Editor's Note: This article was originally published in This Land: Fall 2015.
West of Sand Springs, Oklahoma, on old Highway 51, past the grounds of the razed Hissom asylum, stand two stoplights. Between them lies the bulk of Mannford, a ripple of a town at the edge of Tulsa. Lee Hazlewood’s ode to Mannford, which claims, “When you’re born in Mannford, Oklahoma, there ain’t no up in your cup, there’s just down,” is near the bottom of contenders for town theme song. His name with locals only gets blank stares. That’s because the Mannford that Hazlewood grew up in isn’t there. He hopped a long black train before the town went underwater.
A pre-statehood crossing point on the Cimarron River, the town’s mid-century population grew to 400. In 1963 the entire town was flooded to build the Keystone Dam. Instead of dispersing, the town relocated, and has since octupled its pre-flood head count.
Born in Mannford, Oklahoma, in 1929, Hazlewood spent his youth there. The grandson of a mule skinner who laid the first roads in Tulsey Town, Hazlewood laid his own roads in the budding scene of rock ‘n’ roll.