Welcome to the Boomtown.

May 30, 2002 1:17 PM

Welcome to the Boomtown. 'Fast Company' magazine profiles the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant -- a rural Oklahoma factory that is the source of nearly every nonnuclear bomb in the United States' arsenal. Man
posted by Dirjy (8 comments total)

chemical castration and bombs! Oklahoma really is OK!
posted by tolkhan at 1:58 PM on May 30, 2002

It's also the state that has not one, but two airports named for celebrities who died in plane crashes.

One of them, Will Rogers, was in fact born in McAlester. (I didn't know until just now, though, that he was also a 32nd-degree mason!)
posted by yhbc at 2:06 PM on May 30, 2002

will rogers perished in the same crash with aviation pioneer wiley post. the two airports named for them are both located in oklahoma city.

nice link, dirjy.
posted by lescour at 3:03 PM on May 30, 2002

Good link.
posted by mrbula at 3:12 PM on May 30, 2002

Rogers was born two miles east of Oolagah, northeast of Tulsa, about an hour north of "Big Mac".

In addition to freaky naming conventions for airports, Oklahoma has the world's only commercial spaceport.
posted by willconsult4food at 3:17 PM on May 30, 2002

I stand (humbly) corrected on Will's birthplace! I knew it was in the east half of the state tho ...

Yes, nice post!
posted by yhbc at 6:09 PM on May 30, 2002

Sounds like the Progressive's Meet the People Who Make Land Mines, {sample only} about the Accudyne plant in my home town. (It's since closed and moved.) I knew a few people who worked there. They didn't talk about their work much. There were sometimes accidents.

will: Sorry, Oklahoma is far from alone in taking advantage of the spaceport development funds Congress authorized back in the 90s, when the satellite-constellation business looked to make this a huge growth industry. (We all know what happened to that.)
posted by dhartung at 6:57 PM on May 30, 2002

yhbc: You nailed his lodge location, anyway. All my life, I thought he'd been born closer to Claremoore.

dhartung: Sorry, my error. I meant to say first commercial spaceport, rather than only commercial. And even that would appear to be wrong. That'll teach me not to believe OSIDA's press releases!
posted by willconsult4food at 8:09 AM on May 31, 2002