Tulsa’s Gilded Age: Art Deco, Oil Barons, and Underground Tunnels

Thanks to the popularity of HBO’s The Gilded Age, everyone suddenly remembers that America had a phase where money was loud, buildings were gaudy, and the rich didn’t just flaunt their wealth... they built empires with it.

While the show focuses on New York’s elite, Tulsa, Oklahoma, was quietly doing the same thing without the T-Town high society. Built with oil instead of railroads, and opting for skyscrapers instead of sprawling mansions.

Who would have thought?

Tulsa was once the self-proclaimed “Oil Capital of the World.” A place where oil barons commissioned marble-clad banks and hand-laid mosaic lobbies because, well, they could.

The city’s downtown is still dripping in Art Deco elegance, thanks to a building boom in the 1920s and ’30s funded by black gold and Texas tea.

If you’ve ever wanted to feel like you’re walking through a real-life set of The Gilded Age, try the Philcade Building, the Atlas Life Building, or just about any corner near 5th and Boston.

If the beyond-fancy buildings and lobbies aren’t enough drama for you, Tulsa has something else most people don't know about yet...

Underground tunnels.

Legends say oil tycoons used them to move cash (and themselves) between buildings discreetly.

Were they avoiding the public? The heat? The threat of kidnapping?

Given the time and the state of America, probably a bit of all three. Kidnapping was a popular way to score a quick payday back then.

Nowadays, those elites-only tunnels are open to the public for tours, giving everyone a front-row seat to the city’s secret infrastructure. On the tours, you can expect to see tilework and vaults of the time period, and a sort of mystique even the Vanderbilts would’ve appreciated.

If you’re also being forced to watch The Gilded Age and find yourself thinking “They don’t build cities like that anymore,” we still have one in Oklahoma. Just try not to be one of those weebs who focus so much on the Instagram pics that you forget to actually experience it IRL.