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Historic place

Hales Building

201 W Main St, Oklahoma City, OK

A 12-story bank building that owners fought to save for years was dynamited in 16 seconds, to clear a shopping Galleria that was never built.

📅 1910–1979🏛️ Office BuildingDemolished
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The story

The building went up in 1910 as the State Bank, a 12-story, $350,000 structure faced in Indiana limestone, built by banker E.H. Cooke on the corner of Main and Robinson. W.T. Hales, a wealthy mule and horse trader, bought half of it in 1915 and the rest in 1928, and it took his name when First National Bank moved into its own new tower.

Urban renewal put it in the path of a planned Galleria. Hales family members offered to renovate it, and a Retro Metro OKC page says it was about 66 percent occupied and structurally sound. Clio says the Urban Renewal Authority had struggled to find a developer and signed one who would take the site only if the Hales came down. It was dynamited on April 8, 1979, and fell in 16 seconds. The Galleria was never built.

What's There Now

Retro Metro OKC lists Corporate Tower and a FedEx store on the site.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

The owner painted HALES vertically down the building in black and white letters.
Its owners fought condemnation for nearly a decade, according to Wikipedia.
The Galleria that justified the demolition was never built.

Nearby history

John A. Brown's Department Store

213 W Main St · 24 m away
Oklahoma City's biggest downtown department store spread across a block of Main and Park, and was torn down for a Galler

Katz Drug Store

200 W Main St · 33 m away
In August 1958 Clara Luper led Black students to its lunch counter, and by the third day the counter served them.

Warner Theatre (Overholser Opera House / Orpheum)

217 W Grand Ave · 122 m away
It opened as an opera house in 1903, became the Orpheum and then the Warner, and in the 1950s was Oklahoma City's first

Criterion Theatre

118 W Main St · 124 m away
A French-style movie palace with a Wurlitzer organ, it was the last building on the 100 block of West Main to fall.

Cooper Cinerama Theatre (Liberty Theatre)

19 N Robinson Ave · 128 m away
Opened as the Liberty in 1915, it became the Harber and then the Cooper, where Cinema Treasures says Cinerama and Cinemi

Midwest Theatre

16 N Harvey Ave · 138 m away
A 1,700-seat atmospheric movie palace that hosted world premieres of Black Gold and Cimarron, and is now a parking garag

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Sourceshttps://www.retrometrookc.org/collections/wt-hales-collection/