Updated: 08 Sep 2009
W.P. "Bill" Atkinson
Newspaperman, real estate developer, homebuilder, historian, city founder, political candidate - all could be used to describe W.P. "Bill" Atkinson. His efforts to improve the quality of life in central Oklahoma left a lasting mark on the state.
Atkinson moved from Texas to Oklahoma in 1928. The same year, he started a weekly newspaper, The Oklahoma City Star.
He continued his journalistic career as a university professor, serving as the head of the journalism department at Oklahoma City University from 1934 to 1938, however he lost both races.
Then, in the early 1940s, the Army announced it was looking for a place to build a new depot in the center of the country and made public a list of criteria for the base. It was intended to be the largest base ever built by the military, and there were only a few places it could be built.
Quickly and quietly, he purchased thousands of acres north of SE 29th Street and began in 1942 to plat and design a self-contained city, which would provide homes, entertainment and shopping for Army personnel, as well as the civilian work force.
Atkinson's city would become Midwest City and the depot, Tinker Air Force Base.
Midwest City sprang from undeveloped land to a small city in one year, the product of the ingenuity and imagination of one man. W.P . " Bill " Atkinson was a member of a generation of giants. Midwest City was founded by W. P. "Bill" Atkinson in 1941, when he found out that an Air Depot (later to be named Tinker Field) would be built in the area of land that he had acquired.
He bought and developed the original square mile of Midwest City in 1942. W.P. “Bill” Atkinson made a lot of money. He published a daily newspaper (The Oklahoma Journal) in the sixties and seventies and he even ran for governor twice 1958 and 1962.
After meeting with Air Force officials he found that the Air Depot would be built South of Southeast 29th Street and that their feelings were that a complete town with shopping centers, schools and churches would be needed rather than just temporary housing. Mr. Atkinson then hired Steward Mott, a master land planner.
The government required a spot about 10
miles from an urban center, at least 4 miles from any oil field, on a rail
line and a hard-surface road and inside a large span of flat land.
Stewart Mott, a master land planner to designed a city with wartime in mind
- tires and gasoline were rationed, travel restricted. It needed to be a
city where men could walk across the street to work at the base, housewives
could walk to the stores, children go on foot to schools or parks. Shops
were built conveniently close to residential neighborhoods. Today folks find
frustration in the curving streets, frequent stops and dead-ends that was
inherited in the concept of deliberately slow, safe, pedestrian community.
Those who bemoan the absence of sidewalks must understand that some building
supplies were unavailable during the war.
Ten years later Midwest City was chosen "America's Model City." The Town of Midwest City was incorporated March 11, 1943 by the Board of County Commissioners. An election was held on January 4, 1943. Midwest City is located approximately 10 miles from downtown Oklahoma City, which is the largest city in Oklahoma. Also in the 1950s, the homebuilder was known for giving Shetland ponies to those who purchased his homes.
As the 1940s began, the area remained primarily agricultural, much of it still owned by descendants of the original homesteaders. All that lay between Oklahoma City and Shawnee were the Log Cabin gas station and cafe on SE 29, Koelsch's Store at Reno and Sooner Road, and a small community called Marion, about where Carl Albert High School is today.
In 1941 a world war loomed and the federal government was looking for land in the southwestern states on which to build an Army Air Corp.
Rubye, his wife, started garden clubs and women's organizations, helping to impart a hometown atmosphere.
Orphaned as a child, on his own at age 14, he spent a career creating homes for others and finally had the opportunity to build - literally - a city. He planned it, founded it, constructed it, sold it, nurtured it and had an affection for it as if it were a child.
In 1959 he opened The Oklahoma Journal, whose slogan was "The Paper That Tells Both Sides." He had an offset press at SE 15th Street and Key in Midwest City, and he published the newspaper until 1980.
Later in life, Atkinson had a hand in establishing Rose State College, and he donated land for the Midwest City Memorial Hospital.
In the 1970s, he developed Quail Springs Mall and the surrounding area, despite delays caused by the oil bust of the following decade. He also developed a high-technology office park just west of the Quail Springs area.
In 1985, Atkinson was presented with the University of Oklahoma's Distinguished Service Citation. Ten years later, he was inducted into the Journalism Hall of Fame.
Throughout his life, Atkinson had a passion for history and established the Living Historical Center as a means to preserve the history of central Oklahoma. His collections of military memorabilia and newspapers now belong to the Rose State College Foundation, in addition to his private home and estate.
Atkinson died in March 1999 at the age of 92.
Years after his death, the Atkinson home
located at NE 10th and Midwest Blvd, Midwest City, Oklahoma County,
Oklahoma, is part of a unique gift to Rose State College. There was a time
when NE 10th and Midwest Blvd was way out in the country. It was so far out
in the country that Bill Atkinson built a cabin for weekend getaways.
He built the house at 1001
N Midwest Blvd. with a "build it and they will come" outlook. He never lived
in it, the crowds never came. The house has no past because its future never
happened. But today, it is the Bill
Atkinson
Heritage Center, serving a purpose the late developer
would probably approve.
Bill Atkinson and family donated his house and the grounds (built in 1955) for use as a conference and historical center. “And it's not just the history of W.P. "Bill" Atkinson. This is the history of Midwest City and Oklahoma County. The Atkinson Heritage Center.
The
old pony barn is still there. Bill used to give ponies away for every house
he sold. The big house he built in 1954 is virtually untouched, unchanged
since Architectural Digest did an article in the mid-fifties on his fine
country home.
Even the old appliances are still there along with mementos and keepsakes from a very public life. In business, Bill Atkinson always seemed a step ahead of history. It seems fitting his legacy would be a house that he built, and that he always seemed to know, would be his epitaph.
Oklahoman Archives
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
March 23, 1999
ATKINSON W.P. "Bill", age 92, of Midwest City, passed away March
20, 1999. He was born November 9, 1906 in Carthage, Texas to Paul Lee
Atkinson and Maggie Tiller Atkinson
Mr. Atkinson will be remembered as a devoted husband, father and
grandfather, as well as a visionary and staunch supporter of the community
he helped to shape. His long and varied career as a journalist, homebuilder,
politician and real estate developer garnered many achievements. Those of
which he was most proud included: the founding of Midwest City in 1942; his
election as President of the National Association of Homebuilders in 1951;
the publication of The Oklahoma Journal, a second major daily newspaper in
the Oklahoma City market from 1964-1979; and beginning in 1982, the
development of the Quail Springs area of North Oklahoma City, which
continues today due to his vision and planning. History will also record two
unsuccessful races for governor of Oklahoma in the Democratic primary in
1957 and as the Democratic nominee in 1962. He will always be remembered as
a great friend and supporter of Midwest City, Tinker Air Force Base, and the
greater Oklahoma City area.
He is survived by his wife, Dorothy; four daughters, Eugenia Davis and
husband, Joe, Janette Yantis and husband, Charles, Chris Asbill and husband,
Jimmy, and Jeannie Canne and husband, Art. He is also survived by
daughter-in-law Gretta Atkinson ; 16 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren
and nieces. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Rubye; his son,
William J., a grandson, Stephen; brothers, H.B. and D.F. and his sister,
Margie Reisz.
Funeral services will begin at 1:00 p.m., Tuesday, March 23, 1999 in The
Communications Building at Rose State College, I-40 and Hudiburg Drive in
Midwest City. Entombment will follow in the
Resthaven Gardens
Mausoleum. Services were handled by Paylor Funeral Home.
Resources:
NewsChannel4, KFOR.com, "Remembering the W. P. Atkinson home" March 16,
2005, accessed December 16, 2008
MWC City page, http://www.midwestcityok.com/city.html accessed December 16, 2008
photo source: http://news.webshots.com/photo/1523329963029702685KJBfPH
Oklahoman Archives, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,February 27, 2008