Curious Cousins OK Podcast

In this week’s episode, Jess takes a special listener request straight from her own parents to explore one of Tulsa's most beloved historic landmarks. While breaking her usual rule of not covering back-to-back Tulsa stories, she dives deep into the fascinating evolution of Swan Lake—originally known as Orcutt Lake—tracing its journey from Creek Nation allotment land to a roaring 1910s amusemen...

This week, we delve into the haunting, forgotten history of George Jefferson Hassell—one of the most prolific yet overlooked family annihilators in American true crime. While infamous figures like Lizzie Borden or the Axeman of New Orleans dominate popular lore, Hassell quietly picked off two entire families across California and Texas between 1917 and 1926, ultimately taking the lives of 13 innoc...

Ep 182: The May Rooms Step back into the high-stakes, wildcatting days of early Tulsa, where oil, money, and vice built a boomtown overnight. This week, Jess dives into the history of The May Rooms , Tulsa’s longest-running and most infamous brothel. Operating on the upper floors of the 1918 Jacobs Building (310 E. First St.), the enterprise survived over four decades of vice raids, Prohibition fr...

Ep 181: Flames, Factions, and the Fall of Oklahoma’s Prison System Was anyone a fan of the show “Prison Break”? Anyone?  While major, full-scale prison takeovers have dropped sharply since their peak in the 1970s and 80s—thanks to modern architectural containment zones and specialized Tactical Emergency Teams (CERT)—Oklahoma’s history holds some of the most violent and costly uprisings in American...

Welcome back, cousins, to Season 5 of your favorite Kooky and Spooky podcast, about your favorite state, Oklahoma! This season, Jess starts us off with a little state fair history… From deep-fried treats and livestock shows to the roar of the midway, state fairs represent classic autumn nostalgia. But behind the neon lights of the 1987 Oklahoma State Fair lurked a nightmare that would leave two na...

🎙️ Ep 179: Lawton Dogman (Season 4 Finale) 📌 Episode Overview In the Season 4 finale, Tiff dives deep into one of the Sooner State’s most famous and unsettling urban legends: The 1971 Lawton Dogman . What began as a series of strange sightings in Southwestern Oklahoma quickly escalated into city-wide panic, emergency police calls, and hospitalizations. The episode traces the deep roots of werewol...

Ep 178: The Bombing of Boise City In July 1943, World War II was raging across the globe, patriotic fervor was at an all-time high, and Americans were doing everything they could to support the war effort. But for the small, sleepy agricultural town of Boise City, Oklahoma, the war hit a little too close to home—literally. In this episode, Jess explores the bizarre, true story of how a rogue U.S....

Episode 177: Daniel Furr (Part 2) — The Web of Silence How far would you go to find the truth when the system shuts its doors? In Part 1, Tiff traced the heartbreaking disappearance of 15-year-old Daniel Lee Furr from Ada, Oklahoma, in the summer of 1995, and the chaotic, deeply flawed recovery of a body at an abandoned brick quarry. Now, in Part 2, Tiff dives headfirst into the terrifying afterma...

Episode 176: Daniel Furr (Part 1) The mid-1990s were a chaotic, historic era defined by massive headlines—from the tragedy of the OJ Simpson trial and the shock of the Oklahoma City bombing to the pop-culture frenzy of Windows 95 and the return of Michael Jordan. But in the small town of Ada, Oklahoma, a completely different, deeply convoluted nightmare was unfolding for one local family. In this...

Ep 175: Medicine Park Pack your bags and grab your sage, because this week we are heading to Oklahoma’s very first planned resort town: Medicine Park . Nestled in the foothills of the Wichita Mountains, this unique oasis was built entirely from the ground up—literally—using the area’s distinct, naturally polished granite cobblestones. But beneath its picturesque, therapeutic exterior lies a wild h...

Ep 174: Keystone Lake — The Towns Beneath the Waves What if the place you called home was chosen to be wiped off the map? In Episode 174, Tiff dives deep into the murky waters of Keystone Lake , Oklahoma’s second-largest reservoir, to uncover a rich history of American exploration, Native American heritage, and 20th-century engineering that forever rewrote the local geography. Before it was a mass...

Ep 173: Elohim City Pt 3 ⚠️ WARNING: If you haven’t listened to Parts 1 and 2 yet, stop right here, go back, and binge those first—or prepare to be utterly confused! In Jess’ final installment on Oklahoma’s most infamous extremist compound, she is tying up all the loose ends and answering the burning questions that left our jaws on the floor last week. Last week, Tiff asked a fantastic question: D...

🎧 Episode 172: Inside the "Babylon Loophole" of ElohimCity Sovereignty, Steel, and the State Deep within the Ozark foothills lies Elohim City, a private, tight-knit enclave that has long operated on the fringes of American society and law enforcement radar. For decades, its residents have rejected the authority of the United States government, viewing the outside world through a deeply...

Ep 171: Elohim City Pt 1 This week, Jess dives deep into a highly requested, deeply unsettling listener pick from GayleBob03. Tucked away in the dense hardwood forests and rugged limestone ravines of the Ozark foothills lies a place most Oklahomans regard as the most dangerous and mysterious enclave in the state: Elohim City . Literally translated from Hebrew as "The City of God," this 4...

Nestled along the isolated, scenic base of Buffalo Mountain in southeast Oklahoma lies a regional landscape steeped in medical history, systemic tragedy, and spine-chilling lore. Often lumped together by urban explorers and ghost hunters as a single massive, haunted entity, the "abandoned medical complexes of Talihina" actually comprise two entirely separate facilities separated by just...

Episode 169: The Blizzard of January 1886The Storm That Ended the Open Range As we transition into the warmth of spring and summer, Ep. 169 takes a chilling look back at one of the most transformative disasters in American history. The Blizzard of January 1886 wasn't just a weather event; it was a "systemic collapse" that reshaped the Great Plains, ended the era of the cowboy "c...

Episode 168: Diamonds, Bonds, and Jesse James: Zeo Zoe Wilkins (part 3) In the gripping conclusion to the saga of Dr. Zeo Zoe Wilkins , the "Love Pirate" finally meets a storm she cannot outrun. After a lifetime of high-stakes swindles, "shotgun weddings," and an oil-fueled fortune, Zeo’s world narrows to a run-down house on Park Avenue in Kansas City. But as her beauty fades i...

Episode 167: Diamonds, Doctors, and Deception: The Many (more) Lives of Zeo Zoe Wilkins (part 2) "I was a doctor, not a Mrs." — Zeo’s infamous retort when questioned about her trail of marriages. In the early 20th century, a woman’s reputation was her currency—but for Dr. Zeo Zoe Wilkins, scandal was her business model. This week, Tiff dives back into the sensational, stranger-than-ficti...

The Love Pirate’s Ledger: Dr. Zeo Zoe Wilkins (Part 1) In the "Oil Capital of the World," wealth flowed as freely as the crude, but few prospectors were as efficient as Dr. Zeo Zoe Wilkins . Known to history as the "Black Widow of Tulsa" and the "Love Pirate," Zeo wasn’t just a socialite—she was a highly educated Doctor of Osteopathy who used the stethoscope and the w...

Ep 165: Suitcase of Death! "Straight shooters always win, lawbreakers always lose." — The Tom Mix Club Motto Imagine surviving hundreds of death-defying movie stunts, jumping canyons on horseback, and becoming the highest-paid star in Hollywood, only to be taken out by your own luggage. This week, Jess dives into the legendary life and bizarrely tragic death of the world’s first true &qu...

Episode 164: Circus City USA When you think of Oklahoma, images of sprawling prairies, college football rivalries, and "The Oklahoma Standard" likely come to mind. But tucked away in the southeastern corner of the state lies a town with a colorful, gravity-defying secret. Welcome to Hugo, Oklahoma —better known to the world as Circus City, USA . In this episode, we trade the gridiron for...

Episode 163: The Kelly Clan – Oklahoma’s "Bloody Benders"? Think the "Bloody Benders" of Kansas were the only family of frontier serial killers? Think again. In this episode, Jess takes Tiff on a dark journey into the lawless "No Man’s Land" of the Oklahoma Panhandle to uncover the legend of The Kelly Clan . In the late 1880s, the Kelly family—William, Kate, Bill, and...

Episode 162: The Skirvin Hotel – The Grande Dame’s Double Life "I don't think it's haunted. I think NBA players are just a bunch of sissies." — Petra Germany, Skirvin Artist-in-Residence In this episode, we step inside the revolving doors of Oklahoma City’s most storied landmark: The Skirvin Hilton . From its 1911 debut as the "Waldorf of the Heartland" to its dark year...

Episode 161: Jim Thorpe Pt. 2 – The Bright Path Beyond the Gold In the conclusion of our two-part series, we follow Jim Thorpe as he hangs up his cleats and heads west to the silver screen. While the world remembers him as the "greatest athlete in the world," this episode explores the gritty, complex, and often heartbreaking chapters of his life that followed his Olympic and professional...

Episode 160: Jim Thorpe – The Bright Path of an American Icon "Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world." — King Gustav V of Sweden to Jim Thorpe, 1912. This episode explores the Herculean life of James Francis Thorpe (Wa-Tho-Huk), a man whose athletic dominance was so absolute that he redefined the limits of human potential. From the rugged wilderness of Oklahoma to the podiums of...