Did Tulsa have a real rainmaker?

TULSA - The longer I am a meteorologist, the more I realize how little we really know about the weather. 

While technology, information, techniques, and accuracy have improved, if you study the skies every day you understand that data only goes so far.

Maybe that is why old weather folklore is so interesting to me. 

I love how these ancient sayings try to explain concepts that are very difficult to understand otherwise. The early days were filled with many mysteries of how and why weather changes occurred. Though modern meteorology is much more advanced, we've never been able to directly change or alter what was going to happen - or can we?

After the Tulsa floods blog I wrote, Bob Haring, who worked for the Tulsa World and then the Associated Press, sent me an e-mail with additional information about previous floods in Tulsa. 

"..... there also was a flood in the early 1960s, which flooded Mohawk and some other areas, caused by a 14-inch rain, which a rainmaker claimed credit for (he told me he would make me a flood, and somebody sure did)."

I wrote him back and made a joke about the "rainmaker" and said I wanted his number so during the next drought I could call him. Bob replied with a story he had written about the rainmaker. I read his story and it made me smile. Perhaps it will do the same for you. I asked him for permission to reprint it here, and he agreed. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Bob Haring

 A rainmaker once made me a flood. 

It began in the summer of 1962. It was one of those miserably hot and dry periods. A man called Troy Gordon, a Tulsa World columnist. He said he was the "rainmaker."

"He said he would make it rain within 72 hours," Troy recalled. "It was one of those hot spells when you'll settle for anything, so I wrote a column about it."

It rained.

He called Troy again to promise rain. Again, it rained. Every time the forecasts had been against any chance of rain. But it always rained.

In fact, it happened six straight times.

I was then Tulsa correspondent for The Associated Press. I also was a friend of Troy. We talked about the "rainmaker" and eventually the man himself called me. He obviously wanted me to write a story about his exploits.

Those conversations began, as I recall, after the fourth rain. But I was reluctant to write a story. It's just not the sort of thing the staid and reliable old AP usually covers.

But the rainmaker persisted. Finally, he said, "I'll make you a flood."

He offered to let me pick the date, but I demurred. Finally he called on a Friday. It was beastly hot and dry. He said he'd make it rain the next day.

All the forecasts were against rain. There was, weathermen said, absolutely no chance of any rain or showers over the weekend.

I told Troy. Before I left the office that Friday, I also mentioned it to Mac Bartlett, then the state editor of the Tulsa Tribune. Mac covered for AP on Saturdays, when I was off.

"Let me know if it rains," I said, thinking it was a joke.

Early Saturday morning the telephone rang. It was Mac. "It's raining," he said. "You said to let you know."  I thanked Mac and went back to sleep. The phone rang again. "It's raining very hard," Mac said. "I think you ought to come in. It looks like it may flood."

I stumbled out of bed, dressed and headed for the office, six or seven miles down Riverside Drive from my home.   

I was hardly out of my driveway before I was in flooded streets. The water was curb to curb. The underpass at the railroad bridge near 31st was flooded. I had to detour several times to get to the office, in the old World building on Boulder.

Mohawk Park was flooded. An encampment of Indians there for a pow-wow had to be evacuated. Water was everywhere.       

 I called Troy. He had talked to the rainmaker. "If Bob asks me, I'll make it stop," the rainmaker said. Troy agreed to call the rainmaker. In a few minutes my AP phone rang. It was the rainmaker.

"Do you believe me?" he asked. I told him I didn't know what I believed at that point, but we surely had had enough rain. He asked if I'd written a story. I assured him I had.

He said he'd make it quit. He hung up and I went back to trying to cover a major flash flood story.

When I looked out the window, the rain had slowed. Within an hour the sun was out. The streets were dry.

I had filed stories about a flood for which a rainmaker claimed credit. One got on the AP's worldwide news wire.

Then an AP editor, Carl Rogan in Oklahoma City, decreed that rainmakers were bogus. He cut out all references to the rainmaker in future stories. But Time magazine and others picked up on the rainmaker angle. Soon the Tulsa rainmaker was a major national story. Steve Allen was host of the "Tonight" show then. He got interested.

Troy and the rainmaker went to Los Angeles to be on the show. The rainmaker wore a raincoat and a mask. His minimum talent fee check was made out to an assumed name.

He offered Troy part of the money. But, Troy said, "I told him I didn't want cash involvement with such a weird operation."

The rainmaker got some contracts with various communities to try to make rain. I don't recall that he ever succeeded.

In August of 1963 he promised an "anniversary rain." Tulsa World files don't reflect whether he succeeded. But later that month there was a story saying he claimed credit for some showers he'd predicted to some radio stations.

The rainmaker never said how he made it rain. Only Troy ever met him in person, although I once did know his real name.

Eventually, normal rains returned. Interest in the rainmaker faded. I left Tulsa.

Troy heard from the rainmaker once again, years later. He'd been at a family gathering, he told Troy, and had announced to the group that he was the rainmaker. The family members had scoffed. He wanted Troy to verify it.

They set up a telephone call. At the appointed moment, 2:01 p.m., a woman called Troy.

"He is the man who calls himself the rainmaker," Troy told her. "I can't believe it," she said.

"I never heard from him again," Troy wrote in 1971, "and a few years later I read in the paper that he had died."

Did I believe he made it rain? No. Did Troy? "No, I didn't," Troy wrote, "and yet when the rains came I had an eerie feeling."

And I still do, just recalling the strangest story in my news career.