History

Tulsa in the 1920s was one of the most prosperous cities in the United States. The discovery of oil in the surrounding Green Country had transformed a modest Indian Territory town into a city of bank towers, luxury hotels, and Art Deco commercial buildings that rivalled those of cities many times its size. The “Oil Capital of the World” title was not an idle boast: in its peak years Tulsa was the operational headquarters of much of the American petroleum industry, and its wealth supported an extraordinary concentration of ambitious architecture that remains one of the largest intact Art Deco districts in the United States.

The Union Depot was completed in 1931 as a consolidation of the city’s multiple rail facilities into a single terminal. The timing was unfortunate: the Great Depression had already begun to contract the oil economy, and the terminal’s working life in its original configuration was compressed by the rapid decline of intercity passenger rail in the postwar years. By the mid-twentieth century, rail passenger traffic through Tulsa had declined sharply.

The depot survived the transition era that claimed many similar buildings across the country. Adaptive reuse came in the form of the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, which established its headquarters in the building. The Hall of Fame celebrates Oklahoma’s contribution to jazz and American popular music — a contribution as substantial in its domain as the state’s contribution to the petroleum industry. The reuse has preserved the depot’s principal spaces and facades while giving the building a sustained programme of events and visitors.