The Drexel Building 319 S. Main

Located at 319 S. Main, the Drexel Building once housed the local clothiers Renberg’s.

The Drexel Building was four stories tall. Renberg’s Department Store occupied the first two floors, with offices and small businesses upstairs.

The building was probably quiet that morning. It was Memorial Day and most downtown stores, including Renberg’s, were closed. Rain dampened the holiday activities, including a parade.

"We may never really know what actually happened in the elevator of the Drexel Building on Monday morning, May 30, 1921. A clerk in a nearby store thought there had been a sexual assault. Others believed that there had been a lovers’ quarrel between Sarah Page, the white seventeen-year-old elevator operator, and Dick Rowland, a black nineteen-year-old who worked in a shoeshine parlor one block away. But the most likely explanation is that when Rowland entered the elevator that day, he tripped and accidentally stepped on Page’s foot. And when she screamed, he fled." Hill, K The 1921 Race Massacre A Photographic History (pg 262)

Although Dick Rowland seems to have been fairly well known, his true identity is a bit of a mystery. He is generally identified as the son of Dave and Alice “Ollie” Rowland, who operated a boarding house in the Piro Building on East Archer Street. Some sources, though, say his name was actually John or Johnny Rowland, and that he was the adopted son or even grandson of Dave Rowland. Damie Rowland, Dave and Alice’s daughter, said in a 1972 interview that she had taken in young Johnny while living in Vinita and that he had been born in Arkansas. The 1920 Census listing for the Rowland household includes an adopted son named John who had been born in Texas.Adding to the uncertainty is a slight age discrepancy. The Census recorded John Rowland’s age as 16 in 1920. Dick Rowland’s age, when he was arrested a year later, was given as 19.

Almost nothing is known of Sarah Page. Originally described as a 17-year-old orphan working her way through business college, it later developed that she may have been as young as 15 and had come to Tulsa from Kansas City while waiting for a divorce to be finalized.

Some, including Damie Rowland, have fostered the notion that Page and Rowland were romantically involved.

People who knew Rowland said the elevator did not stop level with the third-floor threshold, causing him to trip as he entered the car and fall against Page. Police later said that whatever happened, it was almost certainly not intentional. In any case, Page’s cry caught the attention of a Renberg’s employee, who apparently summoned police. Rowland fled, but Page and the clerk, if not actually naming the man she said attacked her, supplied enough of a description that authorities had no difficulty locating him.

Photo credit: Tulsa Historical Society