When Durant was Oklahoma's marriage capital
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DURANT, Okla. (KFOR) — They are remembered in a series of ledgers that go back to before WWII and end around the mid-1970s.
The collection also contains old polaroids of couples just married, most just met, who didn't want to wait, which is why they headed straight for what was then 'the marryin' capitol of Oklahoma.
Tom Chriswell is still a practicing attorney in the city at 87.
"The way I remember it," he says, "they would come straight up 9th Street from Texas."
He can recall the era when enterprising brokers like Pet MacManus roamed the Bryan County Courthouse looking for young couples.
Criswell also remembers another marriage broker named Ross Beal Nix who was a Justice of the Peace and used car salesman out of his house on South 9th Street.
Tom recalls, "Nix would tell customers, 'if you want to get married I can take care of it for a fee.' He'd take them to the court clerk, and a lot of times she would just be at home."
Durant's quickie marriage arrangers took advantage of a difference in state laws that brought couples up the highway from across the Red River.
In Oklahoma, it was possible to get a blood test, a marriage license, and someone to perform the ceremony within an hour.
"This could be happening at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning." says Criswell.
Men like Nix could arrange it late at night, or on weekends, for a small fee.
They Haynie brothers, both doctors were on call, and so were the court clerks who provided the paperwork.
Before he became a lawyer, even Criswell himself would sometimes act as a handy witness because he worked near the Bryan County courthouse.
"We would just walk across the street for these vows people were taking."
It was big news when Mr. Nix, by now a former justice of the peace, but still and ordained minister, presided over his 10,000th wedding to a couple from nearby Sherman, Texas.
Newspapers from all over the country carried the story.
"It was a lot of fun back then," Criswell laments. "The court system is much more restrictive now."
Not long after that though, Texas and Oklahoma tweaked their marriage laws.
Business dried up as did the courting traffic.
Love is now a local affair in Bryan County, but the stories still echo at places like the Three Valley Museum which houses scrap books and ledgers, and a dwindling collection of couples who just couldn't wait to get married.
For more information on Durant's history as a 'marriage mill', click here.
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