Return to Chimney Rock more than 50 years after its springtime collapse
FREEDOM, Okla. (KFOR) – The gypsum mesas and steep breaks in this part of Oklahoma look timeless even with erosion performing its often-slow work.
About 15 miles south of town, four generations of Walkers have farmed and ranched here.
"We have cattle on here all the time," says Tracy Walker.
He grew up driving dirt roads and catching strays.
"How often are you out here?," we ask.
"Most every day," he responds.
He also remains the closest anyone can get to being an eyewitness to a spectacular event that took place in a ranch location over a half-century ago—the day Chimney Rock tipped over.
Walker recalls, "I was driving by Chimney Rock on the county road and I looked over, and there was no Chimney Rock."
"I just kept looking around to see if I was lost," he laughs.
On a bright, windy March morning in 1973, Walker was heading to meet his father to unload a tractor.
He expected to see the one, unmistakable landmark on the place.
For millennia, no one knows how long really, the formation had stood hundreds of feet tall against every element.
There was nothing like it in the state, a landmark for generations.
"School kids from Freedom used to bring out busloads of kids on field trips," he recalls.
But a wet winter coupled with a March windstorm finally took their toll.
Chimney Rock collapsed sometime overnight beneath its spindly base.
Tracy was first to notice.
"My dad pulled up," he recalls.
"I said, 'did you notice Chimney Rock had fallen?' and he hadn't noticed."
Word spread quickly.
The Freedom Call newspaper had it on their front page in the next issue.
The spire disintegrated with the fall crumbling into the base of the slope.
"It just crumpled up," Tracy says.
The Walkers can still find their way around the ranch even 51 years after Chimney Rock fell.
But Tracy still carries a picture of it on his phone as it used to look before the slow process of erosion caused a very sudden change to this timeless landscape.
The Walker family now operates two Western wear stores in Woodward and Enid. Chimney Rock is part of the logo for those businesses.
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