<a href="http://www.tashadoestulsa.com/?attachment_id=9756" rel="attachment wp-att-9756"><img src="http://www.tashadoestulsa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Picture-1-500x495.png" alt="Tulsa Christmas Parade 1960s" title="Tulsa Christmas Parade 1960s" width="500" height="495" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-9756" /></a>

J.M. Hall, the often-called Father of Tulsa who partnered with his brother H.C. in the early 1880s to build Tulsa’s first wood-frame mercantile on the northwest corner of First and Main Streets, talked in a Christmas Eve, 1933 <em>Tulsa Daily World</em> article about Tulsa’s first Christmas. There was just one Christmas tree in the whole town, Hall said, cut from Cedar Island up the Arkansas River. The reporter waxed poetic about how the cowboys, the Indians, and the white children huddled in the little Creek village against the icy stubble of the prairie. The atmosphere was festive, though, and the ranch hands fired their pistols into the air to celebrate the arrival of Christmas.

<a href="http://thislandpress.com/12/05/2011/the-history-of-the-tulsa-holiday-parade/" target="_blank">Read the rest of the story at This Land Press</a>.

<i>Scenes from the parade, circa 1960s. Photos courtesy Scott Hamilton</i>