Best Gothic in the Metropolitan Area and other Norman, OK Things to Do Tips

McFarlin Memorial Methodist Church

Dedicated in 1924, the McFarlin Memorial Methodist Church is the most handsome religious structure in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. Built of Indiana limestone and financed by an oilman whose only real tie to Norman stems from the burial of his son here, this Gothic marvel surprisingly remains nowhere on the national register of historic sites. Just three blocks north of the University of Oklahoma campus and facing southward, perhaps the better to receive its original congregation, there is no more stately Gothic edifice within 100 miles.

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Phone: 405/ 321-3484
Address: 419 S University Blvd
Directions: three blocks north of campus' North Oval
Website: http://www.mcfarlinumc.org
Other Contact: Box 6390, Norman OK 73070

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Things To Do: Gothic Credentials

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Written by mrclay2000

on Apr 8, 2003

southern facade, 56-foot main

window

The Gothic belltower on the McFarlin Memorial Methodist Church rises 112 feet above the walk below, flanking a row of stained glass windows on the west side, and towering over the huge 56ft by 32ft main window. Farther east on the southern facade is a bay window, an expensive ornament not often found on 20th century American churches. If you look more closely, you can see that even the splay (the three-dimensional arch over the doorways) is ornamented.

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Phone: 405/ 321-3484
Address: 419 S University Blvd
Directions: three blocks north of campus' North Oval
Website: http://www.mcfarlinumc.org
Other Contact: Box 6390, Norman OK 73070

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Things To Do: Gothic Wonder

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Written by mrclay2000

on Apr 8, 2003

McFarlin Memorial Methodist Church,

western side

Though the front 56-foot window is complemented by four similar windows on the western side of the sanctuary (the original 1924 church before the additions), the interior view is one of simple glass segments that depict no allegory or religious passage. Sadly, the recent additions to the interior have almost blocked the entirety of the main window, leaving only the upper third. Note here the additional design over the northwest doorway, and the stately belltower that has no equal in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.

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Phone: 405/ 321-3484
Address: 419 S University Blvd
Directions: three blocks north of campus' North Oval
Website: http://www.mcfarlinumc.org
Other Contact: Box 6390, Norman OK 73070

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Things To Do: House of Worship

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Written by mrclay2000

on Apr 8, 2003

McFarlin Memorial Methodist Church,

interior

Like many houses of worship in the United States, the McFarlin Memorial Methodist Church loses some of its grandeur in a more functional, less ornate interior. Due to the rich endowment of $700,000 in 1924 that allowed the completion of this church, the interior can boast Bedford and Caen stone from France, and walnut and gum wood in the sanctuary auditorium.

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Phone: 405/ 321-3484
Address: 419 S University Blvd
Directions: three blocks north of campus' North Oval
Website: http://www.mcfarlinumc.org
Other Contact: Box 6390, Norman OK 73070

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Things To Do: Oklahoma's Best Museum for Natural History

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Written by mrclay2000

on Apr 8, 2003

Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of

Natural History

Once residing in poor quarters on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, the comprehensive collection of millions of artefacts and fossils from 300 million years of Oklahoma history now sits under the impressive 195,000 sq ft Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, which opened in the year 2000. Some of the galleries prohibit photography (due to copyrighted works), but others encourage the use of a camera (a tripod is admissible with special permission).

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Phone: 405/ 325-4712
Address: 2401 Chautauqua Avenue
Directions: a few blocks south of Fraternity Row on "South Greek"
Website: http://www.snomnh.ou.edu

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Things To Do: Bones

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Written by mrclay2000

on Apr 16, 2003

mastodons of different ages

Much of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History is devoted to early man and very early settlement of the area now called Oklahoma. For me these had less interest than the dozens of large skeletons and fossilized remains of dinosaurs over the whole range of history. For instance you can see the Ice Age Columbian Mammoth compared directly with its forebear from 30 million years ago.

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Phone: 405/ 325-4712
Address: 2401 Chautauqua Avenue
Website: http://www.snomnh.ou.edu

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Things To Do: Skulls

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Written by mrclay2000

on Apr 16, 2003

Pentaceratops (largest dino skull

ever found)

For almost fifty years, some of the more important skeletal remains were kept in carts in hidden chambers and subterranean corridors at Owen Field, the University of Oklahoma's famous gridiron. Once the new facility was built, scholars realized they had (in the specimen of the Pentaceratops) the largest skull of a dinosaur ever found.

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Phone: 405/ 325-4712
Address: 2401 Chautauqua Avenue
Website: http://www.snomnh.ou.edu

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Things To Do: Jurassic Showdown

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Written by mrclay2000

on Apr 16, 2003

saurophaganax approaching

apatosaurus

The main attraction in the dinosaur exhibit is the world's longest apatosaurus (93 feet long) as it attemps to defend itself against the meat-eating saurophaganax, whose slicing first digits are akin to those of the velociraptors of Jurassic Park.

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Phone: 405/ 325-4712
Address: 2401 Chautauqua Avenue
Website: http://www.snomnh.ou.edu

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Things To Do: Coming to Town

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Written by mrclay2000

on Jun 1, 2003

Norman Depot

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Norman Depot is an integral factor in Norman's existence. Built in 1909 (two years after statehood), the station has seen continuous passenger service until 1979, and then again in the 1990s when passenger service resumed. In 1884, President Chester A. Arthur authorized a railroad through the then-Indian Territory (surveyed by Abner E. Norman in the early 1870s, the man who gave Norman its name). In 1887, Norman's first boxcar rumbled along the new tracks near the very place where Norman was born.

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Directions: near Edwards Park, Main Street

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Things To Do: Oldest Date on the Street

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Written by mrclay2000

on Jun 5, 2003

Eye Care Oklahoma (in an 1894

building)