Berryhill, Oklahoma

Berryhill is a tiny community located on the west bank of the Arkansas River near Tulsa, Oklahoma. Generally, Berryhill is north of W. 41st St. S., and between S. 61st W. Ave. and S. 47th W. Ave., approximately 4 square miles.

At first, the area was called Happy Hollow. Much of the land in Berryhill was originally owned by a Native American named Berryhill, whose house still exists on top of the hill above Berryhill South Elementary School and was most recently owned by the Bean Family of Berryhill. However, the land for the schools was donated by Charles Page. Part of the church near the current Upper Elementary school was one of original structures. Also, the north wing of the Upper Elementary school was another early school building. It has recently been demolished and a new building has been built in its place. Other new structures are under construction on the Berryhill campus as of July 2004.

At one time, the Upper Elementary building served as both high school and junior high school, and elementary.

Berryhill has 9 or 10 churches, a store, a business or two, several creeks, and many hills. The creeks tend to flow into Berryhill Creek before emptying into the Arkansas River near the railroad tracks off W. 21st St. near S. 57th W. Ave. This is the same area which will soon become part of a new highway, the Gilcrease extension. Most of the homes directly east of S. 57th W. Ave and west of S. 55th W. Ave. have already been demolished.

The most famous and recognizable hill in the valley is Victory Hill, located just east and towering over the Berryhill Footbal Field. This hill is said to have some significance to the earliest inhabitants of Berryhill. Other hills have equal cultural significance to those from Berryhill. Cowbell Hill has been notorious as a taker of life in automobile accidents for travellers on S. 49th W. Ave.

Culturally, Berryhill is almost a time capsule. In many ways, Berryhill is still in the 1950s, for good and for ill. One of the first African-American students, Tashequa Williams, first attended in 1989. Stories tell of early attempts by "blacks" to move to Berryhill which resulted in retaliation by the Ku Klux Klan. Even today, a Ku Klux Klan rally site overlooks the southern range of Berryhill.

One good thing about the timeless quality of Berryhill is that there is a chance to truly connect with a community like much of America of the '50s. Strangers and neighbors were not to be feared and the subtle pleasures and beauty of life have a chance to be enjoyed. In many ways, Berryhill has captured the essence of the rural American idyllic.

The old, original parts of Berryhill, although containing some affluent members, were mainly working class, blue-collar families with high hopes for their children. So, even though, Berryhill couldn't organize around establishing a post office or becoming a town, the school became the center of the community.

As such, in the late '60s and early '70s, there developed a substantial drug culture, mainly drinking and some marijuana use, which cuts across the traditional class structure. The timeless '50s quality of Berryhill insulates one from the real-world consequences, like many other small towns.

The development of the Rolling Oaks area in the 1980s and 1990s, enabled affluent families to enjoy Sand Springs sanitary system, as opposed to the septic system used by the "natives", and the more-individualized attention to students the Berryhill school system offers.

Tulsa has started an initiative to annex Berryhill into Tulsa city limits before current laws governing annexation change which will make it more difficult for Tulsa to do in the future.