Catoosa, Oklahoma: The Blue Whale

View of the whale taken in August 2001. Thought it was a humorous touch that someone (apparently recently -- it looked new) hung a big fish hook by its mouth. The whale must have been repaired and repainted fairly recently, broken/rooted floorboards had been replaced, the paint inside and out was bright and shiny, and there was very little graffiti inside.

I was just out at the Blue Whale/Noah's Ark this evening, and I must say it has changed. It's no longer rotting and extremely creepy like it was. It seems they re-painted it and opened it back up. Now the bathrooms...that's an adventure all its own. But if you choose to be a bit daring you can check out the still rotting Noah's ark, right next to it.

In the early 70's I lived in Tulsa, Ok, and my brother's girlfriend was a farm girl from somewhere north of Catoosa. She took us to the Blue Whale, for some splinter-laden, slime-splashin' fun, Okie style. The place was run as a quasi-public attraction, but it helped to look and act like a local, as the owners were kinda "outsider fearin' types". The water was very slimy and had saw-edged weeds that cut your skin. The Whale was rickety and spooky to the max, with a slide or two coming out of the mid section (fins?). There was also a diving board or platform coming off the tail. The area in the water where you would land, coming off the dive was only about seven feet deep,with a soft, mud bottom.

The best part, was that the "Noah's Ark" type place next door was an even more run down, shuttered alligator pit attraction. If you got too close, a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-looking old fellow would come out and threaten you.

A retired land owner named Hugh Davis created this project for his wife Zelta (who collected whale figures) for her birthday in the early 70's. She knew nothing about it until it was done. The slimy pond was at the time a spring fed pond. Although it was for family use only others would sneak in so he trucked in tons of sand to create a sandy beach, built picnic tables, opened a snack stand, and hired life guards. Then he opened it to the publc.

The aging couple could not handle managing it any more so they closed it in 1988 ans it fell into disrepair. In 1990 Mr. Davis died.

Since then the property was donated to the city of Catoosa and since you saw it it was rebuilt and again is a real nice little park.

Last year, on a pilgrimage to the Glore Psychiatric Museum, Precious Moments Chapel and the Oral Roberts Prayer Tower, we ended up on Route 66 -- which took us through a small town in Oklahoma called Catoosa. While hauling ass towards Tulsa in my Dad's pickup, we saw a giant blue whale whiz by. We had to stop, and we found one of THE most creepy roadside attractions ever. Of course, it's closed, and there are signs posted everywhere saying trespassers would be shot, but the temptation was too great and we risked our lives to check it out.

In the middle of this slimy little pond was a giant, rotting, wooden blue whale. The mouth was attached to the shore and it was open and you could go inside. A ladder led to the top and the fins were sliding boards into the pond. The inside of the whale was covered with Satanic graffiti, but we don't think it was REALLY the Devil's work. Inside an adjacent building were large plaster disks with animals, two of each, on them. Of course, we figured out it was supposed to be Noah's Ark! And the whale was of the Jonah Bible story type. We dubbed the place "Bible Story Land." It was EXTREMELY creepy and we couldn't get any info out of the Native Americans who ran the store across the street because of a "death in the family." When we got back we found some documentation of this place in a Route 66 video. Turns out some guy built it for his kids. Definitely almost as much fun as "Holy Land USA."