Staying Gold - Stopping By The Outsiders House Museum in Tulsa Oklahoma
Staying Gold - Stopping By The Outsiders House Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
Last week, I officially crossed into the realm of Old Person; my AARP sign-up packet arrived almost immediately, and I decided the milestone deserved proper celebration. Fortunately, I live near the Outsiders House Museum, and since I’ve loved The Outsiders for most of my life (both the book and the movie), recreating the Two-Bit Mathews chocolate-cake-and-beer scene felt like exactly the right way to mark the occasion.
The house sits in Tulsa’s Crutchfield neighborhood, an area largely built in the 1920s and 1930s to house workers from nearby industrial employers, such as the former Oklahoma Steel Castings Company and Dow Chemical. It was a solid, working-class neighborhood, once considered a good one, until the oil crisis of the 1970s and the closing of the casting company wiped out its economic base. The decline was swift and severe.
That decay made the area a perfect filming location for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 adaptation of The Outsiders by S E Hinton. Unfortunately, once filming wrapped, the little house was left behind. For the next thirty years or so, it survived as little more than a flophouse.
The house got its second chance in 2009, when Danny O'Connor, a lifelong Outsiders fan, asked a cab driver to take him past the house after a performance at Cain’s Ballroom. Seeing its condition, he became determined to save it. In 2015, he finally convinced the owners to sell.
Restoration began immediately. The house was so damaged that O’Connor initially had to enter through a window, and the process required a complete gutting and rewiring. By 2019, the renovations were finished, and the museum opened, just in time for COVID to complicate its early years.
The Outsiders, much like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, shaped me in fundamental ways. I knew visitors could recreate scenes, and I chose the Two-Bit cake moment because it nods to themes that didn’t fully make it into the movie—like the Curtis brothers’ love of chocolate cake for breakfast and the book’s gentler domestic moments. Also, it makes an excellent birthday photo.
The museum guides are fantastic. They happily play along with scene recreations, take photos, and are deeply knowledgeable about the costumes, props, and painstaking details of the restoration. I was especially impressed by the stencil work throughout the house; it’s meticulous and faithful.
They’ll also cue up your favorite scene to watch on the living room couch. I chose the moment after Ponyboy (C Thomas Howell) recites the Robert Frost poem and Johnny (Ralph Macchio) tells him, “That’s gold.”
Here’s where I committed a grievous sin.
When I requested it, I called it the sunset scene. It is not. Although sunsets are referenced, and the scene was shot at sunset, the moment in the book actually takes place at sunrise. I immediately felt the need to turn in my Outsiders fan card. To make matters worse, nostalgia completely got the better of me, and I cried like a sappy mess. The guide assured me this happens all the time, which I chose to believe was true rather than mere kindness.
The museum also has a great gift shop stocked with Outsiders gear and book editions (I picked up an anniversary copy, of course). The house is open Friday through Sunday from 11 to 4, with admission at $10—unless you’re a Soc, in which case the guides reserve the right to grease your hair first.
Stay gold.
xoxo a.d. elliott
About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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