TULSA, Okla. – When the 50th Anniversary of Eufaula Dam takes place, Sept. 25 it will mark the culmination of nearly a year of planning and coordination between the Lake Eufaula Association, the Tulsa District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the surrounding communities.
“We are overjoyed at the support we have received from individuals, schools and businesses to commemorate the opening of Eufaula Dam and Lake,” said Connie Morris, LEA President. “We have worked hard to put together a first-rate event that respects the historic significance of the dam’s opening ceremony.”
As the dam’s anniversary approached, Eufaula Middle School Principal, Chris Whelan, faculty and students began a video project to capture as much of the history of the lake as possible.
“When we ask students about Lake Eufaula, most of them think that it has always been there. They don’t know about all of the work that went into making Lake Eufaula a reality,” said Whelan. “The whole goal of the project is to preserve this piece of local and state history. I try to tell the students they have a responsibility to preserve what’s been given to them.”
Enter Charles Crumpler, who retired after more than 30 years of service in numerous Tulsa District project offices. Crumpler’s father, Richard, was an early member of the Eufaula Lake Development Association, the pre-cursor of the LEA.
A theatre owner from Checotah, Okla., Richard Crumpler served as president, and later secretary, of ELDA. He preserved hundreds of documents and communiqués between ELDA, community members and congressional representatives. Those documents provide evidence of the efforts powerful political figures and earnest, but committed, Oklahoma citizens.
“These were the ground pounders, the ones that got the little things done and these people, in the exchange and that’s a lot of the correspondence that I see that Dad had, they knew this,” said Crumpler. “They had to have the strong constituency in order to get things done. These were the people who wrote the letters, who went to meetings, who explained ideas and stated what was going on.”
Crumpler passed away in 2006 but Charles kept the records he left behind. After learning about the Eufaula Middle School video project, he organized the documents by year and provided them to Whelan.
According to Whelan, included among the records are letters and telegraphs from Oklahoma U.S. Representatives Ed Edmondson and Carl Albert, and former Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn of Texas.
“The effort to make the lake a reality was a mixture of grass-roots from the bottom and powerful elected officials,” said Whelan. “They all knew that progress was coming in the next 30-50 years and they knew there was going to be opposition but progress was going to come and they were going to be prepared for it.”
According to Crumpler, progress for the economically depressed region was always the goal.
“The whole goal of the lake from my dad’s perspective was to bring progress, it was very depressed area. When the river flooded, the area was underwater and you couldn’t get anywhere. You were stuck,” said Crumpler.
Whelan said documentary group has conducted 20 interviews with living resources. In attempting to provide a dynamic and truthful history of the Lake Eufaula project, they have interviewed people with different, often opposing views about the lake. And yet, in spite of the differences, he describes it as a uniting experience.
“This project has brought our community together,” said Whelan. “We thought it would be a small, middle school project but with the Lake Eufaula Association and the documents the Crumpler family provided, it has turned into a really big thing – a really good, big thing.”
Among the telegraphs and letters, Whelan noted a set of thoughts Crumpler wrote on the ELDA letterhead while he was likely brainstorming before a speech or meeting.
On the letterhead, Crumpler wrote: The reason for our service as an association is to help the many as much as possible and to hurt the few as little as possible.
“I think we can all learn something from that,” said Whelan.
The 50th Anniversary Celebration of Eufaula Lake and Dam will begin, Sept. 25 at 10 a.m. at Eufaula Dam Site South.