Comments on: Preachers Wall

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Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:15:45 +0000

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By: Lady Lelouch

Lady Lelouch — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 03:18:55 +0000

My favorite one is the portrait that looks like a skull at first glance. Does anyone know the artist behind it?

By: Mary D. Edwards

Mary D. Edwards — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 03:43:25 +0000

The first house built on the estate was the one constructed by the Foster family, which homesteaded the land in the days of the Oklahoma land runs. The remains of their storm cellar stood in one section of the place for years.

By: Mary D Edwards

Mary D Edwards — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 03:33:03 +0000

=Preachers Wall was built earlier than 1938, the date given here. And it was built BEFORE Red Ridge, given a mid 1930s date on another AbandonedOK web site. Perhaps the dates were reversed by mistake?
=My mother told me once that when the western wing was being added to Preachers Wall, she looked at the scaffolding one day and saw my elder brother Hilary, then about three, gamboling upon it, two stories above the ground. She was frantic with fear at the sight of him. [He did not fall. He is alive and well and living in Paris today.]

By: Mary Douglas Edwards

Mary Douglas Edwards — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 05:40:11 +0000

I believe that Dripping Rock is the rock ledge that projected out over Deep Fork Creek. For many years there sat atop it, or near it, the exposed root system of a long dead tree – perhaps a cottonwood. Most of the trunk had been removed. We called it the octopus tree, because there was just enough of the trunk left to give the impression of an octopus head and the roots of course resembled the tentacles. The gray color of the barkless surface added even further to the effect. When I returned at Christmas I often would walk to that part of the property to look at the octopus tree.
=One day my father wrote to me in New York to inform me that Deep Fork had flooded, dislodged the wooden effigy, and carried it off. I am sure I felt as sad as he did when Dripping Rock was ruined for him.

By: Mary Douglas Edwards

Mary Douglas Edwards — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 02:31:06 +0000

[continuation of previous reply]
=I believe that Preachers was built by the architect of the club house for Twin Hills Country Club, near the zoo. The design was my father's; he was inspired by the small, red stone houses out near where Frontier City was later built. He and my mother rode horses in that area during their courtship.
=My thanks to those who have written here that they would like to see the house saved. Seeing the images posted on this site brings me to tears. My two most precious memories of growing up there were riding horseback with my Father every Sunday before Church, and driving home from Wilson grade school with my mother up that serpentine drive.
=One of my siblings insists that Preachers Wall is written without the apostrophe.

By: Mary Douglas Edwards

Mary Douglas Edwards — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 02:25:56 +0000

=I appreciate Lindsay's comments.
=My father told me that the man who built the wall kept the pistol out of fear of someone he was certain was following him.
=Actually the rock for the house was quarried from the still extant pit at the foot of the front lawn. The pit was ringed with informally stacked red rocks and at one end a fish pond about ten feet in length was constructed. It had a cement bottom and still more of the red rocks formed a border. A stand of bamboo grew at one edge. =We used to "fish" for crawdads when young, using kite string with a wad of raw bacon tied at one end. We dropped the bait into the water in fornt of nooks in the rock border where the big, sluggish crawdads rested. They would grab the bait and we would haul them up and try to plop them into a jar if they did to fall back into the drink, which they invariably did.
=My grandmother's now dilapidated barn was also made from the red rock. Perhaps that rock was quarried near Deep Fork.

By: Patty

Patty — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 01:50:16 +0000

I hope somebody saves this magnificent home!!!

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 15:43:39 +0000

Josephine and Mary,
I have some of your brother's correspondence w/your parents from his time in the war that you may be interested in getting back…Long story how I obtained it, but I would be happy to send it to you if you are interested. My e-mail address is greeneyedbosoxlover@yahoo.com

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 15:37:03 +0000

destroyed*

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 15:34:57 +0000

Archibald Edwards has audio reels available @ OHS. That is how I know where the name "Preacher's Wall" comes from. The African American man who quarried the rock for the 1st home built on what was known then as "Edwards Estate" is where the name originated from. Apparently he was a preacher…He found himself in hot water shortly after he finished his work on the house bc he was caught concealing an Army issued gun in a false wall in his home. He never turned it back into the government after his military service. Hence the name "Preacher's Wall". On a side note, the rock for the home was quarried from the creek that runs across the property. The same man who inspired the name of the home accidently detroyed a popular natural rock formation known as "Dripping Rock" while he was collecting the stone for the house.

By: mary

mary — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:44:56 +0000

Preachers Wall was not abandoned in the 1990s. My Father died there on March 21, 1998 and my mother continued to live there until her death on February 9, 2002. The house was closed by the trustees of my mother's estate after her funeral some three weeks after her death there. The trustees subsequently placed the contents of the house in storage, and the heirs were not allowed to enter the premises until about two years later. At that time the trustees returned the contents to the house and distributed most of them to the heirs. We again were not allowed to enter the house after 5 p.m. on the day when they dispersed the chattels. Judging from the photos on this website, the trustees left chattels inside that some of us would have liked to claim, had we been given the opportunity. An oil magnate bought the house in 2008, just before the collapse of the stock market. He never occupied the house apparently. Nor did the next person who bought it, I gather. If I am not mistaken, my parents built the house at the cost of $7000.00 BEFORE my grandparents built Red Ridge.

By: AbandonedOK

AbandonedOK — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 05:06:26 +0000

Thank you ladies. I have fixed the error. Can you shed any light on why the home is named Preachers Wall?

By: Josephine Edwards

Josephine Edwards — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 04:14:58 +0000

Just now c hecking this out too–I was going to send a name correction when I saw your post, Mary.
Wasn't so long ago that I remember being asked if I would like some summer sqaush and was told to take all I wanted from the chicken yard vegetable garden. x

By: mary

mary — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 23:48:10 +0000

My parents built this house. I grew up in it. I wanted to buy it from my parents' estate after they died. My siblings chose to sell it to someone with more money than I could offer. The buyer is the one who abandoned it, not my family. As for the skulls of animals mounted on the wall in the barn, I collected those as a teenager.
Incidentally, the name of the house is PREACHER'S WALL.

By: mary

mary — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 22:24:43 +0000

This was the house my parents built. I grew up there. I wanted to buy it after my mother died so that I could live there. My siblings chose to sell it to someone else who had more money. It is that buyer who has abandoned this house. The skulls in the barn were collected by me as a teenager.