"Always Remember"

Photographs from the Elbow - Guthrie, Oklahoma

Shortly after the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889, a group of Black settlers laid claim to a swath of island bottomland formed by a split in the main course of Cottonwood Creek, a tributary of the Cimarron River running along the western edge of the newly formed city of Guthrie. Called the Elbow, the neighborhood thrived and survived for nearly a century, until incessant flooding (and the end of official segregation) saw its residents relocated elsewhere, their homes, churches, and businesses abandoned — all since overtaken by the elements, and other, stranger depredations.

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