Those of us fascinated by history like to peel back the layers of time. Year by year, century by century, people live, die, buildings are built and then fall victim to a disaster or, by chance, survive. Going forward, we add to the layers of history but going backward, ah! There is the fascination.
I haven’t been downtown in my home town of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, for quite a while. I realized just how long it must have been when I ran onto a video in the Tahlequah Daily Press. You see, a young man, an entrepreneur who is interested in history and has a dream for the future, has bought a section of downtown. He is stripping away, board by board, year by year, an old building that was once Wilson’s Livery Stable. With meticulous care, he is keeping the old and replacing what can’t be saved with period accurate materials. He has gone back to 1895 and the charred wood that was once a part of Wilson’s.
In the early morning of April 1895, a fire broke out in the livery stable of John Wilson in downtown Tahlequah. Before the blaze was extinguished, it destroyed much of the town: dry goods stores, grocery store, church, residences. The fire happened long ago, is a part of history, and many people have forgotten but in the restoration of the old building, traces of charred wood are still found.
I can imagine the horror, the disbelief, the fear and the courage of those who fought the quickly-spreading inferno. In my mind, I can hear the people shout, see them running for water, trying to save belongings by hauling them out of buildings, telling the children to keep back. Years slip away and I am there, watching, listening, feeling as the fire roars.
This long ago time has been covered over and mostly forgotten, but when someone decides to strip away the layer upon layer that time has built, there it is, a reminder of yesterday’s people, yesterday’s town, yesterday’s emotions.
We too are writing history, every day that we live. Some day, maybe, a future generation will discover something, a long-lost object or book that will pique the imagination. Somebody with curiosity about what has gone before will start digging and peeling away accumulated years until the past and the present come together again, one layer at a time.
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