Magazine featured 1965 Frederick

Sent to The Frederick Press and The Frederick Leader

March 15, 20111

This 1965 aerial photo of Frederick was taken above Frederick High School.

 
State magazine profiled Frederick industry in 1965
 

“Frederick – Agriculture, Cattle, Industry.”

That was message that was delivered in an Oklahoma Today feature about Frederick that was included in the magazine’s winter 1965-1966 issue.

The magazine featured a full-page aerial shot of Frederick, taken above Frederick High School, with a Frederick Chamber of Commerce “FREDERICK – Agriculture, Cattle, Industry” license place imposed over the photo.

The four-page article opened the magazine with photos from Frederick’s industries and information about the town’s progressive attitudes.

Bill Burchardt, an Oklahoma Today staffer, wrote “Frederick is a remarkable town. Population 6,300, area four square miles, yet this amazing small city has developed an Industrial Park which contains The Century Granite Company, one of the nation’s top ten.”

Centra workers produced leather goods in 1965.

Burchardt continued, “In the Industrial Park is Betsy Bra Company, now gearing its production up to produce 182,000 brassieres per week. Nearby is Centra Leather Goods, cutting more than three million sq. ft. of leather per year, plus a great deal of plastic, for the billfolds and other items they produce.”

The article noted that approximately 25 percent of Centra’s employees were handicapped, and that Emil Marcus, head of Centra Leather Goods, was an active member of President Lyndon Johnson’s and Governor Henry Bellmon’s Advisory Committees on Employment of the Handicapped.

The Brantly 305 helicopter was made in Frederick.

The 1965 Oklahoma Today article also profiled Frederick’s Brantly Helicopter Corporation, where assembly lines completed one helicopter every day. Features of the Brantly 305 deluxe model helicopter included an air-conditioned cabin, constant speed rotors, and “more baggage space than the average auto truck.”

A photo from Brantly showed an impressive assembly line of six copters.

“The newest addition to the Industrial Park,” Burchardt wrote, “is Altair, the only regularly scheduled airline with its own home office in Oklahoma.” Altair flew daily schedules to Dallas, Frederick, Altus, Elk City, Clinton, and Oklahoma City.”

Coake and Quam Feedlot was located east of Frederick.

Regarding, cattle and agriculture, the magazine article cited the Coake and Quam Feed Yard, located four miles east of Frederick. The feedlot’s capacity was 15,000 head of cattle. Coake and Quam’s animals drank ten times more water than the city of Frederick and consumed more feed than was raised in Tillman County.

Oklahoma Today attributed Frederick’s economic success to the Frederick Industrial Foundation.

“The reason for all this success,” the article stated, “is a city-wide industrial development program which is determined to succeed.”
 

[Photos and text copyright 1965 Oklahoma Today. Reprinted with permission.]
 

The 1965 assembly line at Brantly Helicopter in Frederick produced one new copter per day.

Tillman County Memorial Hospital served county residents.

An International Farmall tractor pulls a trailer while stripping cotton.

Frederick Golf and Country Club

Joe Wynn is a member of the Tillman County Historical Society Board. He can be contacted by e-mail at jawynn@cableone.net.