jiffy mart disc
Henryetta teens from 1947 through 1971 had a great “Teen Town” where they could meet and visit with friends, dance to a juke box on most nights, enjoy a soda fountain, play ping-pong, spend time in a study or reading room, sometimes dance with live orchestras, and have four formal dances each year.  Beginning in 1950 after I was out of high school and off for more schooling, Junior/Senior Proms were held at Teen Town.teen dance
There were places to dance before Teen Town, but they weren’t as good.  There were dances at the American Legion Hut at about 13th and Main, with occasional formals and live orchestras, and almost always juke box dances after Friday night ball games.
On occasions like Valentine’s day, dances were sometimes held at the long ago fire-destroyed IOOF Hall on North Fourth Street.
There were also occasional event’s like Jerry Nell Hart's (now Erwin’s) 16th birthday party at the IOOF Hall.  While most were informal, teens always wore better clothes to them, except to the annual Sadie Hawkins dances.
Sadie Hawkins Day was featured in the long ago “Lil' Abner” comic strip as a day when, if a girl caught a boy, he had to marry her.  Daisy Mae chased Lil' Abner for years. Sadie Hawkins dances were girl-invite-boy dances, and most of us tried to dress like we thought country bumpkins would.
During the 1940s, HHS girls had two social clubs. Each year, one club had Senior and Sophomore members, and the other, Junior and Freshman. Three or four formal dances were held each year by one club or the other.
HHS had no proms back then.  Instead, a Junior/Senior Banquet was held at the IOOF Hall each spring.  Seniors were guests of the Juniors, who did all the work on arrangements, decorations, program, etc. and raised the funds to pay for the banquet. 
It was the top annual HHS  social event, and largest Junior class project each year.
Sophomore girls served the meals, which were prepared by members of the IOOF Rebecca Lodge.  Each year’s banquet had a distinct theme.
When I was a Junior, it was a Western theme with western decorations, western songs by a Junior girl’s trio and a Junior boy’s quartet, including me, like “Tumblin’ Tumbleweed”, and a Junior friend recited “The Shooting of Dan McGrew.”   I think, but am not sure, the theme the Junior’s had my Senior year, was “Hook Your Wagon To a Star” – if I am wrong, I am sure they did handled the theme very well.
So that was the situation before Teen Town.  What follows  is partly from my memory, and partly based  on memories of Rube Reingold and Elgin Rayburn, members of the 1947 HHS class (I was in the 1948 class), and a 1971 issue of the Free-Lance.
soda fountain jukeThe Henryetta Booster Club just after WWII ended was headed by a man named Jim Riffe, whose office was over Bryan Tiger’s Garage at the north end of the old Elks building.  The two story Elks building was on the west side of Sixth street, and north of Broadway across from the old Methodist Church.
It extended  north to the alley south of Main.  The Elks lodge had once been in the upper floor.
I think the Elks had abandoned the building in the early 30s  during the depression, and its abandoned space was in poor condition by the end of WWII.
The front of the building – on Sixth Street, was occupied by Grover Bynum’s law office, Gilbert Lewis’s Justice of the Peace office, Maude Ham’s flower shop, and the tag office where teens went to take driving tests to prove they could make a left turn around the Fourth and Main original location of the Doughboy statue with damaging their car.  Regarding that, the Doughboy pedestal had angular steel posts at each corner, that stood firm if it was hit, so the car lost.
In late 1946 while I was a first semester Junior, Mr. Riffe asked some HHS students if they were interested in having a Teen Town where they could socialize in a good place that’d be run by them and recognized as theirs. 
It would be in the space  once used by the Elks.  The students gladly accepted, but it was understood that the teens would have to do nearly all the restoration work, i.e.,  little in the way of helping funds could be expected. 
A lot of plaster had fallen.  Some boards on the floor of the main hall (the later dance floor) had buckled up a few inches, and trash was everywhere.  The main hall and  stage took up over half of north end of the building's second floor, and there were several smaller but good size rooms at the south end.
Everything needed work, so early in 1947 we started  cleaning, mopping, painting, caulking, doing minor plastering, etc.  There’s no way to name all the boys and girls, Freshmen through Seniors, who worked on the restoration. 
I worked a lot, as did my younger sister, Dora, but many worked more.   We worked nearly every night till  9 p.m. or so. 
Basketball team members for the worst athletic team HHS had in all of the 1940s helped after practice.  While I don't know the facts, it could be that HHS academic performance suffered more that semester than at any other time, but gradually, things began to look better.
We couldn’t handle the buckled floor though, so Guy Flescher's Cabinet Shop employees got it back down  and sanded it and the other rooms.
Earl Russell, owner of the Post Office Drug Store (his daughter, Earlene, was a Junior in my HHS class that year), donated a soda fountain he’d replaced.  The rooms at the South end were made into a library and reading room, and a room with a ping-pong table.
cover1The large old pews  or backed benches that’d been left by the Elks (each seated about six people) were arranged along the walls as booths  on both sides of the dance floor.  I don’t know where we got tables for the booths, but we got some.   With as many teen workers as there were, I doubt if it took more than seven or eight  weeks to get Teen Town ready to open.   
During that period, Jim Riffe left town and his place was taken by O. M. (Scoop) Robertson.  
Elgin Rayburn was elected Mayor, but he lived with a family that opposed dancing and didn’t want them to know he was involved with Teen Town, so he couldn’t take the position and Lawrence “Rube” Reingold became the first Mayor to serve.  I wish I could remember other officers, but a few years ago, Rube told me  Jack Miller, one of my Junior classmates, was the first Chief of Police.  I’ve forgotten what it cost to join, but it couldn’t have been much – maybe a dollar a year, maybe just half of that.
I think Teen Town began functioning within a week or two, one way or the other, of Easter, 1947.  
It was open until about 9 p.m. most evenings, when entrance by members was free.  There might’ve been a 10 or 15 cent fee on weekends, and maybe quarter if we had an orchestra.  We danced to a juke box on other nights. 
Some teens brought homework to do in the library or study rooms.  If you weren’t dancing, studying, playing ping pong, or bothering the soda fountain girl, you were usually just hanging around with friends. 
I don’t recall any behavior problems at Teen Town, but with Jack Miller as Chief of Police and Harold Prewitt as his deputy, that wasn’t surprising.
Nightly operations were handled by teen volunteers who monitored activities, put things away, and cleaned up.  The busiest were the girls  who worked the soda fountain, including my sister, Dora.  Cleaning up after dances was a chore, but most teens gladly pitched in.         
cover2I recall two live orchestras at Teen Town in my time, but the only one I recall by name was Ernie Grant’s orchestra that played a lot of Glenn Miller pieces like “In the Mood, Moonlight Serenade, Pennsylvania 6-5000,” etc.
Two slower pieces I recall were “How are Things in Glocca Mora” from the Broadway show, Finnians’ Rainbow, and “All by Myself in the Evening.”  I’ll spare readers the words.
I don’t recall our initial chaperones, but given the adults that seemed to have the most interest in teen activities at the time, I have to think Mr. and Mrs. Earl Russell, and Mr. and Mrs. Nick Hamra had to have been among them. 
Regarding Nick Hamra, one thing he did every year back then was to raise the money to buy the letter jackets for our sports teams – maybe supplementing the funds if their weren’t enough contributions.  
I left Henryetta to further my education after my 1948 graduation, but I’m sure HHS teens continued to enjoy Teen Town.   I understand that the first Junior/Senior Prom was held there in 1950 and that Nick Hamra personally hired a Tulsa orchestra for it.  I’ve learned that chaperones over time included Rube and Sari Reingold, Clarence and Lois  Smith, Nick and Virginia Hamra, Dr. and Mrs Carlton Smith, Elmer and Elizabeth Tippie, and Carl and Juanita Steckleberg.  There had to have been many others through the years.  
Before dawn  Saturday, August 21, 1971, disaster struck.  The building was a total fire loss and Teen Town was no more.  There was a hint that it was the result of arson and that a “mystery” car was seen in the area at about the time the fire began.  I don’t know how that was resolved.
teen town burn2The building, still owned by Mrs. Grover Bynum, widow of lawyer Grover Bynum, still housed Bryan Tiger’s garage. Oklahoma Tire and Supply (which was then located in the Morgan building on the northwest corner of the Fourth and Main where the Doughboy stood in those days) used some space to store merchandise, including tires, rotor tillers, water coolers, refrigerators and cooking ranges, nearly all of which was lost.  teen town burn1
Bryan Tiger lost all his tools and equipment, and four cars were lost in his garage.  The building also had a lot of hospital records, some of which were salvaged.  Telephone service was interrupted, but was restored by  evening. 
Beth Waugh, HHS 1971, (now Beth McKibben) was a patient in the Henryetta Hospital that was at Fifth and Broadway at the time and caused a bit of notice when she went to see the fire dressed in her hospital gown.  The Free-Lance had a picture of a different hospital patient watching it.  Maybe Beth hadn’t arrived yet.  Damage from the fire was so great that the remaining walls of the building were knocked down.