EXTRA! EXTRA!
Guthrie’s historic State Capital Publishing Co. building gets new owner, more time
GGUTHRIE — rease the old presses and dust off the vintage type cases: The future of the history of publishing, Guthrie, and Oklahoma has a new edition.
The Oklahoma Historical Society, a state agency, signed over the deed to its long-troubled State Capital Publishing Co. building to nonprofit Guthrie Tomorrow Coalition Inc. on Wednesday.
A ceremony was held just off the front steps at 301 W Harrison Ave., where news of Oklahoma statehood was first announced on Nov. 16, 1907 — when Guthrie was the territory-turned-state capital — and reenacted at the state centennial in 2007.
The aim is to save, preserve and renovate the 116-yearold, 50,000-square-foot office building and publishing plant, and resume its use as a newspaper and printing museum and education and public event space.
The building, its three stories and basement crammed full of historic presses and other printing equipment, has been closed to the public since 2012 after nearly 40 years as a museum. Repair estimates
have been as high as $4 million.
The building, constructed from a design by Belgian architect Joseph Foucart, is an anchor of Guthrie’s National Historic Landmark District.
Preservationists to the rescue
The all-volunteer Guthrie Tomorrow Coalition, led by CEO Lynn Bilodeau, took ownership of the property just less than a year after forming in the wake of a failed attempt by a developer to acquire it as surplus state property, gut it and convert it to apartments.
That effort got the attention of historic preservationists including Lloyd Lentz, a real estate appraiser and member of the Logan County Historical Society, which operated the museum for the historical society from 2009 to 2012.
Lentz and a few other old friends of the old building, including Carol Hirzel and retired banker Ralph McCalmont, a former president of the historical society, started working on a new nonprofit, using their experience with the local Save Our Depot Foundation.
The shock of the failed apartment project, thwarted when the Guthrie City Council refused to rezone the building for multifamily use, also prompted a 2016 change in state law, led by Sen. AJ Griffin, R-Guthrie.
The historical society, not the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, would decide how best to dispose of it and other historic properties it could no longer afford to keep. The historical society’s budget has been cut nearly in half the past eight years.
It all culminated Wednesday in a new beginning for the State Capital Publishing Co. building, probably the best chance for its longterm preservation since the Guthrie Chamber of Commerce gave it to the historical society 43 years ago.
Guthrie Tomorrow Coalition took over the property with a cash and in-kind purchase. Bilodeau indicated that $262,000 needed to be raised.
In-kind work had already begun, fundraising, too, but it kicked off officially Wednesday with $5,000 from a donor to remain anonymous, $3,000 from BancFirst, and $5,000 from the former Save Our Depot Foundation — now Save Our District — for a memorial park on the site to be named for Lloyd Lentz, who is ill and could not be present.
“We wouldn’t be here, essentially, without Lloyd,” said coalition board member Jan Goodyear, who also was among those who praised Bob Blackburn, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, for working so enthusiastically with the nonprofit.
Bilodeau said of the first meeting with Blackburn last year: “It was almost like going to a revival. We were so upbeat. We knew we were going to make this day happen.”
“I think we’re on the right road,” Blackburn said, moments after Mayor Steve Gentling proclaimed it “Dr. Bob Blackburn Day.”
“Do we have a solution? A final solution? I don’t think we do. But this is a good step (toward) looking for more opportunities,” Blackburn said. “The Oklahoma Historical Society is not walking away. The state of Oklahoma is not walking away.
“We’ve invested too much in this, personally, publicly. It’s part of who we are. It’s an iconic building. To me, this is the face of Oklahoma history. It’s where the history of the state of Oklahoma began. We cannot walk way, so we will remain engaged.”