Real Food Tulsa member, Melyn Bellati, recently decided to spawn an offshoot of our existing group in Tulsa, creating Real Food Bartlesville. Bartlesville has a population of approximately 35,000 and is about 50 miles north of Tulsa. This quaint community is perhaps most notated as the longtime home of Phillips Petroleum Company, now merged and known as Conoco Phillips.Frank Phillips, founded Phillips Petroleum in Bartlesville in 1905 when the area was still Indian Territory. His former home in Bartlesville is now a museum maintained by the Oklahoma Historical Society. His ranch and retreat about 10 miles southwest of Bartlesville is called Woolaroc (a portmanteau of the words woods, lakes, rocks). Woolaroc is a working ranch of 3,700 acres, and houses a museum exhibiting Phillips' extensive Native American, western, and fine art collections, and one of the most complete private collections of Colt firearms in the world. Also on the property are the Phillips family's lodge and mausoleum, along with a huge wildlife preserve with herds of American Bison, elk, Texas long horn cattle, water buffalo, zebra and more than 20 other animal species.
Price Tower, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, stands in downtown Bartlesville. The nearby Bartlesville Community Center, designed by one of Wright's students, hosts the OK MOZART International Festival, a week-long music event, each June. Begun in 1985 and organized around the music of Wolfgang Amadaus Mozart, the festival features performances of classical, jazz, light opera, and more. World-renowned musicians perform each summer at OK Mozart.
What a pleasure to be part of the budding raw food community within this lovely, historical city in Oklahoma.
