06/01/2026
Before the Greenwood district was established, African Americans had come to Oklahoma in the mid-1800s as slaves of the Five Civilized Tribes (that is the term used for the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole tribes), who were forcibly removed from their lands in the southeast part of the country, resettling in Oklahoma, which was then known as Indian Territory. By and by, the territory became a safe place for African Americans to settle. By the 1920s, more than 50 Black townships had been founded in Oklahoma, according to History.com.
Often referred to as the founder of Greenwood, O.W. Gurley was born to freed slaves in Alabama but he grew up in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. He moved to Oklahoma during the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889. Gurley ran a general store in Perry, Oklahoma, before he moved to Tulsa. He bought 40 acres of land in the North of Tulsa and started his first real estate business, a boarding house that would become Greenwood Avenue. In addition to opening a grocery store, Gurley launched other businesses such as textile, tapestry, and furniture and also renamed his boarding house Gurley Hotel. Other properties he owned included a two-story building that housed the Masonic Lodge and a Black employment agency. Gurley later subdivided his plot into residential and commercial plots and also opened a grocery store. He sold the plots to only Blacks.
SOURCE:
https://face2faceafrica.com/article/8-entrepreneurs-who-helped-build-tulsas-black-wall-street-destroyed-on-this-day-in-1921
