Oklahoma City’s Film Row

Driving around the downtown area, I came across a sad site. The area is known as film row. In the early days of film and Oklahoma City, major movie companies, such as Warner Brothers and Paramount Pictures set up shop along this stretch of road. The thought was to cultivate, film, and produce major motion pictures here in Oklahoma away from the ever-increasing budgets of Hollywood’s production companies. For a myriad of reasons and unfortunate business deals, production companies either went under or went away.

April 1, 1943 Paramount Pictures

The neighborhood where these production companies were located can still be easily noticed by the architecture of their buildings. The beautifully constructed structures stick out from the modern-day glass and steel monoliths that surround the quaint street. It is the constant progression of quick, poorly constructed buildings that I came across.

April 1, 1946 Warner Brothers Offices

photo- Stanley Warner Box from USC Cinematic Arts Library and OKC Film Exchange Archive.

It has long been rumored that some of these old buildings are haunted. Some by starlets of yesteryear, some by past employee’s who still show up for work. I’ve actually had the pleasure of investigating some of these old beauties and recorded some great EVP’s. But it seems that the days of investigating these structures are gone. New companies have moved into several of the locations and refuse to let investigators inside. They are afraid of giving the public the ‘wrong idea’ about their company. And now the city is doing major construction all along film row.

Present day construction outside the old screening theater.

With the construction and new companies moving in, the idea of allowing paranormal investigators to investigate these historic locations seem very bleak.

Historic buildings along Film Row.

To me, it all seems sad that we as a society don’t really care about the handling and care of historical locations. We lose so much all in the name of progress.