For three weeks, local historians have been working to figure out who two Oklahoma City Public Schools are named after. Now, they think they’ve figured it out.
The mystery arose when Oklahoma City Public School officials announced they were thinking about changing the names of four schools thought to be named for Confederate generals. This worried local historians who said that two of those schools may actually named after former city leaders.
Historian Barbee Stueve thinks she’s nailed it down. She found paperwork from 1909, showing plans for a Wheeler Park School to be named after James Wheeler, a local businessman at the time and not the Confederate general.
Lee School, on the other hand, she thinks is named after Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general.
Now, district Superintendent Aurora Lora wants to engage the community, and find out if they want to change the names of the schools.