O. W. Gurley

Early Life

Ottawa W. Gurley — known in the record as O. W. Gurley, with Ottowa and Ottaway also appearing — was born on December 25, 1868, in Huntsville, Alabama, to John and Rosanna Gurley, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. His family moved to Arkansas around 1876, and the 1880 census places them in Vaugine Township, Jefferson County.

Gurley completed courses at Branch Normal College in 1884, studying under the educator Joseph Carter Corbin. On January 25, 1888, he married Emma Evans. A federal service register lists him as a letter carrier in July 1891.

From Perry to Tulsa

By 1900 the Gurleys were living in Perry, in Oklahoma Territory's Noble County. There Gurley ran for county treasurer and served as a school principal, while also operating a store. After roughly a decade in Perry, he sold his store and land and moved to Tulsa, where he bought land north of the Frisco railroad tracks — the area that would grow into the Greenwood District.

Contributions to Greenwood

In Tulsa, Gurley built a business life around land and lodging. He worked as a real-estate broker and developed property in the growing district, and the 1910 census records Emma operating a rooming house. By 1920, Emma was managing a hotel. Gurley's ventures also included a grocery and an employment agency, and he organized a Masonic lodge and served as a sheriff's deputy.

His real-estate work mattered because land was the foundation of everything else in Greenwood: the homes, churches, offices and storefronts that made the district a center of Black enterprise needed property owned and developed by Black Tulsans. Greenwood Rising, the district's history center, interprets Gurley among the builders of Greenwood.

The 1921 Massacre and After

During the Tulsa Race Massacre of May 31–June 1, 1921, the Gurleys — like thousands of Greenwood residents — were detained in a National Guard internment camp while the district burned. Afterward the couple left Tulsa for Los Angeles. Gurley was registered there as a Republican voter in 1924 and as a Democrat a decade later.

O. W. Gurley died on August 6, 1935, and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles.

What the Record Shows

Some modern accounts give Gurley's birth year as 1867 rather than 1868, and details of Emma Gurley's maiden name and marriage date vary in circulating accounts; this biography follows the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. The frequently repeated story of a specific 40-acre purchase, and descriptions of Gurley as Greenwood's sole founder, are not included here because they have not been confirmed against deed records.