Ottawa W. Gurley helped develop the businesses and properties of Greenwood, the Tulsa neighborhood widely remembered as Black Wall Street. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas identifies him as a prominent Black businessman raised in Arkansas, with a career that included education, postal work, retailing and real estate.
The encyclopedia records his birth in Alabama in 1868 and describes his studies at Branch Normal College in Pine Bluff. He married Emma Evans in 1888. The couple lived in Perry, Oklahoma Territory, before moving to Tulsa. There, their work included a hotel and property holdings. Census records discussed by the encyclopedia identify Emma as a hotel manager and Ottawa as a real-estate broker by 1920.
The Tulsa City-County Library's history describes Gurley selling land to Black residents and operating a rooming house near the railway. Its account also records residences, commercial buildings and his connection with Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church. These were parts of a neighborhood where people needed places to live, work, worship and do business under segregation.
Gurley was one of several business leaders in Greenwood. The library also documents J. B. Stradford's hotel and property businesses, John and Loula Williams's enterprises, and A. J. Smitherman's newspaper. Stores, services, media and gathering places grew through many people's labor and investment.
White mobs attacked Greenwood on May 31 and June 1, 1921. The Museum of Tulsa History describes the looting and burning of homes and businesses and the detention of Black residents. Gurley's commercial achievements did not shield him or his neighbors from that violence.
The Oklahoma commission's 2001 report reproduces testimony describing threats to burn Gurley's hotel and his efforts to get guests out, his hiding and his subsequent detention. Another section records a July 2, 1921 building permit issued to him. The encyclopedia documents the Gurleys' later move to Los Angeles and his death there in 1935.
