Eskridge Hotel Museum

The Eskridge Hotel in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, was completed and opened in 1907, the same year Oklahoma achieved statehood. It was built by Pinckney Reid Eskridge, a traveling cotton salesman, or 'drummer,' who had spent years riding the Santa Fe Railroad between Texas and Kansas. Frustrated by the uncomfortable beds in most railroad-town hotels, and having done well in the cotton trade, Eskridge decided to build a hotel with all the comforts of home in Wynnewood, then the most thriving town on his route.

The thirty-room, three-story structure quickly became a favorite railroad stop between Oklahoma City and Dallas and was considered the finest hotel along that stretch of line. It became especially famous for its dining room, where the chicken dinners drew travelers and locals alike. The hotel continued to operate as a working hotel and boarding house until 1970.

In 1973 the Wynnewood Historical Society purchased the three-story building and converted it into a museum of local and regional history. In 1978 the former hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places listings in Garvin County. Today the museum preserves furnishings and artifacts spanning the late 1800s through the mid-1900s, with display rooms recreating a funeral parlor, barber shop, post office, doctor's office, and a veterans' memorial exhibit.

The building's long life as a hotel — through the railroad era, two world wars, and decades of boarders — gives it the deep human history that local lore now attaches its ghost stories to.