Tulsa sandstone home built 1913, briefly an orphanage for Indigenous children in the 1940s, later the residence of oilman and collector Thomas Gilcrease; staff report his apparition and reports of children's spirits.
1400 N Gilcrease Museum Rd, Tulsa, OK 74127
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Museum is currently in a multi-year construction project; check institution website for current visitor access. Standard museum admission applies when open.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Wheelchair-accessible museum grounds; the historic house is on a hillside in extensive gardens.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1913 · 1913 Flower Nelson sandstone home · Brief 1940s orphanage for Indigenous children · Residence of Thomas Gilcrease (Muscogee Creek; 1890-1962) · Site of one of the largest U.S. Indigenous and Western American art collections · City of Tulsa-owned museum since 1962
The Thomas Gilcrease House sits on a hillside on what is now a 460-acre museum parcel in northwest Tulsa. The original sandstone home was constructed in 1913 by Tulsa attorney Flower Nelson, who had purchased the underlying 90-acre tract in 1909 from the Mackey family.
Thomas Gilcrease was born in 1890 and was raised as an enrolled citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Under the Dawes Act allotment process, around 1900 he received a 160-acre allotment of land that turned out to lie above one of Oklahoma's most productive oil fields. The royalties from his allotment made Gilcrease wealthy and funded what would become one of the most comprehensive collections of Indigenous and Western American art in the country.
Gilcrease acquired the Nelson estate in the 1940s. Starting in 1943, before he moved in himself, he opened the home as an orphanage for Indigenous children from nearby reservations, renovating the second floor and constructing a separate structure for boys. The orphanage operated for a relatively brief period before Gilcrease moved into the home in 1949. He died of a heart attack in 1962 and was given a funeral that incorporated traditional Indigenous rituals.
By will, Gilcrease conveyed his home, gardens, and the bulk of his art collection to the city of Tulsa, on the condition that they continue to be exhibited together. The collection of more than 400,000 objects spanning Native American art and material culture, Western American art (including major holdings of Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell), and historical archives has been operated as the Gilcrease Museum since the early 1960s. The University of Tulsa has been a long-time operating partner, and the museum is currently in the midst of a major redevelopment project, with the historic house and surrounding gardens remaining at the heart of the property.
Sources
The Gilcrease House is among the most-cited haunted museums in Oklahoma. The lore consists of two interwoven strands.
The first centers on Thomas Gilcrease himself. According to Legends of America, US Ghost Adventures, and local Tulsa folklore documentation, an apparition resembling Gilcrease has been reported wandering the home and the surrounding gardens since his 1962 death. Reports describe a contemplative, non-threatening figure most often seen near windows or along walking paths through the gardens he personally designed. Staff turnover at the house has historically been high, with some former employees attributing departures to discomfort with the felt presence.
The second strand describes spirits of young children. According to ghost-tour operators and Tulsa-area paranormal write-ups, visitors and staff have reported small unseen presences in the home, the sensation of being followed at child-height, and brief glimpses of children in and around the building. Local lore attributes these reports to the relatively brief period from 1943 to 1949 when the house served as an orphanage for Indigenous children from nearby reservations.
These accounts should be approached with care. The broader historical context of Indigenous orphanhood in 20th-century Oklahoma is bound up with systemic displacement and the disruption of tribal family structures - it is not appropriate to romanticize or aestheticize that history. The lore around the children's apparitions is treated here as folk-attribution attached to a real and documented period in the building's history, not as a verified spiritual claim.
Documented paranormal-investigation reports include EVPs of a woman singing, sounds of men arguing, indeterminate whispers, unexplained loud banging, sharp temperature changes, self-closing doors, and unexplained technical-equipment failures. Investigators estimate as many as seven distinct presences, generally characterized as harmless.
Notable Entities
Visit the grounds and gardens around the original 1913 Thomas Gilcrease House, on a 460-acre parcel in northwest Tulsa. The museum houses one of the largest Indigenous and Western American art collections in the United States. The historic house is reportedly haunted by Thomas Gilcrease's apparition and by children reported to be from the brief 1940s orphanage period.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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