Home Histories

623 is a buff, sandy-colored brick four-square house with Spanish tile roof of red with salmon and royal blue scattered tiles. This house is five bays wide with a small bay window in the center bay on the second floor. The three center bays on the ground floor have arches and curious twisted stone pilaster trim between, creating a composition of some strength. The windows on this floor are steel casements. The east bay breaks the symmetry with a large arched opening leading to a porch off the entry.

Patrick Denham 1930-1933
Dan James 1933-1935
Hon. Orel Busby 1935-1937
Howard Herr 1937-1939
Roy Turner 1942-1947 (see also 626 N.E. 15th)
Ray Thomason 1949-1956
James English 1956
Howard Meredith

Patrick Denham was in the oil business until 1926, then he founded Nuway Laundry.

Dan James came to Oklahoma City in early statehood. He managed the Black Hotel, then bought the company. He later formed the James Hotel Company, which owned the Skirvin, Skirvin Toward, and Black Hotels for many years. He started the Jamestown development in northwest Oklahoma City.

The Honorable Orel Busby, a onetime state Supreme Court justice, was a pioneer Oklahoman who came to the state in 1889 with his parents from Arkansas when he was a few months old. Busby graduated from the University of Oklahoma Law School and organized the Young Men's Democratic Club at OU in 1912. This organization later grew into the League of Young Democrats, which spread throughout the nation.

While a school principal in Konawa in 1910, he was elected mayor of that town, and served for one year in that position. From 1916 to 1920, Busby was Pontotoc County judge, and he served as district judge from 1927 to 1932. He served on the state Supreme Court from 1932 to 1937, and then resigned to return to private practice in Ada, where he headed a law firm until his death in 1965 at the age of 76.

The former justice was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1963. In 1959, he was honored for his work with the Young Democrats at a banquet where the featured speaker was long-time Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Sam Raybourn.

Ray Thomason was in the real estate business, owning various properties around the city.