Elmore City

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Elmore City
Elmore City, Oklahoma
Elmore City
Elmore City
Location in Oklahoma
Basic data
Foundation : 1898
State : United States
State : Oklahoma
County : Garvin County
Coordinates : 34 ° 37 ′  N , 97 ° 24 ′  W Coordinates: 34 ° 37 ′  N , 97 ° 24 ′  W
Time zone : Central ( UTC − 6 / −5 )
Residents : 697 (as of 2010)
Population density : 580.8 inhabitants per km 2
Area : 1.2 km 2  (approx. 0 mi 2 ) of
which 1.2 km 2  (approx. 0 mi 2 ) are land
Height : 302 m
Postcodes : 73433, 73476
Area code : +1 580
FIPS : 40-23600
GNIS ID : 2412480

Elmore City is a municipality (" town ") in Garvin County in the US state of Oklahoma . The settlement, which emerged at the end of the 19th century, was named after the pioneer J. O. Elmore, after whom the post office, which opened in 1890, was named.

Nationally known the town was because the act of teenage dance film Footloose of 1984/ 2011 on real events at the local high school back.

geography

Elmore City is located in central southern Oklahoma, just under 100 km south of the capital Oklahoma City , at the intersection of two Oklahoma state highways , Highway 29, which runs west and east, and Highway 74, which runs north and south.

The county 's capital, Pauls Valley, is about 25 km northeast; the nearest major towns are Wynnewood , about 20 km to the east, and Purcell , 50 km to the north. The US Highway  177 runs approximately 40 kilometers east.

history

It is not known when exactly the first settlers settled in Rock Creek , now Elmore City, in the late 19th century . Narrated is a meeting of the Catholic priest Reverend Hilary Cassal, who was on a missionary trip in 1885 from the Sacred Heart monastery, located about 80 km to the north-east . At the bridge over the creek Rock Creek he met a family Lynch, a mother with eight children who lived there in a one-room hut in extremely poor conditions.

A little later, a Jasper N. Black opened a general store for the needs of the scattered rural population at an intersection just north of Rock Creek . This shop became the center of a permanent settlement, initially called Banner , which grew rapidly and expanded southward. On June 11, 1890, a post office was opened there, which was named after the merchant and pioneer James Oliver Elmore, and in 1898 the place was finally incorporated as a village under the name Elmore .

The finding of a name was not yet complete, however, the name first changed back to Banner in 1910 after fear of postal confusion with the town of Elmer in Oklahoma's Jackson County . But since the residents wanted to keep the established name, Elmore City was finally the final place name from 1911.

population

Population development in Elmore City

year 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Residents 192 266 337 395 494 743 982 653 582 493 756 697

Of the 697 residents counted in the 2010 United States Census , 333 were male and 364 were female.

The average age of all residents in 2010 was 40.4 years. 87.4% of the population described themselves as “ white ” in the census , 6.5% classified themselves as descendants of the American indigenous population , 0.6% of the respondents described themselves as African-Americans and 4.6% gave more than one ethnic origin on.

At the time of the census there were 286 households , of which 65% were family households, in 29.4% of the households there were children under the age of 18.

School center

Elmore City is the center of the Elmore City - Pernell School District which has a catchment area of ​​approximately 580 km². In the southwestern part of Garvin County, as well as parts of Stephens Counties and Murray Counties , a state school offer is provided in Elmore for the approximately 2,800 residents of the parishes of Elmore City, Katie and Foster as well as a number of smaller settlements.

The Elmore City - Pernell Public Schools (ECP) form a school network that includes a primary school ( Elmore City – Pernell Elementary ) with an attached pre-school, a middle school ( ECP Middle School ) and a high school ( Elmore City – Pernell High School ) of the American education system in Oklahoma.

From the dance ban to the "Footloose Festival"

The residents of the village have been celebrating a nostalgic family street festival called Footloose Festival every spring since 2010 with a small fair and several dance events. With this festival, Elmore is commemorating the role that the location played in the making of the successful 1984 dance film Footloose (remake 2011 under the same title ).

The historical background of the festival is a dispute between students in their senior year 1981 and the local school inspectorate at Elmore High School. The students wanted to hold a typical prom (" prom ") in Elmore for the first time in 1980 , as they would at other American high schools. This was initially forbidden by the school inspectorate, with reference to the fact that there was a written law that had existed since the establishment of the place as an independent municipality in 1898, according to which dance events in Elmore were generally prohibited. The controversy expanded and affected local life as a whole; The youths were accused by the local churches that dancing was immoral and that they would act against religious principles with the planned prom. The conflict over the dance ban finally assumed such proportions that it was also noticed in the national media.

In the school committee, two of the four members were in favor of allowing the event, the other two voted against, so that the vote of the committee president had to make the difference. He was the father of one of the students who submitted the application and ultimately made the decision in favor of the young people. Due to the high media attention at this first school ball, the story finally reached the songwriter Dean Pitchford , who traveled to Elmore and obtained impressions for his screenplay for the film Footloose in interviews with the protagonists of the school conflict and other residents of the town .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Tower: Elmore City , Encyclopedia of Oklahoma; accessed March 5, 2019.
  2. ↑ Cassal left a very vivid picture of this encounter in his notes of the journey; Hilary Cassal: Missionary Tour in the Chickasaw Nation and Western Indian Territoryhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dchroniclesofokla3419okla~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D397~doppelsided%3D~LT%3D%27%27Missionary%20Tour%20in%20the%20Chickasaw% 20Nation% 20and% 20Western% 20Indian% 20Territory% 27% 27 ~ PUR% 3D (digitized: Internet Archive ; accessed March 5, 2019). In: Oklahoma Historical Society (ed.): The Chronicles of Oklahoma 34, No. 4, Winter 1956-57, Guthrie 1957, pp. 397-416 (specifically on the first settlers in Rock Creek pp. 415-416).
  3. ↑ full name after Elmore City - Pernell Public Schools: School, Post Office and Town Established ; accessed March 6, 2019.
  4. ^ Tower: Elmore City , Encyclopedia of Oklahoma; accessed March 5, 2019.
  5. ^ Tower: Elmore City , Encyclopedia of Oklahoma; accessed March 5, 2019.
  6. ↑ The data in the following table corresponds to the census of the United States Census Bureau , Census of Population and Housing (1790–2010) ; all of the following PDF files retrieved March 5, 2019. Data for 1900-1910 under Census 1910, Oklahoma , p. 578; Data for 1920-1940 under 1940 Census, Oklahoma , p. 866; Data for 1940-1960 under Census 1960, Oklahoma , pp. 38-14; Data for 1960-1970 under Census 1970, Oklahoma , pp. 38-11; Data for 1970-1990 under Census 1990, Oklahoma , p. 19; Data for 1990–2010 under Census 2010, Oklahoma , p. 19.
  7. ↑ Data status of the following section according to the United States Census Bureau : Elmore City town, Oklahoma, 2010 Demographic Profile Data (American Fact Finder) ; accessed March 5, 2019.
  8. ^ Elmore City - Pernell Public Schools: Our School District ; accessed March 6, 2019.
  9. ^ Elmore City - Pernell Public Schools , web presence; accessed March 6, 2019.
  10. ↑ Footloose Festival , event announcement for the 2019 festival, website of the Chickasaw Country Marketing Association (CCMA) 2019; accessed March 7, 2019.
  11. ^ MJ Alexander: Dance Fever: The Town That Inspired (and Got) Footloose , 405 Magazine, June 2015; accessed March 7, 2019.
  12. ↑ Brandy McDonnell, Sheila Stogsdill: Elmore City re-Creates prom did inspired, Footloose 'film , NewsOK.com , April 16, 2010; accessed March 7, 2019.
  13. ↑ cf. z. B. Kent Demaret's report: You Got Trouble in Elmore City: That's Spelled with a 't,' Which Rhymes with 'd' and That Stands for Dancing , People , May 19, 1980; accessed March 7, 2019.
  14. ↑ Brandy McDonnell, Sheila Stogsdill: Elmore City re-creates prom that inspired 'Footloose' film , NewsOK.com April 16, 2010; accessed March 7, 2019.
  15. ↑ Darren Brown: Oklahoma Footloose Festival in Elmore City (TV report) , Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department 2018; accessed March 7, 2019.