Friday, March 22, 2013

Runestones on Turley Hill Threatened




I recently heard of some "earth moving" that was happening on Turley Hill, a pretty good size wilderness area in north Tulsa county near the small community of Turley where I grew up. I hiked that mountain several times as a kid--long before I even dreamed of running. It was and still is a huge expanse that is almost completely undeveloped. Yes, there are a few run down houses and mobile homes here and there, but this could and should be a trail running paradise--with a lot of work of course. The news I heard was of trucks dumping and burying barrels of some unknown substance--maybe having to do with asphalt. I had about 45 minutes of time to drive by to check it out--take pictures and such--I do things like that.


A HUGE area had the trees bulldozed down, scraping the deep woods like a bad burr haircut. Then hundreds of tons of broken concrete, brick, and asphalt was dumped, and grated over in places.


That, with the tree rubble was being buried, and essentially  they seem to be leveling a plot of land to possible begin some sort of large construction of something.


I know progress is supposed to be good thing, and this land belongs to somebody and not me. Not one bit of development has been done to this land ever, until now. Why? Maybe to make the land more attrative to potential buyers? That sounds like a familiar story.


Remember how the scraping of the land on Turkey mountain made a nice view of downtown Tulsa? Well, here is a view of downtown from another mountain.


Who wouldn't want an office here and have a view like this out their 10th story office? So, am I just ranting like I do so often? What can "progress" hurt?


Well, how about the fact that they are disturbing a historic Rune-stone that is extremely close to bull-dozer central? Few people know about this, these carvings on Turley Hill date back to the year 1022, and may very well be related to the carvings on the eastern side of Turkey Mountain and in Heavener.


The bald area is the landfill that was scraped and is being dumped on. The red dot is the edge of the bulldozed area. The green dot is the Runestone.I have since read that this spot has been used as a quarry/landfill for a while, but the fact remains that a relic is 299 feet away from being destroyed.

1 comment:

  1. Kenny , it just makes me sick every time I drive by there...what a waste..it was so beautiful..they have completely destroyed the area..I can't believe they were allowed to do that...however, I think the owner of the property is aware of the runestone and hopefully will protect it..Marcy Janitz

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