ED & VILLIE GALLOWAY HOME (constructed 1937)
"This is guidepost four which means you should be viewing the Galloway home which sits on the west side of the park. The Galloway homestead was not only a tourist attraction it was first and foremost a working farm that allowed the Galloway’s to be totally self-sufficient. In addition to the Craftsman-style stone house that they called home, the Galloways designed and built many structures to the south and west of this residence that are no longer standing. To the south, a smokehouse for meats, a root cellar and a vegetable garden, an apple orchard south of what is now the parking lot, and shops for creating his fiddles and other items of inlaid wood. There are also the remains of several working wells around the property which Galloway dug himself. They have since been filled in, but you can still see the remains of the wells around the property.
"Mr. Galloway once said that he completed the house in six years of weekends often bringing out his students from the Sand Springs Home to help him haul sandstones from the creeks around the property to build the foundation for the house and to use his building materials for everything else in the park. At that time, Mr. Galloway had an old Model A Ford that he would use to transport the rock and other materials he had collected to build the house. He and Villie moved into the house around 1937 shortly after Galloway retired."
"Totem Pole Park Audio Tour," written by Tim Brown, commissioned by Dr. Carolyn Comfort and the Rogers County Historical Society.
"Galloway built the stone house in 1937, using native stone quarried on the Galloway property."
"The horizontally massed residence is of vernacular Craftsman style and measures 31 feet east-west and 56 feet north-south, including a ten-foot porch on the north, over the main entry. The building is oriented north-south. It has a shallow projecting wing on the east. The wall material is red sandstone, of irregular shaped chunks with rough finish, set with heavily beaded mortar. The front-gabled roof, covered by composition shingles historically and presently, had a long, straight roofline that drops to a lower level in the back to cover a rear wing. The eaves are open and unboxed, with exposed rafter tails. A stone external chimney breaks the eave-line on the northeast. The façade is irregularly pierced with sets of two wood-framed windows in 1x1 glazing pattern, and there are wood doors at entrances in the north and west elevations. The fifteen-light wood door in the north entry is original, as are the flanking 2x7 sidelights of the surround; the single-light wood door on the west is new. All openings have concrete sills. The trim in the gable ends, under the porch gable, and along a broad frieze that surrounds the house, is shiplap, all being new material which replaced deteriorated shiplap during the mid-1990s restoration. A wood-frame, wood-siding screened porch that sheltered the west-elevation entryway was removed during restoration in the mid-1990s. Also at that time the house roof, rafters, windows, glazing, and screens were completely removed due to severe deterioration. All of these were replaced with new materials, in the same style as the old materials, and generally replicating the old designs. On the north side, the porch roof is supported by four openwork columns, two of which are new. In approximately 1956, Galloway used salvaged lumber to build a shed-roofed "lean-to" against the southwest corner and south wall of the house, connecting the original screened porch to the nearby smokehouse. This room was used as a bathroom; because of severe deterioration of the wood, the lean-to was removed during the restoration and was not replaced.
"Behind the house, to the south, is a wood-frame smokehouse... The original smokehouse was built by Galloway in the first years of his residence on the property. Measuring ten feet by fifteen feet, with a north-side door, it was substantially altered during the restoration, when most of the severely deteriorated shiplap siding was removed and replaced with new wood; the roof supports and roofing material were similarly replaced. Behind the smokehouse, to the south, is a new stockade-type fence surrounding a butane-propane tank."
After acquiring the Totem Pole Park property in 1989, the Rogers County Historical Society "restored the deteriorating residential complex. The Galloway house was virtually roofless, and the auxiliary structures were crumbling. The Society replaced the framing members, rafters, roofing, windows, screens, the west door, and two of the north-side porch columns. In essence, they restored the house structurally and replicated the original design of windows and screens. The interior walls and fixtures were removed, and a new floor plan and fixtures were installed. The west-side porch was removed in 1992 and was not replaced. Also not replaced was the 1956 lean-to room that once extended off the southwest corner and south wall. The smokehouse was replicated with new siding, using the original framing members. The stone fencing on the west and north of the residence was not rebuilt."(3)
Everett, Dianna. "Ed Galloway's Totem Pole Park." National Register of Historic Places. 27 July 1998. Certified 25 January 1999.
(3) Jim Reed, of the Rogers County Historical Society. Interview, 16 July 1998, Claremore, Oklahoma, by Dianna Everett; brochure [Ed Galloway Home], dated 15 June 1996.
STONE GATEPOST AND FENCE (constructed 1937)
"To the north of the house are two square stone gateposts and the remains of the original stone fence, previously mentioned, extending to the east and west (paralleling State Highway 28A). The fence remains are one foot in width, and the height varies from ground level to about six inches above grade. The stone fencing and gates date from approximately 1937... From the stone gateposts, leading down to the road, is a flagstone walk... Between the walk and the road are two cylindrical, concrete, small bird gateposts (each three feet high by five feet circumference). The bird image is on the side facing State Highway 28A. The small bird gateposts may date from c. 1955... Approximately fifty feet east of the small stone gateposts, aligned with the remains of the fence, are two large, square stone gateposts, dating from the same time period."
Everett, Dianna. "Ed Galloway's Totem Pole Park." National Register of Historic Places. 27 July 1998. Certified 25 January 1999.
VINTAGE PHOTOS OF THE ED AND VILLIE GALLOWAY HOME BEFORE RESTORATION - Photos courtesy of the Rogers County Historical Society - Totem Pole Park Archives
