Radix Fidem Blog

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Today was a little disappointing because most of Crutcho Creek was inaccessible. That is, we are the point where the creek runs across a lot of flat terrain, wandering tortuously in tight bends and loops through government controlled land. Our first image is Crutcho Creek running under NE 10th just outside of that housing development where we ended the previous part. The second image is the creek running off northward from NE 10th. It runs across some industrial property on both sides after that. The area is a notorious flood zone from here on out. The problem is that just a little ways downstream from here is a pitiful short levy that can’t protect a rather large mobile home park up a ways from the north bank.

Then the creek flows under Air Depot Boulevard (image right. This latest bridge was built well above the creek bed, but I’ve seen the water standing on both approaches to the bridge on either, so I’m not sure what was accomplished with that. On the east side of Air Depot is where the creek flows across undeveloped private property. However, most of the area fronting out on Air Depot is maintained by Midwest City like it’s some kind of park. Somewhere in the background across the sunlit field (image left) is where Soldier Creek joins the flow of Crutcho Creek.

From there it runs under NE 23rd (image right). However, we have reached an interesting point in the course of the creek. Back across Air Depot on the west side is Crutcho.The school is easily the defining landmark of the place (image left). It runs quite some ways back from NE 23rd (Highway 62), opposite a rather large National Guard site. All the way back up to the end of Air Depot is a dead end. You can see where the creek is by the tightly packed trees along the banks, but the area is fully controlled by oil companies and various government agencies. It’s the edge of the landfill, for example. But across the highway from the school to the south is the community of Crutcho (image right). Behind all those ratty businesses you will find a few square blocks of houses, and farther back is the trailer park that floods so often.

Just east of this community rises a rather high ridge. Since there is no access at all westward from the creek for at least a mile or more, I headed up the hill and took these two images looking back down from the ridge into Crutcho Creek Valley. The first (left) is from the south side of the highway. This is the other side of that spot where Soldier Creek runs down into Crutcho (far left background). The second image (right) is on the north side of the highway from the yard in front of a county maintenance depot.

The signs here warn folks to stay out. This is on the north side of that area where Crutcho Creek wanders so wildly all over the place, running at least two miles of curves in less than a mile of land space. The sign also warns that nearby is a water treatment facility run by Midwest City, which stands off-screen to the left over the creek. The next image shows the creek ducking under NE 36th. We are in the home stretch from here.

Back up on the ridge past the water treatment facility is a pair of cemeteries. If you turn north into the very old Kolb Cemetery (rather famous with historians) you can view northward down toward the Crutcho Creek Valley as it turns toward its final destination, the North Canadian River. But before it gets there, we can approach it where it passed under the railroad line (image right). Where I perched on the bank to get that shot, Midwest Boulevard was just a few yards behind me. This is a popular fishing spot with ad hoc concrete steps down to the water’s edge and under the rail bridge. The next shot (above left) was taken from the rail bridge where it spills into a pool, then makes a hard right under the road.

I took this long telephoto shot (image right) where the river turns hard left, and that’s where Crutcho Creek joins the flow, but not until after making yet another long loop you’d have to see on a map to believe. It’s almost as if the creek is delaying giving up its waters until the last moment.

Finally, since I was right there where the river runs under Midwest Boulevard, I poked around awhile. I spotted a couple of turtles (image left) swimming in deep pool where the river turns under the bridge. On the south bank where the construction crews have done some much work erecting that high levy to prevent the river undercutting the bridge, it’s possible to come around on either side and find a rough trail running under the bridge. It’s another fishing spot, but it’s been used for camping and perhaps other things more nefarious (I found a discarded bikini on the ground). So I found a place to stand where I could look back upstream and catch this view (above right) of the bridge and the levy coming out. You can see we are in a low water period prior to the fall storms that bring floods.

Thanks for coming along on this survey of Crutcho Creek.

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Starting from the previous part of this journey, Crutcho Creek wanders through the east side of Frolich Meadows, which is off the map at the bottom. I know from experience the creek is hidden behind high fences and impenetrable foliage back there. From there, it passes through Meridian Sooner Road Mobile Home Park, where I lived during the mid-1990s. However, it is now owned by Yes Communities and I won’t set foot on any of their properties except for direct ministry work. So the first image for today starts where the creek leaves the trailer park and runs along between the street and the edge of their property (above left).

Back when I lived in this park, the back edge of my space faced onto the creek. That space was subject to over-wash from flooding every few years and the trailer is gone now, but back in the mid-90s I noticed the back yard was washing into the creek. So I invested some time and culled some rubble from the creek bed and built a retaining wall. It’s easy: (1) tip all the rocks back against the bank — don’t lay them flat. (2) Insure the alignment of the rock facing leans back into the bank, as well, following a natural corrective slope. Never stack rocks vertically. (3) Work the pieces until they fit tightly, using smaller stones to fill gaps. After all of that was done, I back-filled the space with silt from the bank where it was dropped in a corner farther downstream. There was a narrow path and I lugged a 5-gallon bucket back and forth some 40 trips to restore the loss. I couldn’t see it today, but the last time I checked, the wall still stands these 20 years later.

From the dismal second image of the creek, where folks have dumped shopping carts stolen from the Walmart up near Sooner Road, it runs through some old housing up next to Tinker. On the base it looks much cleaner, as I saw back when I had access to the base. It also runs through their golf course and comes out on SE 29th near our local Sam’s Club wholesale store (third picture, above left). From there it runs across private undeveloped land (fourth image, above right) until it passes the old Holiness Camp where folks used to gather periodically in temperate weather for brush arbor meetings. You can just barely glimpse the concrete squares in the grass for the tents (above left). The next image of the creek shows a lot of regrowth from the days when the campground was kept much more clear.

On the other side of Sooner Road, the creek has seen dramatic development prior to a building boom. That bridge in the background isn’t actually rusted, but it has a coating that makes it look that way. The next image is taken from the metal bridge facing out over a huge flood basin next to the creek. The vast majority of the basin is hidden behind trees, but it runs west all the way to Vickie Drive.

There really isn’t much to see at Vickie Drive (image left). I recall this bridge is new, replaced a couple of years ago. The contractors took forever and I remember hearing from someone who knew about municipal affairs that there were some very embarrassing delays. Crutcho Creek continues on behind a very long-standing church and swings back north across SE 15th Street (image right). On the north side of the street is a large wedge of land along the creek between the street and Interstate 40. Del City built their library on that wedge conjoined to a fire station. They also built a park with the municipal pool out back and parked their original city hall building there (image left). Then they added the bike path and, in the past few years, a very extravagant veterans memorial (below right).

The bike path runs down along the creek under the interestate and comes out into Ray Trent Park on the other side. This was the area I previously mentioned as concealing more ancient native artifacts. However, the archaeologists can’t get funding yet to make a proper dig, so they have kept the site’s location a secret. All I can tell you is that the location is along the banks in Ray Trent Park. It’s a really huge park running quite a ways north to where the city has a bunch of youth soccer fields next to an old water tower (above left). The gates were closed up on the Reno Avenue entrance, but I just slid my bike under and headed back east to get his picture where the creek runs under (image above right).

From there, I headed north on an orphaned section of Vickie Drive that I’ve taken hundreds of times as the way to avoid traffic by connecting to NE 4th westbound. But just short of that corner, Crutcho Creek passed under Vickie one last time. I stopped for a bit because it was the most peaceful spot of the day (image above left). The water flows over a small drop and hisses beautifully in the quiet of the woods. It runs through some woods I’ve explored in the past chasing those old decommissioned railroad tracks. Indeed, the railroad bridge was dismantled over the creek, but I can’t get through the foliage in the summer time. So I rolled on north to NE 10th Street where there stands a massive petroleum tank farm. There’s a pipeline head there on the corner where gasoline and other consumer distillates are loaded out on tanker trucks. Down and around on Sooner Road I turned back south to catch the third and last time Crutcho Creek passes under Sooner Road (above right).

Today I did something I’ve long wanted to do: I rode down to where that huge unnamed tributary culvert runs between two housing developments (above left) and all the way to Crutcho Creek. It was a nice quiet ride, but at the far end the creek has just enough water level to back up into the culvert (image right). There are at this point two side feeders from a flood plain on either side of the tributary. I rode up onto the one on the right; it was well mowed and I could ride all the way to the bank of Crutcho Creek. You can see the water running in a deep cut (above left) even though the whole area is a broad flood plane. On the other side of the creek is a huge open sod farm, and they have an irrigation line running down to pull from the creek (image right). I can tell you from experience that the water is semi-toxic to humans way back south in the first few miles because it’s all agricultural or sprinkler run-off water. I had to throw away a pair of sandals after fishing out the rocks for that retaining wall because they smelled awful. However, the water is fine for irrigation.

Though we are only a mile or two from the North Canadian River, and this flat area is all part of a much bigger flood plain valley, Crutcho Creek meanders much farther, almost paralleling the river several miles farther before we’re done. But today I took this one last shot from the same housing development, just off the end of Glenmamor Drive. The water drops over some rubble and makes that lovely splashing gurgle.

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The image locations are numbered in teal this time. Long ride today simply because Crutcho Creek is really long and starts way out around SE 89th and Bryant Avenue. That’s the lower left corner of the map, 9 miles (14.5 km) one way to get out there. The area is full of trucking and other heavy equipment businesses, not to mention a few manufacturers whose product requires big trucks to move. In this case, the source of Crutcho Creek is the runoff from that massive parking lot of the FedEx heavy freight terminal (above left) just off Interstate 240 on S. Bryant. As you can see on the map, the creek wanders off across several other inaccessible industrial properties, looping around behind some houses. This peculiar concrete/stucco house (right) was on the south side of SE 89th.

So we don’t actually see the creek until a mile-and-a-half downstream at Sunnylane Road. It’s already a pretty deep gouge and it’s dry this time of year. It continues off across the countryside, but now we are in some long-held agricultural land. For quite some distance the houses are sparse with deep lots running back beyond the creek. You could catch glimpses of how the fields slope down toward it, but they didn’t show up on the camera.

About a half-mile down from Sunnylane on SE 89th is a housing addition called “Wellington Lakes,” but up at the end is only one very nice lake. It captures a tributary to the creek just above where they converge. It’s all private property with no access for me. The creek continues to wander eastward until it turns north behind Windwood Estates. On the map you can see a stark pale line where the creek is forced to follow a concrete culvert to the edge of that fancy neighborhood. There was a street spillway that allowed me to drop down and get a picture of the end of the concrete. The creek follows a more natural path behind an adjacent addition called “Falcon Pointe.”

The developers for this subdivision invested in some nice ponding for yet another tributary to Crutcho Creek. Farther downstream of this is a well-developed spillway to control backflow from flooding. The main creek bed is just beyond that water gate. Then I had to wind my way back out of this trendy twisty warren of McMansions because the OKC Heart Hospital just north of it put up a heavy concrete wall on the property line. I had to come back out onto Sooner Road (always heavy traffic) and then back around the hospital and down to where the creek passes under the south service road and Interstate 240 (image right). Then I went back out to Sooner Road again, crossed over I-240 and back down the service road to pick up the creek again. Fortunately, I managed to grab two shots of the creek on my way out. The first (image left) is the short stretch between I-240 and the service road, and the second (image right) shows the creek flowing north away from the I-240 corridor.

For another half-mile or so it runs behind a pair of lumber yards and a fastener warehouse. A little farther up it curves back toward Sooner Road right in front of that monster Baptist church. It promptly picks up another tributary where it comes out under the road. The church has developed the banks considerably. The creek disappears under the heavy concrete deck of a quadruple drive entrance, and then continues into a very nice and well-used private park on church property (image right). Hidden in those trees back along the creek banks are some footbridges and a boxcar that was turned into a stage for live performances.

I need to take a moment to note that I attended this place — First Southern Baptist Church — several different times in my life. The last time around was when I got close enough to the staff to witness first hand the secret back-room dealings that corrupted the entire process of church management. The leadership flat out lied to the membership before presenting major changes for a vote. I’m still friends with a few folks there, but I’ll never go back except to engage my computer tech support ministry.

The last two images here capture Crutcho Creek running out from some undeveloped private land and under SE 59th. The last image is the creek running north across yet another stretch of undeveloped private land. That’s all for this stage of our survey of Crutcho Creek.