McGalliard Historical Collection

William A. "Mac" McGalliard was a longtime resident of Ardmore, Oklahoma, and worked in the newspaper business from 1951 to 1983. He worked for The Daily Ardmoreite for 25 years and wrote a very popular column known as "Reporter's Notebook." His column, like his personal interests, centered on south-central Oklahoma and particularly Ardmore. He once said, "I feel sorry for anyone who has to live anywhere else." Mac made a career writing about local people, places and history and along the way collected photographs, documents, and memorabilia related to the area. Upon retiring, he donated that collection to the Ardmore Public Library so that the materials would be publically available.

To that end, in the 1980s, the Ardmore Public Library went through the collection and indexed all the items putting them in appropriate storage and aiding users in finding what they might be looking for. In 2006, the Library began working on the process of taking all of the data and photos and documents and converting them to an electronic format in order to both preserve the paper originals and to make the collection more broadly and easily accessible. This database is the result of that project.

The collection itself consists of several thousand photographs and documents from Ardmore and southern Oklahoma's history, spanning a period from before statehood and through the 1970s. The photos show people, buildings, events; the documents cover articles, playbills, hand-written letters. There is a wealth of information within this collection; it has been used by many over the years writing books, doing genealogical research, or just those with an interest in the area.

To access the collection, use the menu at left to browse categories of photographs or documents, or search for a particular word within the descriptions of the items. Photographs are stored as .jpg files, documents as .pdf and any may be saved by the user directly from the website.

This project is funded in part by the Oklahoma Humanities Council (OHC) and the We the People Initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed on this website do not necessarily represent those of OHC or NEH.