Lake Murray (Oklahoma)
He contacted the U. S. Biological Survey, which assigned an engineer and a biologist to perform a preliminary study for creating a wildlife refuge that included a lake for waterfowl habitat.
He also approved starting condemnation proceedings to obtain the land and allowing relief funds to pay workers for clearing the heavily forested proposed lake site[4] The state legislature appropriated $90,000 on April 10.
[2] Workers in two Emergency Works Act programs established during the height of the Depression by then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), converged on what had formerly been Chickasaw Nation property in 1933, to begin construction on Lake Murray State Park.
But work on the tower ceased in 1935, reportedly because federal officials decided the project was taking too long to complete and costing too much.
It had been built based on photographs of a European castle taken during World War I by veteran Sen. Fred Tucker, a local legislator for whom the tower is named.
Lake Murray Lodge offers guest rooms and suites, cabins, meeting space, The Apple Bin restaurant, and the Parlor.
Sports facilities include an 18-hole golf course with a pro shop, tennis courts, softball fields, baseball diamond, horseshoe pits, badminton and volleyball nets.
Lake Murray State Park offers an ATV area for 3/4 wheelers, motorcycles and dirt bikes.
[8] Lake Murray is a man-made reservoir, created by building an earthen dam across the Anadarche and Fourche Maline Creeks.
William H. "Alfalfa Bill" Murray, in return for his efforts to get the lake and state park situated in Southern Oklahoma.
The design was based on photographs of a European castle that were taken by Fred Tucker, a veteran of World War I and an Oklahoma state senator, and for whom the structure is named.
From the first-floor patio, the tower reaches 65 feet into the air, allowing a breath-taking view that encompasses miles in all directions.
The tower features one roofed and two open patios, a tree- and flower-lined walkway from the parking lot, a lake lookout along the path, and shaded benches from which to watch the birds and wildlife.
Tucker Tower opened to the public in 1954 as a geological museum, featuring the granular hexahedrite meteorite found on the state park property in the 1930s.
Other displays include the reconstructed skull and fossilized bones of a mastodon found along the Washita River about 35 miles away; a mind-boggling animal skull collection, and educational exhibits of fossils, Lake Murray history, insects, fish and wildlife, legends, and rock specimens.
[14] The renovation, which included a 4,000 square feet (370 m2) addition, cost about $3 million, was paid for by the park's oil and gas trust fund and public donations.
The applicable NRHP criteria are defined as follows: Criterion A: "Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history."
[11] The application also characterized the resources as follows:[11] The lake can be reached via Interstate 35, Exit 24/29, then east two miles (3.2 km) on State Highway 77S.
