, the new highway used existing, primitive roads, like this one, called the
02:37Ribbon Road, a nine-foot-wide stretch just big enough for passing Model Ts that plied
02:43the new Route 66 in the 1920s and 30s.
02:48It wouldn't have been able to reach California without bridges like this one.
02:52The now historic Pony Bridge was completed in 1933.
02:57Named for the steel pony trusses that were used to build it, for Oklahomans, it was finished
03:03just in time.
03:04Within just five years, thousands of Depression-era migrants packed all their belongings into
03:09whatever vehicles they had and crossed the Pony Bridge, fleeing Oklahoma and its dust
03:15bowl of devastation, to search for jobs and a better life.
03:20For those early travelers, and others, roadhouses and gas stations were their lifeline.
03:28And there may be no fuel stop on Route 66 more famous than this one, Lucille's Place.
03:36Lucille Hammons and her husband, Carl, opened this rest stop in 1941.
03:42When times got hard, as they often did, Lucille would trade gas for whatever weary travelers
03:48had to offer.
03:51That's how she earned the nickname, Mother of the Mother Road.
03:55But as America's interstate highway system snaked across the land, Lucille's Place and
04:01Route 66 were rendered obsolete.
04:05Though that hasn't put an end to nostalgia for this historic highway, or new rest stops
04:10along the way.
04:13Like this strange object in Arcadia, about 90 miles down the road from Lucille's, a giant
04:19sculpture in the shape of a soda pop bottle and straw.
04:24It towers over Pops, a mecca for soda pop lovers.
04:28Inside this gas station, travelers can refuel with 600 kinds of pop from across the country.
04:35The giant soda bottle outside stands a symbolic 66 feet high and beckons travelers to stop
04:42for a sip and pose for a picture.
04:46Today, crossing Oklahoma is as easy as driving from one quirky landmark to another.
04:54But long before roads traversed this state, it was a very different story.
04:59When early explorers and settlers heading west reached Oklahoma, they hit a nearly impenetrable
05:04barrier.
05:06Thick forests called the cross timbers that cut north to south across the region.
05:14Washington Irving, author of Rip Van Winkle, tried to get through the cross timbers in
05:19the 1830s.
05:21He later wrote about the experience in his book, A Tour on the Prairies.
05:26I shall not easily forget the mortal toil and the vexations of flesh and spirit in our
05:32wanderings through the cross timber.
05:35It was like struggling through forests of cast iron.
05:40But Irving finally managed to get through, and the reward was magnificent.
05:45A seemingly endless flat landscape called the Tallgrass Prairie that teemed with life.
05:54At the time, herds of buffalo virtually covered the prairie.
06:00They were some of the more than 30 million bison that once roamed the Great Plains, until
06:05eager settlers hunted them, almost to extinction.
06:09In 1993, a local rancher donated 300 bison to the preserve.
06:15Since then, the herd has grown to 2,500.
06:19But it's still just a fraction of the number of bison that once called this Tallgrass Prairie
06:23home.
06:26Like the buffalo, the prairie itself has suffered at the hands of man.
06:31This inland sea of grass once spanned portions of 14 states, stretching from the Gulf of
06:37Mexico to Canada.
06:39Today, less than 4% of it remains, and much of that lies here, in Oklahoma's Osage County.
06:48This is the land of the Osage Nation, the only Native American reservation left in Oklahoma.
06:55In 1870, after the U.S. government forced the tribe off its land in Kansas, the Osage
07:01did something no other tribe had done before.
07:05It bought its own reservation in Oklahoma for a million dollars.
07:10But when the U.S. government negotiated the deal, it had no idea what it was selling.
07:16Soon after the Osage bought the land, the tribe discovered it was sitting on one of
07:21America's greatest fortunes, a 33-square-mile underground lake of oil.
07:28The tribe began leasing and auctioning off rights to this bounty for millions.
07:33And since all of the tribe's mineral rights were communal, it became the richest nation
07:38on earth at the time, virtually overnight.
07:43But this was still the Wild West, and as oil money flowed, violence and death quickly followed.
07:50As white settlers tried to get their hands on tribe members' shares of income from the
07:54oil, dozens of Osage were murdered.
07:57They were shot, poisoned, and killed by a nitroglycerin bomb that had been planted in
08:02a house.
08:05One newspaper described these events as a reign of terror.
08:09Some of the killings have gone unsolved to this day.
08:15By 1940, the Osage had made more than $250 million from their $1 million parcel.
08:23Those boom times are gone, but oil is still big business here.
08:30Rising like ancient ships on the horizon, hundreds of pumps still work 24-7.
08:37And oil tankers like these crisscross the prairie to collect oil from wells and ferry
08:42it to pipelines and refineries.
08:47But back when oil was first discovered in Oklahoma, things were very different.
08:53There were no trucks or roads to get it to market.
09:00That's what happened here, on the banks of the Caney River, near what was then the tiny
09:05town of Bartlesville.
09:08In 1897, after seeing oil seeping from the ground, George Keeler, the owner of a small
09:14trading post, drills Oklahoma's first commercial oil well, along with his partner, William
09:20Johnstone.
09:21Today, a redwood replica of their original derrick stands at the site.
09:28Johnstone named it after his daughter, calling it the Nellie Johnstone No. 1.
09:33The two men had struck black gold.
09:37The problem was, they couldn't cash in on their find.
09:41They had no way to get the oil out of town.
09:44All they could do was cap the well and wait.
09:48They waited for an entire year, and then another.
09:52Finally, in 1899, a solution steamed into town.
09:58The railway arrived in Bartlesville.
10:01Johnstone and Keeler uncapped their well, and Bartlesville was transformed overnight
10:07into an oil boomtown.
10:09A boomtown that would produce some of the biggest names in American industry.
10:14One of those was J. Paul Getty.
10:17He got his start here, working summers near Bartlesville in his father's oil fields, before
10:22going on to become a global oil tycoon and America's richest man.
10:29As Getty would later remark, the meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.
10:36Getty wasn't the only one in Bartlesville fighting for a piece of the region's riches.
10:41This neoclassical mansion was built in 1909 by Frank Phillips, who founded the Phillips
10:47Petroleum Company with his brother, L.E.
10:51A few years earlier, the Phillips brothers had dug their first well, Anna Anderson No.
10:561, and an amazing 80 productive wells followed.
11:00Today, their company has become ConocoPhillips, and is known across the Great Plains for its
11:06Phillips 66 service stations, named after Route 66.
11:13Another oil pipeline fortune funded one of the state's most famous skyscrapers, the Price
11:18Tower, built here in Bartlesville in 1956.
11:22The legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed a number of high-rise buildings
11:27during his lifetime, but this is one of only two that were ever built.
11:33The magazine Architectural Forum called the building, somewhat small in size, but vast
11:39in reach.
11:42Wright called the tower, the tree that escaped the crowded forest.
11:47That's because Wright designed the building around a central trunk of four elevator shafts,
11:52off of which he wanted the floors to extend like branches.
11:58He then clad the facade with what he called copper leaves.
12:01Today, the 19-story Price Tower is a major arts center, and still towers over the prairie
12:08around Bartlesville.
12:09And these days, new energy companies in Oklahoma are making their own mark on the horizon.
12:17722 miles away, in the state capital of Oklahoma City, a new structure is reaching for the
12:23skies.
12:25Towering 50 stories over the state capital, the Devon Tower is the tallest building in
12:30Oklahoma, funded by a boom in natural gas.
12:35Devon Energy, which built the building, produces about 2.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas
12:41each day.
12:43At its base, another gas giant, Chesapeake Energy, pays more than $3 million a year for
12:50naming rights to the home arena of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team, formerly known
12:55as the Seattle Supersonics.
12:57The team's recent success has been in part due to its long-term deal with superstar Kevin
13:03Durant.
13:04Energy companies may be making the biggest mark on Oklahoma City's skyline, but it's
13:09what lies below ground that makes this state capital truly unique.
13:16Oklahoma claims to have the only statehouse in the world that sits on top of an oil field.
13:23This well on the capital grounds was first drilled in 1941 in a bed of petunias, which
13:28is why it's called Petunia No. 1.
13:32Since then, it produced 1.5 million barrels of oil, until the well dried up in 1986.
13:41Oklahoma City's thriving oil and gas industries have helped give the city one of the fastest-growing
13:46job markets in the country.
13:49But many here still live with the scars of an act of violence so terrifying, it borders
13:55on the unimaginable.
14:00Every April in Oklahoma City, a group gathers in remembrance of loved ones.
14:06Those killed in the most horrifying act of domestic terrorism in American history.
14:12This is the site of the Oklahoma City bombing.
14:17The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building once stood here, but now a memorial covers the
14:22site.
14:23Each year, on April 19th, the anniversary of the bombing, the families of those who
14:29died come from across the country and gather in front of the memorial's reflecting pool.
14:35At 9.02 a.m., the exact time of the bombing, they stand for a moment of silence, and then
14:43read, one by one, the names of their loved ones, to remember the innocent lives lost
14:49on that spring day.
14:50A day that started off like any other in Oklahoma City, until a man parked a truck in front
14:57of the Federal Building and walked away.
15:01Minutes later, a homemade fertilizer bomb in the truck exploded.
15:06The massive explosion ripped the face off the Federal Building, blasted a 30-foot-wide
15:11crater in downtown Oklahoma City, damaged structures over a 60-block area, and killed
15:18168 people, 19 of whom were children.
15:24Here in the memorial, those who died are remembered by a field of chairs, laid out
15:29in nine rows, representing the building's nine floors.
15:33Each chair bears the name of someone who perished on that floor.
15:38Among them, smaller chairs, for the children who died.
15:43Standing at either end of the memorial are the gates of time that frame the exact moment
15:48of the bombing.
15:50The East Gate is inscribed 9.01 a.m., just before the bomb detonated.
15:56On the West Gate, 9.03 a.m., the first full minute after the explosion.
16:02Despite the devastation, an American elm survived the blast.
16:08It's here, under the branches of this survivor tree, that families gather each year, to offer
16:15each other solace and healing for all that was lost.
16:19Less than two hours after the attack, the bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was apprehended by
16:24chance during a routine traffic stop.
16:28Within two days, his accomplice, Terry Nichols, was also in custody, and Americans across
16:34the country were searching for answers that would explain why McVeigh and Nichols carried
16:39out this horrifying crime.
16:45Six months to the day after the bombing, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12977,
16:52which outlined new security standards for federal facilities.
16:57Those standards were put into action here, at the new Oklahoma City Federal Building,
17:02just a block away from the memorial.
17:05Blast-resistant concrete walls face the street.
17:09There's now just a single lobby for visitors, guarded 24-7.
17:14To keep the new Oklahoma City Federal Building from becoming a giant bunker, its architects
17:19designed an elliptical courtyard with walls of high-tech, shatterproof glass that bathe
17:25workers inside with natural light, and ensure this federal facility remains inviting to
17:30the public it serves.
17:34With the Oklahoma City bombing, this great plain state found itself suddenly on the front
17:39line of a war against domestic terrorists.
17:43But preparing for threats to the nation has a long history in Oklahoma.
17:48Just 79 miles south of the capital lies Fort Sill, one of just five U.S. Army basic combat
17:53training sites in the country.
17:56Here, soldiers prepare for deployment overseas.
17:59During live-fire training, Marines learn how to fire howitzers armed with 155-millimeter
18:06rounds.
18:09And nearby is a U.S. Army urban combat facility.
18:15Welcome to Liberty City.
18:19Made from old shipping containers, this training site, complete with a building designed to
18:23look like a mosque, helps prepare soldiers for situations they might face overseas.
18:29Here, soldiers dressed as Middle Eastern men take part in drills, where troops practice
18:35searching for terrorists and insurgents hiding in a village.
18:44When Fort Sill was established here in 1869, its purpose wasn't to train troops to fight
18:50foreign wars.
18:53It was a U.S. Army outpost built to protect settlements on the frontier, and to control
18:58the Native American tribes that the U.S. government considered a threat to white settlers.
19:04Over the years, many famous frontier scouts passed through the fort, including Buffalo
19:08Bill Cody.
19:10But the most famous figure to arrive here was the great Apache chief and warrior, Geronimo.
19:17After eluding the U.S. Army for close to a decade, he finally surrendered in 1886, and
19:23was eventually brought here to Fort Sill, and locked up in the old guardhouse.
19:28As settlers had moved on to Native American land in Arizona and New Mexico, Geronimo and
19:34his Apache warriors had attacked and raided the new settlements, which made them enemy
19:38number one of the U.S. government.
19:41Legends abound of Geronimo's cunning and bravery.
19:45Perhaps the greatest legend of all is said to have happened here at Fort Sill.
19:51The story goes that Geronimo was leading the U.S. Cavalry on a wild chase across southern
19:55Oklahoma when he raced to the top of these hills, known as Medicine Bluffs, and then,
20:01daringly, leapt on horseback to the river below, leaving his pursuers in the dust and
20:07shouting, Geronimo, as he plunged.
20:11It's a tale that still prompts some U.S. Army paratroopers to cry Geronimo's name when they
20:16leap from great heights today.
20:20After he was brought to Fort Sill, Geronimo was forced to become a pumpkin farmer here
20:25on the grounds of the fort, and he died here, too, on February 17, 1909, nearly 90 years
20:33old, reportedly from pneumonia.
20:38During his lifetime, Geronimo witnessed the great transformation of Oklahoma.
20:43From a land with miles of open expanse that belonged to the Kiowa and other Native tribes,
20:48to a territory where oil cities boomed overnight, and finally, to a U.S. state just two years
20:55before Geronimo's death.
21:01It was a journey that started in 1830, when Oklahoma was chosen to play a leading role
21:07in a painful chapter of American history, a chapter that led here, to Fort Gibson, the
21:14end of the line of what would famously be called the Trail of Tears.
21:21In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law.
21:27It allowed the U.S. government to take Native Americans out of their homes in Alabama, Tennessee,
21:32and Georgia, and other southern states, and relocate them to the West, in Oklahoma.
21:39For many, it was a brutal journey.
21:42Roughly a quarter of the 16,000 relocated Cherokee died en route.
21:47One Georgia soldier who took part in the removal, later stated, I fought through the
21:52war between the states, and I have seen many men shot, but the Cherokee removal was the
21:58cruelest work I ever knew.
22:00The Trail of Tears led here to Fort Gibson.
22:04After their arrival, the Cherokee and other tribes were given land to call their new home.
22:10The U.S. government had divided most of present-day Oklahoma into more than two dozen parcels
22:15called the Assigned Lands, which the government then gave to various Native American tribes.
22:21One of those, in northeast Oklahoma, became the new home of the Cherokee Nation.
22:27Over the following years, the Cherokee and other relocated tribes worked hard to establish
22:32roots on the new land they'd been given.
22:34And Cherokee blood has run deep in Oklahoma ever since, so deep that one of the state's
22:40favorite sons was famously and proudly part Cherokee.
22:46In 1879, Will Rogers, cowboy, vaudeville performer, humorist, and movie actor, was born just outside
22:53the town of Oolaca, here on Dog Iron Ranch.
22:57My father was one-eighth Cherokee Indian, Rogers once said, and my mother was quarter
23:02blood Cherokee.
23:04I never got far enough in arithmetic to figure out just how much engine that makes me, but
23:08there's nothing of which I'm more proud than my Cherokee blood.
23:13It was on this ranch that Rogers learned the skills that would make him America's most
23:17loved cowboy.
23:19Cattle still graze on the ranch today, just as they did in the 1920s and 30s, by which
23:24time Rogers had become one of America's biggest celebrities, appearing in dozens of movies
23:29and stage shows.
23:33Having traveled around the world three times, he was also a great promoter of aviation,
23:38but died in a plane crash in Alaska in 1935.
23:43Today, Rogers' legacy here still looms large, and the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore
23:50holds the world's largest collection of memorabilia and manuscripts documenting the life of this
23:55beloved Oklahoman, who famously said, I never met a man I didn't like.
24:04Less than 30 years after Will Rogers' death, another Hollywood megastar was born in a small
24:09Oklahoma town.
24:12As clever fans of Brangelina already know, the latitude and longitude that Angelina Jolie
24:17has tattooed on her arm will lead you right here, to Shawnee, Oklahoma, a population less
24:24than 30,000, but known by millions around the world as the birthplace of one of Hollywood's
24:31biggest stars.
24:33On December 18th, 1963, in a room on the third floor of Shawnee's small ACH Hospital, Jane
24:40Pitt gave birth to a son, William Bradley Pitt.
24:45Actor Brad Pitt is more often associated with Springfield, Missouri, where the family moved
24:50after he was born.
24:54But what brought Brad Pitt's ancestors here to Shawnee to begin with is a pure Oklahoma
24:59story.
25:04Like many others, Brad Pitt's great-great-grandfather, William H. Brown, and his wife Minnie, first
25:11came to Oklahoma to take part in a single, historic moment.
25:15A moment when the dreams of thousands of hopeful settlers were fulfilled, and millions of acres
25:21of Native American land were given away for nothing.
25:30It all started in 1889.
25:33By then, most of Oklahoma had been assigned by the U.S. government to Native American
25:38tribes, but nearly two million acres of unassigned land lay in the center of the state.
25:45That year, President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation that on April 22nd, 1889, at
25:52noon, these unassigned lands could be had by any settler who was fast enough to grab
25:57a 160-acre parcel.
26:01Fifty thousand people flooded into the region.
26:05Many lined up here, on the banks of the Canadian River, on the southern boundary of the land
26:09to be given away.
26:12Under the terms of the proclamation, no one could cross the river to claim land until
26:16exactly 12 noon.
26:20One pioneer, named Emma Childers, was there and described the scene.
26:25All of the men along the South Canadian River got as far in the river as they possibly could
26:29without sinking in the quicksand, and there, waited for the hour of noon to come.
26:34When the clock struck 12, the cannons fired, and the race to claim homesteads and town
26:41sites was on.
26:43Today, the Centennial Land Run Monument in Oklahoma City captures that exact moment in
26:49large sculptures of bronze.
26:52All larger than life, the settlers raced wildly across the river in a frenetic fight for the
26:57offered prizes.
27:00In the north, thousands more rushers arrived.
27:04There, by nightfall, 10,000 people settled in a tiny flyspeck of a town called Guthrie.
27:12And thousands more soon arrived by train.
27:15Trains that were so full of rushers, they were said to look like centipedes as they
27:18pulled into Guthrie Station.
27:21Within months, this once sleepy settlement became a bustling metropolis, a modern brick
27:26and stone city known as the Queen of the Prairie.
27:32One year after that first land run, Guthrie was made the capital of the new territory
27:36of Oklahoma.
27:40But at the time, the vast majority of present-day Oklahoma was still Native American land.
27:46From the misty Arkansas River in the north, to iron-rich Cottonwood Creek, from vast lakes
27:54and dense forests in the east, to the majestic Glass Mountains in the west, Native cultures
28:01had flourished here for thousands of years.
28:04The Wichita and Kiowa still called this land home, land that was wild, beautiful, and free.
28:14But that was not to last.
28:18Even though the U.S. government had assigned most of Oklahoma to Native American tribes,
28:23it would soon take that land away.
28:26Starting in 1891, more land runs were held, and steadily, Oklahoma's assigned lands were
28:33opened up to white settlers.
28:36Within two decades, Oklahoma, and all of its Indian territory, became America's 46th state.
28:45Statehood ceremonies were held here in 1907 on the steps of Guthrie's Carnegie Library.
28:53During this period, the train helped speed settlement throughout western Oklahoma.
28:58And wherever the new settlers made homes for themselves, they began to farm the land.
29:04Wheat fields sprang up, reaching to the horizon.
29:07For these farmers, it was a time of dreams and hopes for a better life, but that was
29:13not to be.
29:15Soon the land would turn on them, and transform their dreams to dust.
29:24Travel down any train track in Oklahoma, and you're bound to pass one of the cathedrals
29:30of the Great Plains.
29:32Grain elevators that tower over the plains, and none compare to these, rising over the
29:41town of Enid, north of Oklahoma City.
29:44With a combined capacity of roughly 65 million bushels, these are the largest grain elevators
29:49in the state, and some of the biggest in the world.
29:53Built in the 1920s, Enid once claimed to be the wheat capital of the United States of
29:58America, which helps explain why these soaring silos are listed on the National Register
30:03of Historic Places.
30:06Wheat is still the number one crop in Oklahoma, and it's here where the rich bounty of the
30:11Great Plains is safely stored for market.
30:15But growing wheat and other crops has not proven to be as easy in Oklahoma as the state's
30:20first homesteaders imagined.
30:23When the rains are good in western Oklahoma, green fields like these blanket the plains.
30:29For the settlers who arrived here in the late 1800s, this region appeared to be the promised
30:34land, stretching to the horizon.
30:40But Oklahomans have had to learn the hard way that survival here requires a delicate
30:45dance with the forces of nature.
30:48Flying low over western Oklahoma today, it's easy to see why.
30:53Much of it is actually bone dry, thanks to a recent drought.
30:59When it gets this dry, plants and grasses are all that keep the topsoil from blowing
31:04away.
31:05It was easy to forget that in the late 19th century, because the rains kept coming, and
31:12so farmers kept tilling the land and planting crop after crop, enjoying year after year
31:17of bountiful harvests.
31:19What those farmers didn't know was that they were experiencing a small moment in a long
31:24cycle of rain and drought.
31:28And by clearing more and more grasses that had held the topsoil in place for hundreds
31:32of years, they were putting themselves at greater and greater risk.
31:38By the 1930s, the rain stopped falling, the land was drying out, and then the wind started
31:46to blow.
31:47Here in the far west of the state, the town of Guymon, Oklahoma had already suffered years
31:53of drought.
31:55Locals prayed for rain at the town's Methodist church, but the clouds that arrived brought
32:00dust instead, storms of dust that they called black blizzards.
32:07At the time, dust storms were frequent across a vast swath of the Great Plains.
32:13But in 1935, the worst of them all hit the Oklahoma Panhandle.
32:18A towering wave of dust raced south towards the cities of Guymon and Boyce City.
32:26On Sunday, April 14th, just before the black cloud arrived, a reporter named Robert Geiger
32:32set out from Guymon for Boyce City on this road.
32:38But he soon found himself in the middle of the Sunday storm.
32:42It became absolutely black as night, he later reported.
32:46We slammed on the brakes and turned on the car lights.
32:49Exploring by touch, we found the car to be in a dust drift.
32:54It was Geiger who coined the term Dust Bowl the next day in his article for the Washington,
32:59D.C. Evening Star.
33:02The storm raced toward the southwest, a storm the National Weather Service later described
33:07as a massive wall of blowing dust that resembled a land-based tsunami.
33:15Residents waited as the black wall approached downtown Boyce City.
33:19It would be the first of many such black blizzards to hit the region's farms and ranches hard.
33:26Cars and trucks stopped working.
33:29No one has captured the experience of this time better than Oklahoma native Woody Guthrie.
33:35A dust storm hit and it hit like thunder.
33:38It dusted us over and it covered us under.
33:41Blocked out the traffic and blocked out the sun, straight for home all the people did run.
33:48With no crops left in the field and no money in the bank, desperation set in.
33:53Oklahomans, for whom this land was all they'd ever known, packed up what they could and fled.
34:00Soon, a mass exodus had begun, 2.5 million people from Oklahoma and other plain states
34:08fleeing the Dust Bowl.
34:10It was the start of the largest migration in U.S. history.
34:14Overloaded cars, trucks, and even wagons streamed down Oklahoma's country roads as migrants
34:19made their way to the mother road, Route 66, to get out of the state and start their search
34:26for a new life.
34:28Some would not survive the journey.
34:33Flying over the Oklahoma Panhandle today, it's still possible to discover traces of
34:38this historic migration.
34:41Abandoned farms still stand on the land, cars still lie swallowed by sand, and evidence
34:50of former communities can still be seen on the plains.
34:54Here outside Boyce City, the population dropped by 40% as children were pulled out of school.
35:05In the end, most Oklahomans actually stuck it out, holding on to all they had and hoping
35:12that another cycle of rain would come their way.
35:15Today, many of the children and grandchildren of those hearty souls are still here too.
35:22Right next door to abandoned homes are new ones.
35:26And people here on the Oklahoma Panhandle still farm the land just as their ancestors
35:31have for generations, despite the continued cycles of rain and drought.
35:37Recently, this part of Oklahoma has been experiencing a drought even worse than the one that struck
35:42back in the 1930s.
35:45The effects are visible from the air.
35:48The only green to be seen is where irrigation keeps the crops watered.
35:53Thanks to generations of trial and error and the use of technology, Oklahomans have learned
35:58to survive in the dry and dusty Great Plains.
36:02Some have even found ways to have a bit of fun with it.
36:07This is Little Sahara State Park, more than 1,600 acres of sand dunes.
36:14They tower up to 75 feet over the plains.
36:19This vast desert landscape formed over thousands of years thanks to Oklahoma's howling winds.
36:26It became a popular Oklahoma attraction in the 1950s after a nearby town placed a couple
36:31of old circus camels here to lure tourists to the dunes.
36:37These days, this Little Sahara is an off-roader's paradise.
36:48When early travelers crossed Oklahoma, it wasn't the sight of sand that surprised them
36:53the most.
36:54It was what appeared to be a giant field of snow.
36:59In 1811, a group of Osage Indians guided U.S. Army Major George C. Sibley here to North
37:05Central Oklahoma.
37:08When they arrived, all they could see was a vast white expanse that seemed to stretch
37:13on forever, a sight that still inspires awe today from high above.
37:20It skimmed the surface, and you quickly realize it's actually a vast deposit of salt.
37:27When Sibley saw it, he called it the Grand Saline, but it's known today as Oklahoma's
37:32Great Salt Plains.
37:35Once this was an ancient inland sea.
37:38When that sea evaporated, it left behind this stunning resource that covers more than 10,000
37:44acres.
37:46Wild animals used it as a giant salt lick, which made it a popular hunting spot for Native
37:50Americans.
37:51But after news of Sibley's discovery spread, entrepreneurs raced here to carry off wagon
37:57loads of this white gold.
38:01Throughout the history of Oklahoma, stories abound of the search for buried treasure,
38:07oil, gold, and salt.
38:10One such search ended with horrific consequences on Oklahoma's northern border with Kansas.
38:17This is the former town of Pitcher.
38:22When lead and zinc were discovered under the town in 1912, the race was on to get it out
38:27of the ground.
38:30As miners dug out the ore, they left the waste rock piled up right here in town.
38:37Over decades, heavy metals and other highly toxic substances leached out of the waste
38:42into the groundwater and local Tar Creek.
38:44In 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency offered to buy out people's homes.
38:5114,000 people once lived here.
38:53Now, mounds of waste soil are almost all that remain.
38:58Nearly all of Pitcher's stores, churches, houses, and people are gone.
39:08One of the men who worked in Pitcher's mines was the father of one of baseball's greatest
39:12legends.
39:15Just down the road, in Commerce, stands the house of that miner and side yard where his
39:20son, Mickey Mantle, famous New York Yankee and the best switch hitter of all time, learned
39:26how to swing a bat.
39:28He's said to have used the metal shed in the yard as a backstop.
39:33Nearby, young ball players keep their town hero's legacy alive at Mickey Mantle Field.
39:43These days, Oklahomans are tapping a cleaner kind of resource, the power of prairie winds.
39:53Just southwest of Oklahoma City stands the Minko II Wind Farm, built by one of the nation's
39:58largest wind developers.
40:01Minko II boasts 63 wind turbines, each of which generate 1.6 megawatts of power, enough
40:08to run 450 homes.
40:11But the power from these windmills isn't headed for television sets and power tools.
40:16In fact, every single watt of power from here is being generated for just one customer,
40:23Google.
40:24Just outside the tiny town of Pryor, Oklahoma, is a little piece of Silicon Valley.
40:30The Google Data Center, one of six such facilities the company owns across the country.
40:37This server farm needs lots of power to keep Google services like the Google search engine,
40:42Gmail and Google Maps all running smoothly.
40:46So, the next time you launch a search for Brad Pitt, Will Rogers or simply Oklahoma,
40:53the results might just be popping out of this unmarked building.
40:59Oklahoma's winds may be helping keep internet users happy, but they also have a much darker
41:04side and can devastate entire towns in just minutes.
41:12It's a phrase that strikes fear in the hearts of many Americans, Tornado Alley.
41:18Stretching from northern Iowa to central Texas, Tornado Alley covers most of the state of
41:23Oklahoma.
41:25In the spring, the North American jet stream converges with warm, moist air from the Gulf
41:30of Mexico and warm, dry air from the Rocky Mountains.
41:34A cocktail that triggers more tornadoes than anywhere else on the planet.
41:40Which means there's more risk of a deadly twister hitting Oklahoma than just about any
41:45other U.S. state.
41:47That's what happened in the town of Woodward on April 15, 2012, when a deadly tornado touched
41:53down here in the dark of night.
41:57It ripped a path right through town and demolished homes, businesses and a trailer park, killing
42:03six people.
42:05The path of Woodward's twister is clearly visible from the air.
42:10Eighty-nine houses here were destroyed.
42:14During this storm, a swarm of 17 tornadoes hit northwest Oklahoma, but amazingly, there
42:20were no other deaths.
42:22We credit that to Oklahoma's Severe Storm Warning System, a system that warns residents
42:28in advance of a twister's potential path.
42:31It's based here at the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
42:36The center is home to the National Severe Storms Laboratory, home of the nation's tornado
42:41experts.
42:43Nearby stands a little piece of technology that can save thousands of lives.
42:47It's called the OU Prime and is the highest-resolution Doppler radar system in the world, technology
42:54that can actually peer inside storm clouds to predict tornado activity.
42:59For any college students wanting to become an educated storm chaser, Norman, Oklahoma
43:04might just be the place.
43:07That's because the National Severe Storms Laboratory is located on the campus of the
43:12state's oldest school, the University of Oklahoma.
43:16It was founded soon after the first Oklahoma land run in 1890.
43:21But when most people hear University of Oklahoma, they don't imagine looking inside storm clouds.
43:27They think football.
43:31The Oklahoma Sooners are the stuff of legends.
43:35The team holds the NCAA record for most consecutive wins by a major college program, 47 straight.
43:43It's also turned out some of the best running backs in the game, Heisman Trophy winner Billy
43:48Sims and All-American Adrian Peterson.
43:51With such a remarkable legacy, it's easy to have faith in the University of Oklahoma football
43:56team.
43:57But a hundred miles to the northeast, one man's faith was put to the test when God told
44:04him to raise $8 million to start a university, or so the story goes.
44:10According to televangelist Oral Roberts, he was reading a spy novel when God gave him
44:15his orders.
44:18Roberts did as he was told, and by 1965, the Oral Roberts University was open for business.
44:25Tulsa is where he built it.
44:27A 30-ton sculpture of praying hands is the centerpiece of this manicured campus.
44:35But the university's architecture is decidedly more futuristic.
44:40In the center of campus stands the Prayer Tower, which looks as if it's been ripped
44:44from an episode of The Jetsons.
44:47But Tulsa is no stranger to architectural risk or architectural wonder.
44:54Nestled at a bend in the Arkansas River, Tulsa is the state's second biggest city.
44:59It's also an oil town that had a boom of its own when the Glenpool oil field was discovered
45:05in 1905.
45:08The city's success in the petroleum industry prompted a huge construction boom in the early
45:131900s, and Art Deco was the style of the day.
45:18The results of that boom still populate the city's skyline, but many know Tulsa as the
45:23home of the Golden Driller, a 76-foot tall statue of an oil worker that was named Oklahoma's
45:30official state monument in 1979.
45:35Today, many oil workers in Oklahoma have a very different job description than in days
45:40past.
45:41These days, many may never even see oil.
45:44That's because it courses beneath their feet, beneath the prairie, from border to border,
45:49north to south, in a vast web of oil and gas pipelines that carry raw materials straight
45:55from producers to refiners.
45:58And the biggest of those pipelines end up here, Cushing, Oklahoma, the largest crude
46:03storage facility and trading hub for crude oil on the continent.
46:08It's been called the pipeline crossroads of the world.
46:13From Cushing, at least seven major pipelines fan out across the nation and tie into a vast
46:19network of pipelines and oil infrastructure that stretches from Texas to Maine to western
46:25Canada.
46:28Each tank in these farms holds nearly 250,000 barrels of crude, and counted together, Cushing
46:34houses about 10 percent of America's total oil inventory.
46:39To cart all this oil away, you'd need more than 33 million barrels.
46:45Maintaining this facility is a gargantuan job.
46:49To keep the tanks safe, they're spaced apart so a fire on one tank can't jump to the next.
46:56A dike surrounds each tank to contain oil in the event of a leak.
47:00But today, Cushing's biggest problem can't be seen from the air.
47:06More oil is flowing into this tank farm than flowing out.
47:11There's not enough pipeline capacity to keep the oil moving down to Texas ports and Gulf
47:16Coast refineries fast enough.
47:20That's why companies here are racing to build new tanks that can hold four million barrels
47:24of crude until the problem is solved.
47:27Nearby, miles of pipe have been stockpiled, ready to be laid in the ground and welded
47:33together to carry the crude southward.
47:36It's not the first time in Oklahoma history that it's proven harder to transport black
47:41gold than get it out of the ground.
47:44Some things in Oklahoma just seem to stay the same.
47:48Take the state's backroads, which have been calling pioneers, adventurers, and cowboys
47:53for nearly 200 years, a call that Oklahoma country singer Garth Brooks knows all too
47:59well.
48:00Brooks has sold more than 128 million albums, which has made him the second highest selling
48:07solo artist in U.S. history, after Elvis.
48:11He got his musical start performing here at the Tumbleweed Ballroom in Stillwater, about
48:1670 miles from Tulsa, where Brooks was born, the son of a country singer mom.
48:22Brooks paid his country music dues at the Tumbleweed, and he's come a long way since
48:26then.
48:27Bigger venues and bigger houses.
48:30His mansion and ranch in Claremore stand on 9,000 acres, but fans will tell you he stayed
48:37true to his humble roots.
48:39Just listen to the lyrics of songs like Friends in Low Places, and you'll understand.
48:45Roots are important to Oklahomans.
48:48The state capitol building in Oklahoma City is a perfect example.
48:53The statue on top of the dome says a lot about the heart and soul of this state, a 17-foot
48:59tall bronze Native American warrior called the Guardian.
49:06It was sculpted by state senator Enoch Kelly Haney, an American Indian whose family arrived
49:11in Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears seven generations ago.
49:16Rife with Native symbolism, the dignified, muscular figure carries a spear, showing his
49:22commitment to stand his ground in a fight.
49:25The circular shield represents the circle of life.
49:29Inside the circle is a cross and four dangling feathers, symbolizing the four seasons and
49:35directions.
49:36Fittingly, the Guardian is the first statue representing Native Americans to be placed
49:42on top of any state capitol.
49:46Oklahoma is a state of color and contrast, a land where opposites embrace and old cultures
49:53meet new.
49:55From the great inland sea of tall grass and bison, to the red bluffs of the Glass Mountains,
50:02Oklahoma has seen the dusty tears of great human migrations, and it's borne witness to
50:08the discovery of unimaginable earthly riches.
50:13It is a land steeped in wonder and hidden stories.
50:17Glide down any dusty back road and you never know what you'll see, but there is one thing
50:23you're sure to find, the true soul of America's heartland.
50:42Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
50:49oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
50:53oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
50:55oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
50:57oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,