Day Trip to McAlester, Oklahoma

Felicity and I recently took a trip to McAlester, Oklahoma to visit a large gift shop that carries pieces from my children's accessory collection (www.InspiredByFelicity.com).  I love the town so I took my camera along and took a few pictures while we spent the day there.

Here are some shots from the old downtown, where one of my fabulous retailers "The Yellow Gazebo" is located.

Above is the "Hotel Aldridge" - it's a historic hotel in McAlester, which has now been converted into an apartment complex. 

A neat mural on the side of an old building.....

This is the High School.......  I had no idea where it was and then I made a wrong turn and ended up stumbling upon it and it was definitely worth stopping to get a picture of.

Below is the "Largest Lump of McAlester Coal" found back in the mining days in the early 1900's.

On a different note, McAlester, Oklahoma is also known for being the site of the worst prison riot in U.S. history, which took place in 1973 at this Maximum Security Prison located on over 1500 acres on the edge of the town.  { Photo from Oklahoma DOC }. 

The McAlester, OK prison is mentioned in the opening of the classic novel, "The Grapes of Wrath", when Tom Joad is released from there.

In addition to being home to a maximum security prison with a "Death Row" & "Lethal Injection Chamber", McAlester, OK is also home to....

The U.S. Defense Ammunition Center & The McAlester Army Ammunition Plant, which makes and stores pretty much all of the bombs used by the U.S. military.

{ Photo Source }

The McAlester Army Ammunition Plant covers almost 45,000 acres just outside of town.  It has 2,891 buildings, 2,426 igloos and a storage capacity of 8,840,559 square feet!

There's so much more to this neat little town but that's all I have for now, except for this one last bit... Felicity's favorite part of McAlester: the "Cherry Berry Frozen Yogurt Bar".  

Buried under all that fruit and chocolate is "Cheesecake" frozen yogurt.

Felicity and I shared a huge bowl and after we finished it, she grabbed the cup and went back up to the self-serve yogurt bar saying, "More, More, More!"

The headband she is wearing is from my collection and can be found here: InspiredByFelicity.com

*I had planned to take some beautiful pictures of the gift shop where we delivered things to but Felicity was in a terrible mood when we got there so that just didn't work out.