I have a question for Oklahoma historians.

I have been reading a bundle of interview notes of a person that were sent to me. The notes keep talking about "South Coffeyville, Okla." The time frame is 1913 - 1922 and is dealing with a vaudeville troupe that made the rounds in the oil boom towns in Oklahoma.

My questions is this - does anyone have a suggestion as to where in Oklahoma "South Coffeyville" might be or what town in Oklahoma might have been nicknamed that?

I know that Coffeyville, KS is in Montgomery Co., KS and is where the Daltons were supposedly stopped. But "South Coffeyville, Okla."??????

It is a real place just south of Coffeyville Kansas and just over the line in Oklahoma.
I imagine, like most border towns, it has has quite a history.

South Coffeyville, Oklahoma is just as the name implies-Just south of Coffeyville Kansas,over the line into Oklahoma-and twice as wild.

I could probably get you more info if you are more specific......

Cowboy Dan, who works in Coffeyville, and can spit and hit South Coffeyville....

Thanks for the posts. I got out my old, old, map of OK (from the 1950s) and did find South Coffeyville.

I'm from southern OK and grew up where one could spit across the Red River - so am more familiar with southern OK. I'm reading interview notes (of someone else) of a vaudeville performer who played many of the towns in the 1910s-1920s in OK - just couldn't place South Coffeyville (it should have dawned upon me to look at KS towns and follow thru).

Ever hear of Ruby Darby?

I'm about five miles from South Coffeyville. It is often referred to as South Town. So, in doing any research, if you come across that term, that is what it is referring to.

quote:

Ever hear of Ruby Darby?

Lubbock Evening Journal
Lubbock, Texas
August 19, 1953


Which reminds us of a buxom lass named Ruby Darby, once
billed as "The Original Gal with the Blues—130 Pounds of
Pep."
There must be in these parts many a resident who remembers Ruby, in the dear,
dead days beyond recall. She was the toast of the Oklahoma oil field towns, and of the
Texas dittoes, during most of the first two decades of the current century. We used to see Ruby at the old Wonderland theatre in Tulsa, then later in such boom towns as then were
Drumright, Cushing, Oilton, etc. In the vernacular of today, she was hotter'n a pistol.
Ruby was a blues shouter and headed her own company. She used to hit Tulsa several
times a year and one of her stunts was to parade herself and her beauties through the
Main Stem in three or four Cadillacs, painted yellow, or green—with tops down.(Cowboy Dans note-I assume that refers to the cars) Come to think of it, she may have borrowed the cars from friends among the Osages

The original gal with the blues had a million dollars worth of brash personality and a line of chorus ponies who could dance and sing and were g-o-o-d looking. Why Ruby never made the big time has always been a mystery to us. As she used to shout in Tug-boat whistle tones “Ruby Darby makes a striped rabbit hug a hound-Makes the preacher lay his bible down” Her rendition of the “Memphis blues”, “Beale Street mama” and a man who “was six feet tall; he sleeps in the kitchen with his feet in the hall” were super. She never failed to leave the audience whooping for more when she finished her numbers and bounced into the wings.

There's never been but one Sophie Tucker, sure. But there's never been but one Ruby Darby, too, and it's a fairly safe bet that there are around here today other refugees from Oklahoma boom days who'll back up that statement.
Ruby Darby was to the oilfields what Mollie Bailey's circus was to frontier West Texas and what Harley Sadler and his players later became after the country
had been pretty well settled up



Don't know if this link will work or not, but it is to a June 9, 1918 San Antonio Light, with an ad for Ruby.


http://www.newspaperarchive.co...er.aspx?img=81189741

Hope this was of some interest?

Thanks for article and the link to the ad. Yes, that is my Ruby Darby. I still have her life spread out on my living room table, the floor, and it is making it's way down the hall. She was one red hot mama!