Volume 10 , Issue 43

1949 - Alvan's Treasure Collection Strengthens His Belief

The Oklahoman, dated February 13, 1949, page 59, headlines: "Alvan's Treaure' Collection Strengthens His Belief in God," by Madelaine Wilson, Daily OkLalhoman staff writer.

"Alva, OK, Feb. 12, 1949 -- Misers have their gold, women of wealth have their flashing, costly jewels. But a man in Alva has a collection of treasures that are oddly different.

"Rare treasures like elephant bones that are between 50,000 and 1,000,000 years old.

"And to Dr. T. C. Carter, curator of the museum at Northwestern State College, his collection holds all the drama and romance of life itself.

"In his college museum is proof that strange and mammoth animals walked the good Oklahoma earth long before the existence of man.

"There's the 15-foot tusk of an elephant found 25 miles east of Alva. That was the cold winter day about 12 years ago (1937) when workmen were excavating the spillway for the Salt Plains dam on Salt Fork river.

"They were down about 20 feet when the weather turned cold. The water froze so fast they couldn't mix their cement. That day the bulldozers had unearthed strange and huge fragments of partly petrified bones.

"Immediately somebody thought of Dr. Carter. His collections are that widely known. And somebody notified him.

"All right," the foreman told him, "It's too cold for us to mix cement. We'll give you one day to pull out all these bones you want."

"One day i which to retrieve priceless relics of another age!

Hurriedly he summoned workers. Working quickly and yet with hands as gentle as a mother's lifting her baby from its cradle, the men dug out the precious bones.

"Both tusks of the elephant; a knee bone chest-high to the average man; Fragments of the pelvic bone and shoulder blade. And then the important day ended. Other antiquities lie buried under the cement poured by men in a hurry to rush civilized progress.

"Another time workmen were digging in a sand pit along SH 64, about 3/4 mile from Alva, when bones of another -- larger -- elephant were found. These also are in Dr. Carter's museum.

"It's impossible to think of it as the college's museum. To Alva people, Dr. Carter is an 'institution'."

He was graduated from the school in 1908 when it was Northwestern Normal school. He turned right around and became a member of the faculty. A job he has held ever since. During leaves of absence he took his masters degree at Columbia University. New York. and his PhD degree from University of Wisconsin, Madison.

"He doesn't mention it, but towns people do: He has had many offers to go to other universities." -- 1949 - The Oklahoman, dated Feb. 13, 1949, pg 9
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