Community

Angie Debo lived much of her life in Marshall, Oklahoma, teaching in the local schools, volunteering with her church and Sunday School, serving as a lay pastor, and being involved with the life of the town in a variety of other ways, as well. Just as she embraced that community, the community equally embraced her. In 1958 the residents of the town proclaimed Angie Debo Recognition Day as a way of celebrating their resident historian, but a few years later, they went a step further. In 1969 they honored her with the first annual Prairie City Days in acknowledgement of Dr. Debo's publication twenty-five years earlier of Prairie City: The Story of an American Community. Based in part on the history of Marshall, Prairie City was a novelized version of the development of a small Oklahoma town, and it was meant to reflect the similar stories shared by many of the tiny communities throughout the state. Marshall took it to heart, and from 1969 until 2004, the town hosted an annual event to commemorate its history. Along with the parades and food offerings one would expect of such annual festivities, there were also tours of the community's key historical sites. Dr. Debo and a group of volunteer tour guides regularly provided the background to such tours, narrating as groups traveled a set route. The OSU Archives was very fortunate some years ago to receive Dr. Debo's original note cards for the tour, with the route and the points of interest, and Dr. Kurt Anderson has transcribed those cards for use on this site. The other resource we have available is a StoryMap developed by a group of OSU Library faculty members, including Dr. Anderson, Kevin Dyke, Dr. Karen Neurohr, and David Peters. Not only does the StoryMap investigate the intertwined relationship of Dr. Debo, Marshall, and Prairie City Days, but it also recreates the tour with an aerial map, images, and contextual information.