Windrixville - An Outsiders Pod
Aug 21, 2026 · 12 min · 8 segments
Taking it back to the archives today! I'm dropping one of my very first OG episodes all about The Outsiders House Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is from way before the pod became what it is now, but…
For those who aren't familiar with the famous home, here's what you should know.
As decades passed, the house was on the precipice of being lost to the ages, but because the home has significant cultural value, it was reclaimed and transformed into a museum full of artifacts related to the movie and the book that inspired it.
The museum officially opened four years ago with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by S.E. Hinton, Tommy Howell, and the mayor of Tulsa.
Now, here's some history about The Outsiders House Museum, and this will cover a lot of dates, so be prepared for that.
Over 100 years ago on March 4th, 1919, surveying for the Ingram Lewis Addition in Tulsa included a tract that would one day include Tulsa's The Outsiders house.
And on April 9th, 1936, Philip L. Sontag and his wife, Margaret, bought the property at 731 North St. Louis Avenue for $2,750.
Records, including the 1930 census, indicate that there were prior residents at the address, but the property was owned by members of the Sontag family for 47 years, and they were grocers who operated a market near that house.
The book was written by a teen, S.E. Hinton, who attended Will Rogers High School, three miles away from 731 North St. Louis Avenue.
Later in 1982, the house was selected as the Curtis brothers' home for the movie The Outsiders.
We just drove through neighborhoods," he said.
According to a 2005 Tulsa World story, Francis Ford Coppola, the director of the film, said the house was chosen because the weeds had grown up and it was situated on a corner in a neighborhood where a lot of filming would take place.
It was also a big home on a large lot, so film crews had plenty of room to work.
Location was perfect because it was blocks away from the elementary school that the cast and crew were using as the movie's production office.
Two families, the Sontags and the Priests, were paid for the use of their home according to Ford.
On March 25th, 1983, The Outsiders was released, and one of the moviegoers on that day was Danny O'Connor, and he was a 14-year-old New York kid who was getting adjusted to new surroundings in California, and he was asked by a friend if he wanted to go see the film.
And when he saw the film, he immediately identified with the characters.
He said, "It was the first gang that I could relate to," he said.
"I know that has a weird connotation with gang, but when you don't feel you are wanted at home and you don't feel like anybody else has your best interests, we go out and we make that family somewhere else.
So what I saw in the movie was a family that had lost their parents in a train wreck, and they bonded together, not only to their siblings, but the kids in the neighborhood, and they became their own force to be reckoned with, their own family." And later that year, on November 7th, 1983, a representative for the state of Maude Sontag confirmed the sale of the property to Lewis Priest, and one month later, Lewis and Betty Priest, along with Fred and Dora Stone, um, were named, um, on a mortgage for the property.
Many years later in October of 2007, the International Bank of Commerce foreclosed on their loan, and the property was given to IBC Bank, um, from share sale in 2008.
A year after that, the bank gave the property to Alva and Deborah Morland.
For those who aren't familiar with the famous home, here's what you should know.
As decades passed, the house was on the precipice of being lost to the ages, but because the home has significant cultural value, it was reclaimed and transformed into a museum full of artifacts related to the movie and the book that inspired it.
The museum officially opened four years ago with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by S.E. Hinton, Tommy Howell, and the mayor of Tulsa.
Now, here's some history about The Outsiders House Museum, and this will cover a lot of dates, so be prepared for that.
Over 100 years ago on March 4th, 1919, surveying for the Ingram Lewis Addition in Tulsa included a tract that would one day include Tulsa's The Outsiders house.
And on April 9th, 1936, Philip L. Sontag and his wife, Margaret, bought the property at 731 North St. Louis Avenue for $2,750.
Records, including the 1930 census, indicate that there were prior residents at the address, but the property was owned by members of the Sontag family for 47 years, and they were grocers who operated a market near that house.
The book was written by a teen, S.E. Hinton, who attended Will Rogers High School, three miles away from 731 North St. Louis Avenue.
Later in 1982, the house was selected as the Curtis brothers' home for the movie The Outsiders.
We just drove through neighborhoods," he said.
According to a 2005 Tulsa World story, Francis Ford Coppola, the director of the film, said the house was chosen because the weeds had grown up and it was situated on a corner in a neighborhood where a lot of filming would take place.
It was also a big home on a large lot, so film crews had plenty of room to work.
Location was perfect because it was blocks away from the elementary school that the cast and crew were using as the movie's production office.
Two families, the Sontags and the Priests, were paid for the use of their home according to Ford.
On March 25th, 1983, The Outsiders was released, and one of the moviegoers on that day was Danny O'Connor, and he was a 14-year-old New York kid who was getting adjusted to new surroundings in California, and he was asked by a friend if he wanted to go see the film.
And when he saw the film, he immediately identified with the characters.
He said, "It was the first gang that I could relate to," he said.
"I know that has a weird connotation with gang, but when you don't feel you are wanted at home and you don't feel like anybody else has your best interests, we go out and we make that family somewhere else.
So what I saw in the movie was a family that had lost their parents in a train wreck, and they bonded together, not only to their siblings, but the kids in the neighborhood, and they became their own force to be reckoned with, their own family." And later that year, on November 7th, 1983, a representative for the state of Maude Sontag confirmed the sale of the property to Lewis Priest, and one month later, Lewis and Betty Priest, along with Fred and Dora Stone, um, were named, um, on a mortgage for the property.
Many years later in October of 2007, the International Bank of Commerce foreclosed on their loan, and the property was given to IBC Bank, um, from share sale in 2008.
A year after that, the bank gave the property to Alva and Deborah Morland.
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