Neighborhood bar and grill in the historic 1920s Haywood Building, once home to Dr. W.L. Haywood's medical clinic at the heart of Oklahoma City's segregation-era Black business district.
307 NE 2nd Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73104
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Casual grill pricing — burgers, sandwiches, and bar menu typically $12-25.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Ground-floor restaurant accessible; upstairs former-clinic space is staff-only.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1926 · Located in Oklahoma City's historic Deep Deuce district — center of Black commerce and culture during segregation · Purchased 1938 by Dr. William Lewis Haywood, first Black faculty physician at University Hospital · Second floor housed Dr. Haywood's medical clinic for decades · Retains pews from the burned Calvary Baptist Church and the original red clinic door · One of few surviving structures from pre-urban-renewal Deep Deuce
Deep Deuce — historically known as 'Deep Second' — was Oklahoma City's African-American commercial and cultural center from the early 1900s through the 1950s. Anchored by the Santa Fe railroad tracks on the west and bounded by the segregation-era barriers north of NE 2nd Street, the district produced jazz clubs (Slaughter's Hall, the Aldridge Theater), churches (Calvary Baptist, founded 1921), Roscoe Dunjee's Black Dispatch newspaper, and an extensive professional and medical community.
The Haywood Building at 307 NE 2nd Street was constructed in the 1920s and purchased in 1938 by Dr. William Lewis Haywood (1883-1971), who established a medical practice on its second floor. Haywood is documented as one of the most important Black physicians in Oklahoma history: he co-founded with Dr. W.H. Slaughter the first Black hospital in Oklahoma City (Utopia Hospital), became the first African-American physician admitted to practice at University Hospital (now OU Medical Center), later served as its director and chief of staff in the 1950s, and worked as Oklahoma County medical examiner. He was also a civil-rights leader who published columns against Jim Crow in the Black Dispatch and opened his family estate to the community when Black residents were barred from public parks.
Deep Deuce as a district was gutted by urban-renewal demolitions and the construction of I-235 in the 1960s-70s; the Haywood Building survived as one of the few intact remnants of the historic Black commercial corridor. Deep Deuce Grill opened in the building in 2002. According to Clio and Retro Metro OKC, the current restaurant retains several artifacts from the building's earlier life: pews from the long-burned Calvary Baptist Church, floorboards from Dr. Haywood's upstairs clinic, and the original red clinic door.
The surrounding district was profoundly shaped by segregation-era racial discrimination — including the 1915 Oklahoma City segregation ordinance attempting to bar Black residents from purchasing homes north of NE 2nd Street — and that context informs both the building's significance and the editorial care with which its ghost stories should be told.
Sources
Jeff Provine and Tanya McCoy's 'Haunted Oklahoma City' (Arcadia Publishing) and follow-up reporting by The Oklahoman and the Yahoo News 'Ghost'lahoma City roundup document several recurring paranormal accounts at Deep Deuce Grill. Staff have reported self-clinking bottles, swinging light fixtures, and the persistent experience of locking up at the end of the night, turning off the lights, and then heading out from the kitchen only to find the front door open and the lights back on. Provine attributes this in his tours to Dr. Haywood, in character: 'Oh hey, it's early. We can still make some money, open back up.'
The physical artifacts retained in the current restaurant — pews from the burned Calvary Baptist Church, floorboards from the upstairs clinic, and the original red clinic door — are local touchstones that ghost-tour guides reference when narrating these accounts. The framing in Provine's work is consistently respectful of the building's Black-history significance: Dr. Haywood is described as a benevolent presence still tending to his old clinic and storefront, not as a sinister or vengeful figure.
No claims of violent death, malevolent entities, or racial-violence-driven hauntings are publicly tied to the building. Out of editorial care for a site rooted in segregation-era Black history, this entry surfaces only the documented benign-presence lore.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Casual American grill with bar menu, anchoring the modern Deep Deuce district in a building that retains physical relics — pews and floorboards — from the neighborhood's segregation-era Black-business heyday.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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