McCracken Research Library

Find out what goes on in the Center of the West’s McCracken Research Library and get an insider’s look at the incredible photographs, archives, and manuscripts housed and processed by the library’s staff—who are still making some amazing finds within the collections.

September 29, 2021

Hal Evarts’s Skunk Ranch

In 1903, when Hal Evarts was fifteen years old, he and a friend made camp on the Arkansas River. “Fur sign was…

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August 25, 2021

The Twilight Life of Charles King

Popular nineteenth century writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Mark Twain were so popular they got their own library call number. This…

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McCracken Research Library researchers studying the American West find a multitude of resources from current publications to original historic documents. This was the Reading Room as arranged in 2005.
August 13, 2021

This Library is Anything but Quiet – Points West Online

Originally published in Points West magazineSpring 2005 This Library is Anything but Quiet By Nathan Bender, Former Curator, McCracken Research Library Norman…

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July 28, 2021

Anson Eddy Takes Off

A Future Executive? When I was doing research on Anson Eddy, I found record of someone by that name working as an…

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June 23, 2021

The Man Who Wasn’t Jim Bridger

A Well-watered Area Jim Bridger had seen the handwriting on the wall. Between the early 1820s and late 1830s, fur brigades had…

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May 26, 2021

The Day I met Willis McDonald

Shortly after I started at the McCracken Research Library, our Director, Mary Robinson, came into my office one day. “Do you want…

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