| In 1897, the frontier town of Bartlesville in Indian Territory
became the site of the first commercial oil well in Oklahoma. During the
decade that followed, oil entrepreneurs streamed into the area and exploration
exploded in a frenzy of spectacular success and failures. The discovery of
oil and increasing settlement led to statehood in 1907. This same year
Oklahoma became the nation's leading producer of oil, a position it continued to
occupy or share through the tumultuous years of growth that followed.
 Frank Phillips, an ambitious barber-turned-bond salesman from Iowa, visited
Bartlesville in 1903 to assess business possibilities in the surrounding oil
fields. He returned permanently two years later with his wife Jane and
young son John. After a series of failures that nearly caused him to
abandon the business, a string of eighty-one straight successful oil wells
insured success. By 1909 he had completed construction of the Frank
Phillips Home. From then until Frank's death in 1950, the home was the
setting from which he, his family and friends, and the community that grew up
around them, played a key role in the development of the oil industry in America.
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The original 26 room Neo-Classical mansion was remodeled twice. It underwent
extensive interior redecoration the last time in 1930. It nonetheless
retains the graceful external lines of the original design. Thereafter,
neither the Phillips nor their granddaughter who donated the home to the
Oklahoma Historical Society in 1973, made significant changes to the interior.
Thus, with few exceptions, the furniture, decorations and even personal effects
are original.
 As a consequence, the Home depicts the lives, tastes, fashions, and values of
the Phillips and their world during the first half of the 20th century. As
an example of the personal home of an Oklahoma oil millionaire, it is a window
through which you can step back to those times, and experience the home life of
one of America's most fascinating oil men.
On the ground floor, your tour will include the spacious, richly paneled
library, and the dining room where much of the entertaining, was done.
Here, and at their country lodge at Woolaroc south of Bartlesville, the Phillips
received guests from near and far: personal friends, American and foreign
businessmen,
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local ranchers
and cowboys, and Native Americans with whom Frank felt a particular
closeness. Frank was proud to have been adopted into the Osage
Tribe, and to wear their ceremonial attire.
On the second floor are Frank and Jane's distinctly different bedrooms and
private baths, Jane's with gold fixtures and ceiling mirrors, and Frank's with
his personal barber chair. Also on the second floor is the bedroom of
their beloved foster daughters, with its display of childhood animal friends and
toys.
An expanded panorama of Frank and Jane's lives and interests is presented in
the award-winning permanent exhibit in the garage behind the home.
Included is information on the humble beginnings, family life, the oil business,
Phillips Petroleum Company, and the many philanthropic endeavors with which they
associated themselves throughout their lives.
A stroll around the grounds as you leave will reveal how graciously this
elegant home still fits, nearly a century later, within the town setting it did
so much to create. |
