I spent most of my younger years in a little, godforsaken town of Mayfield, OK- Population 3. Contrary to popular beilf, growing up in the middle of nowhere is not all the bad; you have wide open spaces, plenty of things to do, and no one to pry into your business. My ranch amasses almost 280 acres of pristine wheat/cattle land and can only be described as a little slice of heaven. No don’t get me wrong, living out in western OKlahoma requires a type of grit that most people don’t have and might never be able to attain. Sweltering Summers, Frigid winters, and more wind that you can imagine. However,  it takes a little pain and suffering to enjoy most of the hostility and wildness to the land. We would rarely go into town during the summer and most of the time it was to either get gas, or go to baseball games. Many times on our way to the little league baseball fields, I would always look out at the tallest building within 30 square miles and wonder “How in the world can they build something so tall?” At the time of this recollection, I would usually be staring at the Beckam County Courthouse. At the time, it was the tallest building that I had ever seen and to the extent of my knowledge, there was no way in hell that anyone could have ever built it without some divine help. However, it was the highlight of my trip into town when we would drive down Main Street and hear the rumble of the cobblestone in the old cowtown and look up to see such a thought provoking building. It fascinated me at a young age and had a profound effect on my appreciation for a such a Romanesque building. It was contrasted by the architecture firm of Layton, Smith & Hawk in 1911 and has stood over 109 years on the corner of 3rd and Walnut. It is made up of local brick and stone and leading up to its entrance, it has two Tuscan Columns on either side of the doorway. A fun fact that I thought might provide some insight to the years that it has seen, it appeared in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, as many Oklahomans would have in the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl taking Route 66 towards California. Just like the cherry on top, the most interesting thing to my younger self was the dome on top of this building; The dome is made of several Doric Columns that are positioned in a octagon and hold up four clocks facing every direction, symbolizing it as a beacon in a vast area of plains and rolling grassland.