O. W. Gurley, a wealthy black landowner from Arkansas, traveled to Indian Territory to participate in the 1889 Oklahoma Land Run. He had just resigned from a presidential appointment under President Grover Cleveland.
In 1906, he moved to Tulsa and purchased 40 acres of land which he declared was only to be sold to other black people. He opened a rooming hosue on Greenwood Avenue, and it became very popular for blacks fleeing oppression in Mississippi. In Gurley's building they could escape the racial persecution.
Gurley, J. B. Stradford, and several other prominent black people pooled resources and created a self-sustaining exclusive black enclave, which later became known as "Black Wall Street". Unfortunately, Gurley lost everything in the Tulsa Race Riots in 1921.
His fate is not know because he vanishes from history after that.
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