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Picking Up the Pieces
By Andre Hinds
From page 6 of the August 1995 issue of Lost Treasure magazine.
A man loaded the box with a shovel full of rock, dirt and debris. Slowly, he shook the box, separating the large items from the smaller items. The larger items were tossed aside and the smaller items were separated through a fine screen.
The process was repeated over and over until all that was left was the treasure, which was placed in a special container, marked as to the location it came from and safely stored.
This treasure wasn't gold, as you might think. It wasn't silver or diamonds or anything that a typical Lost Treasure reader would think was treasure.
The best description for this treasure would be, I guess, best called shrapnel. A week earlier it was part of a large, yellow Ryder rental truck. It was turned into shrapnel by a bomb blast that also took off the front side of the nine-story Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City.
Federal authorities had to use gold prospecting methods in order to gather evidence for their case against those who tried to physically reduce the size of government at 9:02 a.m. on April 19.
Oklahoma City is about four hours down the road from the Lost Treasure offices in Grove. Even though both towns are in the same state, Grove and Oklahoma City don't have much in common with one another.
If you look at a map of Oklahoma, Grove is up in the far upper right corner, much closer to towns in Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas than to most towns in Oklahoma. Most of the good TV and radio reception comes from Pittsburg, Kan., or Joplin, Mo.
Oklahoma City is where all the state laws come from, but folks in Grove spend more time in Branson, Mo., or Eureka Springs, Ark. -- they're just closer.
The differences are more than geographical. Grove is in the part of the state that was called Indian Territory until statehood in 1907. Indian Territory was the home of the Five Civilized Tribes, who were moved there in the first half of the 19th century.
The town names in old Indian Territory reflect the Indian heritage -- Tahlequah, Spavinaw, Tulsey Town (now Tulsa).
Oklahoma Territory was created overnight. In April 1889, the first of many land runs were held, creating instant cities, such as Oklahoma City, Enid and Guthrie. The center of power created with the land runs was maintained when Oklahoma and Indian territories were combined in November 1907.
As a result, towns like Grove have always felt they were very distant from Oklahoma City.
That all ended April 19. From the ashes of a bomb blast came a new sense of purpose for all Oklahomans, whether they were in Edmond (on the outskirts of Oklahoma City), in Guymon (in the panhandle) or in Grove.
People from all over the state lined up and waited hours to give blood for the survivors. They wore ribbons the color of the state flag. They turned on their headlights when they drove during the day.
What Oklahomans lost that day was tragic. But it was a tragedy that brought all Oklahomans together for the first time.