Founded 2024 · Tulsa, Oklahoma
A century of Tulsa's finest, kept for the next one.
The Tulsa Police Museum is collecting the badges, uniforms, photographs and stories of the Tulsa Police Department, from the marshals of 1882 to the officers on the street today, and building a home where the city can see them.
Tulsa Police Museum
A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, founded by officers
Collect · Preserve · Share
1882
Department founded
140+
Years of history
42
Chiefs of police
2024
Museum established
ACC. 2025-002-001
Tulsa Police Department roster, 1909
Photograph · The oldest item in the collection
Why a museum
History that would otherwise end up in a closet.
For decades, Tulsa Police history has lived in retirement boxes, lodge back rooms and family attics. A 1909 roster photograph. A brass whistle. A motor officer’s boots. A paycheck stub from a time when a beat cop earned a few dollars a day. When an officer passes, that history often leaves with them.
In 2024, a group of active and retired Tulsa Police officers formed the Tulsa Police Museum, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, to change that. The museum is cataloguing artifacts, recording the stories behind them, and raising the money for display cases and, eventually, a building of its own. Until then, the first exhibits are headed for the FOP Lodge and Tulsa’s new Public Safety Center.
From the collection
Objects with a beat to walk.
ACC. 2024-011
Brass patrol whistle
Before the radio, a whistle was how an officer called for help. This one still works.
ACC. 2024-004
Auxiliary Police cap
Worn by the volunteer Auxiliary officers who backed up sworn patrol through the mid-century decades.
ACC. 2024-017
Officer paycheck stub
A City of Tulsa earnings statement, stamped and hand-figured, from a paper-and-carbon payroll era.
ACC. 2024-022
Special Operations collar pin
The S/O lightning-bolt insignia worn by the Special Operations Team.
ACC. 2024-008
Vindicator radar gun
Handheld traffic radar from the years when the readout was a needle and the mount was a dashboard.
ACC. 2024-001
"History of the Tulsa Police Department, 1882-1990"
Ron Trekell’s 395-page history, eight years in the research, is the foundation the museum builds on.
Mounted Patrol · Downtown Tulsa · 1990s
Every photograph is a shift somebody worked.
The museum’s photo archive already spans the mounted unit, motor officers, dive team, Special Operations and generations of patrol. If you have prints, slides or negatives from your years on the department, we would like to scan them.
The story so far
From frontier marshals to a modern department.
Tulsa hired its first marshal in 1882, sixteen years before the city was even incorporated. What followed is a story of oil booms, hard years, reform and reinvention. The museum is telling it decade by decade.
1882
A marshal for a railroad town
Tulsa was a Frisco rail stop in Indian Territory when its first marshal was appointed. Law enforcement here predates the city charter.
1907
Statehood and a chief
With Oklahoma statehood, the department was formally organized under its first chief of police, Herman Frederick Newblock.
1909
The roster photograph
Sixteen officers in bobby-style helmets and wool tunics sit for a group portrait. It is the oldest photograph in the museum’s collection.
2024
The museum is founded
Active and retired officers form the Tulsa Police Museum as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and begin cataloguing artifacts.
Speaker Series
An evening with the people who lived it.
The museum’s fundraising Speaker Series brings Tulsa’s detectives, commanders and historians to the stage for a night of stories you will not hear anywhere else. Our first event, a behind-the-scenes look at homicide investigation with Detective Jason White of “The First 48”, sold out.
Next event · Thursday, November 19, 2026
2nd Annual Cigar Night
6:00 to 10:00 PM at Bourbon & Ash, 6124 S. Sheridan Rd, Tulsa. Tickets are $50 and include one cigar and a bourbon tasting. The Glock 43X gun raffle is drawn that night.
Or join the mailing list for future announcements
501(c)(3) nonprofit · Founded 2024
Help us open the doors.
Every display case, every archival sleeve, every square foot of the future museum is funded by people who believe Tulsa’s police history is worth keeping. Give once, give monthly, or donate an artifact.
On Facebook
The latest from the museum.
New artifacts, event announcements, raffle updates and photographs from the archive are posted on the museum’s Facebook page first. The feed here updates on its own as new posts go up.