Original t-shirt from the Allen Ranch
In October
of 1983 I was 15 watching my favorite channel 23 KOKI, a local UHF station
which is the Fox affiliate today.
A commercial aired for the Allen Ranch Halloween hayride called the Trail
of Fear held nightly in October.
The Allen Ranch is south of Bixby or as those of us northeast of Tulsa
might call it – way the hell out there.
The commercial was as cheesy and low budget as any local
commercial. It had still shots of the
Halloween hayride and a band performing in the covered arena at the ranch all
narrated by some guy in a deep “scary” voice.
I wanted to go! My folks were kind enough to take me as I could not legally drive yet. We went out there on a Thursday or Friday night,
I think. It was dark by the time we got
there. Jack o’ lanterns illuminated the darkness and a smell of wood
smoke filled in the air. Men in cowboy
hats and dusters presided over the hayride as tractors hauling wooden trailers carried
the “thrill seekers” around the large ranch.
As the hayride began one of the cowboys would shoot off a gun. I guess they were blanks.
The Trail of
Fear had a western theme as the trail took us past a western ghost town façade. A butcher in bloody smocks pretended to throw
what appeared to be dead animal flesh at us.
A spider web made of rope fell from some trees slightly above our heads
and we would be “chased” by cowboys on horseback shooting guns in the air. It was a cheesy, country-western Halloween. For me it was magic. After the
ride I stopped by the arena where bands would play. There were pictures of John Wayne and western
scenes on the partial walls of the arena. The Allen Ranch hosted cowboy cookouts during the summer. I bought a
Trail of Fear t-shirt which I have to this day.
I went back several times over the years. Sometimes I planned on going, but it never worked out. But every time I went back it was as enjoyable as the first time.
In 1987 or 1989, I went alone one evening. I remember being on the hayride and seeing the cowboys on horseback chasing towards us. Behind them were trees that had already shed their leaves. Everything was illuminated by the moon that shone between thin clouds. As I saw this, I played the Fleetwood Mac song, “Tell Me Lies” in my head. It had been on the charts then.
My last time at the Trail was on Halloween night 1995. I came with my best friend from high school days. We had watched the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves in the final game of the World Series. I wanted Cleveland to win, Richard being a bit of a jerk, rooted for the Braves just to spite me. Well, the Braves won. That was a shame. We then got in the car and headed down Memorial boulevard way the hell out there to Bixby to get in on the last ride of the Trail of Fear at the Allen Ranch. Halloween night was always the final night. We stood in line for almost two hours. When we finally boarded the wooden trailer, we were ready to get on with it. Along the hayride a man in a ski mask ran up behind us with a chainsaw blaring. I shouted at him, “I RENOUCE YOU IN THE NAME OF JESUS!” Richard and I laughed about that for the remainder of the ride. I don’t even remember much of anything else; we thought that encounter was so funny.
In 1996 my life changed a bit as I was selected for an internship with The Leadership Institute in Washington. L.I. is an organization that trains young conservatives for careers in public policy. I left for Washington in September and would stay in the Washington area for the next four years. Not wanting to become a Washington swamp creature, I headed back home to Oklahoma in the Spring of 2001. The following Halloween I was ready to go back to the Allen Ranch for some more fun, hokey, horror. I hadn’t seen anything in the media about the hayride so out of curiosity I called the Allen Ranch and was told by a woman on the phone, “Oh, we don’t do that anymore. Not after we got sued.” Sued? Why? It turned out that the last night I was at the Allen Ranch in 1995 a woman named Carol Weaver claimed she got hurt while on the hayride. Carol J. Weaver vs. The Allen Ranch CJ-1996-4697 was filed in Tulsa County about a year after the incident. Carol was asking for six figures, and she was not just suing the ranch, but the family members who own it. I’ve seen the file, it’s thick. Lots of pleadings were stuck in that file in a case that lasted for several years. I won’t go into detail about that case just in case Carol is still around and reads this in a bad mood. But I will write this - and that kids are why we can’t have nice things.
The Allen Ranch is still around as a cattle ranch although it steers (pardon the pun) clear of public events. There is a saddle shop on the property which is the only place the public can visit the ranch. The magic of those hayrides never went away for me. There are some things you experience in youth that stay a part of you like a mental heirloom. The Allen Ranch Trail of Fear was such a memory that I will always cherish. Thank you for reading this and letting me share it with you.
