Oklahoma National Monument, Photo courtesy of Visit Oklahoma City.
outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building downtown, stripping walls from the nine-story structure leading to dramatic rescues of survivors still trapped inside. The memorial’s design helps tell the story of what happened on that fateful day. The two tall gates, the actual entrances to the memorial, are placed across the reflecting pool to symbolize the unsuspecting minute before the 9:02 a.m. blast, and moments afterward with the realization of how it has changed this city and the nation forever. The reflecting pool runs along what was 5th street, where the exploding truck was parked. The 168 empty chairs now occupy the site where the Murrah Federal Building once stood. The chairs are lined in nine rows, representing the building’s nine floors. Each chair is the same, with tall bronze back supports and granite seats above opaque glass that illuminates with nightfall. The memorial is one of the more poignant sites to see in a trail of history within America’s south-central heartland while traveling from Oklahoma City to Tulsa and then crossing over to Arkansas’ Fort Smith, Hot Springs and Little Rock. Stops along the way showcase national historic sites, monuments to civil rights struggles, museums, architecture, natural attractions, and even a presidential library that reveal not only the region’s historical and cultural legacy, but momentous
Oklahoma City Memorial, one of the twin massive bronze-walled gates, Photo courtesy of Visit Oklahoma City.
OKLAHOMA CITY TO LITTLE ROCK By Richard Varr
Time seemingly stands still for two minutes. Twin massive bronze-walled gates, one etched at 9:01 and the other at 9:03, flank a peaceful reflecting pool, its glassy waters aglow with a sheen from the morning sunlight. To one side sit 168 bronze chairs in orderly rows representing the victims of what happened here on the morning of April 19, 1995. And on the other side of the pool within a circular courtyard, the so-called Survivor Tree stands strong and still blooms 26 years after a horrific bomb blast tore and shredded its limbs. My visit to the Oklahoma City National Memorial, often noted as the city’s top-rated and must-see site, evoked a strong sense of sorrow—an awkward silence as I would describe it—similar to what I felt when seeing New York City’s National September 11 Memorial & Museum and Pearl Harbor’s USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Oklahoma City bombing was an act of domestic terrorism when a truck bomb exploded
OKLAHOMA CITY TO LITTLE ROCK
COAST TO COAST SUMMER MAGAZINE 2021
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