GPS City GuideOklahoma CityCity Place Tower

Stop 28 of 41 · Oklahoma City audio walking tour

City Place Tower

Downtown Oklahoma City · 1931 · A Race for the Skyline

What you'll hear here: about a minute on what happened at City Place Tower and around Downtown Oklahoma City — the audio starts on its own when you walk into range.

Nine months in 1931 raised City Place, then the Ramsey Tower, 33 floors above you. At 391 ft (119 m) and 33 floors, it rose in 1931 as the Ramsey Tower, a lightning-fast project built in nine months by the Starrett Corporation — the builders of the Empire State Building. That same year it briefly held the title of Oklahoma City's tallest building before losing it to the First National Center, the climax of a local "Great Race" to top out that Ramsey won.

The story that follows feels like a novel: oilman W.R. Ramsey financed it, but the Great Depression soon undid him, and the tower passed into the hands of the Anderson-Prichard Company; APCO Tower Corporation formed with J. Steve Anderson as president. Liberty National Bank later took it as a primary tenant until the Liberty Tower was finished in 1971. In 2010 the top seven floors were converted into six condos, and the penthouse occupies the top two floors.

Ramsey won the Great Race, lost the tower to the Depression, and the building outlasted them both, still 391 feet tall and the 13th tallest in Oklahoma today.

Where it is

Coordinates
35.46889, -97.51583
Area
Downtown Oklahoma City
Era
1931 · A Race for the Skyline
Start the Oklahoma City tour →

Three stops free. No account needed. The audio plays itself as you walk.