80s Oil Boom & Bust - Podcast
The 80s Boom & Bust. Otherwise known as the New Wild West. A saga so big it took us THREE podcasts to tell it, all of which we are delivering to you. If you didn’t live through it, you won’t believe it. Even if you did, it’s still hard to believe.
Join John and KTOK/iHeartRadio star Gwin Faulconer-Lippert for a colossal story of triumph, loss, and redemption. They are the 58th, 59th, and 60th episodes of our original OKLAHOMA GOLD! radio program and podcast. Go HERE to listen to them all! Future episodes explore more great heroes, events, and movements of Oklahoma History.
Individuals and families swarmed from all over the country to the rip-roaring Oklahoma oil boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s. “The New Wild West” produced day laborers driving Cadillacs, beautiful women in public mud wrestling contests at high priced night clubs, church pastors collecting their own private zoos, and lots more.
When the chickens—and creditors—finally came home to roost at OKC’s Penn Square Bank, ground zero of the 1970s and 1980s Oklahoma oil boom, the surreal became the nightmarish, as depositors lost millions and fleets of luxury executive vehicles—and nearly everything else in the bank—went on the auction block.
Two Oklahoma banking families, the Rainbolts and the Symcoxes, kept their wits about them during the 1970s and 1980s oil boom and grew into two of the state’s greatest financial institutions, leaving a lasting legacy in the vein of Rudyard Kipling’s classic admonition to “keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.”
The stirring conclusion of our “80s Boom and Bust” podcast series, “The Blessing,” is the unforgettable part that other accounts leave out!
Many thanks to Atwoods Ranch and Home, a farm and ranch supply company based in Enid, Oklahoma, for their support of the Red River Institute of History and OKLAHOMA GOLD! Please support them as you are able! Wherever you are, you can order online from thousands of quality products on their terrific website HERE. Atwoods also has 66 stores in 5 states: Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. In addition to farm and ranch supplies, Atwoods stores sell clothing, lawn and garden items, tools, hardware, automotive supplies, sporting goods, pet supplies, firearms, and seasonal items.
