In 1939, the First National Bank of Oklahoma City published this 64-page booklet commemorating its 50th anniversary and in doing so provided a fine glimpse into Oklahoma City's past.

The booklet consists of two parts. First, following a brief introduction, pages 3-45 contain excerpts from the booklet, The First Eight Months of Oklahoma City by "Bunky" (McMaster Printing Company 1890). Second, pages 46-64 trace the history of the First National Bank from the Land Run through 1939.

Additionally, interspersed through the book are 8 photographs, 4 large murals by Edgar Spier Cameron which adorn First National's Great Banking Hall, and 4 others of the First National Bank.

The 1st Part – 1st 8 Months: Who Was Bunky?   The author's real name was Irving Geffs. Luther B. Hill's 1908 A History of the State of Oklahoma, Vol. I (Lewis Publishing Company 1908), pages 218-219, says this about the author of First Eight Months of Oklahoma City: This unique little book, printed at Oklahoma City in 1890, containing 110 pages in pamphlet form, was written by "Bunky," and aside from this name the historian gave no hint of his own individuality. His real name was Irving Geffs. Some time before the incidents which he describes he had taken too much liquor, and on recovering his senses found that he was a regularly enlisted soldier of the United States army, a position for which he had no special liking, but it was several years before he was able to get out. He was with the infantry that camped at Oklahoma City the day before the opening, and on leaving the army remained in the city for some time. He was a left-handed scribe, a clever writer, and was in the employ of some of the first newspapers of the city, especially with Frank McMaster. McMaster was publisher of early-day newsapaper, The Oklahoma Gazette, and was publisher of Bunky's booklet. A reader of Bunky's work would do well to differentiate between what Bunky reports as fact and what he reports as opinion. It is easy enough for an objective reader to see that he was a "homer" – his reports are much too glowing and also report much too little on any negative aspects of the 1st 8 months in Oklahoma City to be taken at face value as literally correct. On the other hand, no apparent reason exists to doubt that his reporting of specific facts is accurately presented.

The 2nd Part – Early Days of First National Bank. This part was written by John Cecil Brown about whom I've not been able to learn a single thing. However, his text doesn't contain the prosaic-type remarks that Bunky's booklet does and it is much more matter-of-fact in its presentation. Since the booklet was written to commemorate the bank's 50th anniversary, and since Brown was engaged by the bank to present that review, if there were aspects of the bank's history that might be seen as unflattering (and I'm not saying that there were any), one would not expect to find them in the booklet. The 19 pages in this section trace the bank's Land Run origins through 1939 and I have no reason to doubt that the history presented is accurately.

Photographs & Sketches. Each page contains at least a sketch of a scene, building, or person. Eight much better quality photos are also present, shown by the thumbnails below. Below, two options are present: (1) click on the page number to move to that page; or (2) click on the thumbnail to open a cropped and large image in a separate window.
Page 2	Page 16	Page 26	Page 40	Page 46	Page 52	Page 56	Page 62

About These HTML Files.  I've scanned each page in the booklet and am presenting them here for you to read, copy, or print. Each scanned page in the booklet is presented on a separate HTML page. A large (34.5 MB) PDF file containing all pages in these HTML files is here. Enjoy the history! Doug Loudenback