Look to your right. You might see an empty lot now, but try to picture a ten-story skyscraper looming over the street. This was the Baltimore Hotel, built in 1910 for about $115,000-roughly three and a half million today. It was once considered the most intact example of the Chicago Commercial style in the state.
While other local landmarks were successfully protected on the National Register in the nineteen-eighties, the Baltimore’s owner formally objected. Under federal law, if a private owner refuses the listing, historic significance does not matter. The nomination was withdrawn, the protection vanished, and the building was eventually demolished to make way for the parking you see now.
But before it was paved over, this place was a fortress of secrets. Inside those walls, the lobby was a shark tank. During the oil boom, leases and fortunes were traded on a handshake by visiting investors. But the most famous guest wasn't checking in... he was locked in.
In nineteen-twenty-six, the hotel became a makeshift prison for Jackson Barnett, a Creek man the newspapers called the "world's richest Indian." After his land produced a massive oil fortune, everyone wanted a piece of him. His new wife, Anna Laura Lowe-dubbed an "adventuress" by the press-tried to whisk him away to California. Federal authorities intercepted them and dragged Barnett back here. They held him in a room at the Baltimore under twenty-four-hour guard. For days, three men watched him to ensure his wife didn't make a run for the state line, all while the courts debated if he was competent enough to handle his own millions. Barnett didn’t seem to mind the chaos, telling reporters, "She smart woman... she count my money."
The drama didn't end there. In 1930, during the investigation of a murder at the nearby Severs Hotel, suspects were held here while officers searched their luggage one last time. Wrapped inside a dirty undershirt, they found a diamond wedding ring belonging to the victim, cracking the case wide open.
It is a shame the building is gone. It stood as a monument to how quickly this town grew up, and how ruthless it could be. Let’s head to the scene of that crime I mentioned. We are walking to the Severs Hotel next, built by a man who made his money the old-fashioned way, long before the black gold started flowing.
