Tulsa Treasures: Looking Back At Tulsa's First ATM, Credit Card Readers, & More

A new year begins but we always love looking back at the past.

Jack Frank from TulsaFilms.com is here with this month's Tulsa Treasures!

LEANNE: I love this segment for so many reasons. And I have to think that you do as well because of it. And there's a little bit of historian in us. There's that curiosity. There's those of us who have been around for so long. It really is a joy, right?

JACK: It's great. And I'm glad that you love sharing it with your viewers. And hopefully, they'll see some things maybe that they remember or some things that they think, oh, that used to be in Tulsa, or looking at how weird Tulsa used to be exactly.

LEANNE: Well, I think it's really funny too, because we were talking earlier this morning when we spoke how just 50 years ago, you know, I think about that. It's like, well, the 70s weren't that long ago until you start doing the math. And it really, it has been five decades, so much has changed. In fact, as we take a look, we're gonna show this video and we're gonna have you kind of walk us through, I think the very first thing that cracks us up is the transplant and an ATM machine.

JACK: Why isn't that funny? This is the first ATM machine in Tulsa. Its back. Banks didn't have a lot of branches or any branches. And this was a TV news report that showed a reporter using an ATM machine Believe it or not, she had to be taught how to use an ATM machine to withdraw some money.

LEANNE: Well, and then we're looking at all these billboards, some places that are long gone like Borden's cafeteria, the Camelot in. But then there's some places that are still around, we saw the big country music that was still around. And I just love all of these kind of old nostalgic signs.

JACK: I don't think any of those that we've just seen are in business anymore. There's the metal gold sign that's still up on 11th Street. But I don't think any of these, Safeways are long gone. And all those are long gone. But it shows what what Tulsa used to be like, just 50 years ago,

LEANNE: I remember the TG-NY I mean, that was a big deal. There was one at Ranch Acres right there at 31st. And that was always they sometimes would even have a carnival set up in the parking lot. So that was always a blast. Okay, we've got some streets out there. And I was I was trying to determine where some of these locations might be.

JACK: Oh, how about this? This is all the same location. That's 21st and Harvard? Yes. Does it come into focus? Yes.

LEANNE: Thank you for the clarification. Because without that lens, it could really be any street corner back then.

JACK: I think we're looking east on the 21st. Now, is that correct? Or yeah, this is all showing how busy traffic was on 21st. And Harvard back in the 1970s.

LEANNE: A lot of people may not know about rainbow bread because that was such a big part of Tulsa.

JACK: I included this because so many people who were in Tulsa, remember the smell of 11, and Utica or Rainbow Bread had a factory and you couldn't drive anywhere in that area without smelling the fresh bread that they were making. Now that seems so odd that there were bread-making factories 11 years ago.

LEANNE: Yeah, we're looking now at the cable box. You know, you just think about how far we've come and being able to stream literally any program we want around the world. But back then that cable box was our kind of our first, you know, opportunity to connect.

JACK: And yeah, that was back in the day when there were four channels. And cable cave gave us the idea of having more dozens of channels in our living room. Yeah, We saw the advent of the trans fund machine earlier. And this is when Oh Tasco which a lot of people may not have heard of it was good for Oklahoma tires and supply. And it was like a hardware store throughout had several different locations in Tulsa when they started taking credit cards or debit cards. That was big news, too.

LEANNE: I did and I think one of my co-workers mentioned this morning that they hated him. And here's your chance. I think that was their kind of their like tagline. I had no idea. Oh, Tosca was an acronym. Oklahoma tire and supply.

JACK: Oklahoma tire and supply. Yeah, see, obviously they sold car parks, car. Accessories, tires. It was almost like an early day, I guess. Almost like a Best Buy. They sold some appliances but it was more of a hardware store.

LEANNE: We love it each year, each month that you come on and you bring these glimpses from the past and even I you know Native learn something new today about our Tasco we appreciate you as always, we look forward to seeing you. Just a reminder. If you would like to get more information, you can check out Tulsa films.com I know that they still offer those DVDs and I know a lot of folks probably got them for Christmas.

JACK: Well, I appreciate it. And I hope we were talking about the 70s and it doesn't seem like that long ago to you and I but when you think it's that was a half of a century ago.