Tour shows what completed OKPOP museum could look like
The Oklahoma Museum of Popular Culture must solve a significant financial challenge before it can open to the public, but Executive Director Jacob Krumwiede on Tuesday showed a touring group what the museum could look like upon completion.
The Tulsa Will Rogers Rotary Club requested and received a chance to tour OKPOP, which was built across the street from Cain’s Ballroom in downtown Tulsa. However, work still must be done to flesh out the interior of the museum.
The Tulsa World reported in July that the Oklahoma Legislature agreed to give OKPOP $18 million for completion — on the condition the same amount in private donations is raised by November 2025.
A finished OKPOP would share with visitors the stories of Oklahomans who contributed to popular culture. Krumwiede told his 20-plus touring guests OKPOP will be a museum about creativity. Creatives honored inside OKPOP will hail from all across the pop culture spectrum, including — but not limited to — film/TV, literature, music, animation and the comic book industry.
Krumwiede used “dream board” renderings to show what a finished museum and its displays could look like. He also shared a plan for how each level of the three-story museum will be utilized.
The first floor will include a welcome desk, retail space, a big piece of eye candy (Bob Wills’ tour bus is being refurbished for residence at OKPOP) and a “Tulsa Sound” lounge. Krumwiede said the lounge will make visitors feel like they are stepping into a dive bar or cocktail lounge from the 1960s or 1970s, when Tulsa Sound figures were making a name for themselves.
Although temporary exhibit space will be part of the first-floor layout, exhibits will really start on the second floor, according to Krumwiede. He said the third floor, which bears the name Musician’s Journey, will be devoted entirely to music.
“Why is that?” he asked. “There are a lot of ‘Oklahoma in music’ stories. There are a ton of them.”
With music consuming all of the third floor, that leaves the second floor for every other branch of pop culture. Rather than create second-floor displays devoted specifically to different types of creative endeavors — TV is here, movies are there, etc. — second-floor displays will be created for different genres. Among them: action/adventure, fantasy/horror, comedy, Westerns, science fiction, animation/puppetry and theater. The theater area will have an area to view films.
OKPOP has stockpiled artifacts and interviews. The interviews will allow creatives to talk about their experiences, which Krumwiede said is more compelling than “writing on a wall.”
Krumwiede also said exhibits will be immersive. He said guests will be able to use what he called a “pop watch” to access information about Oklahoma creatives. The “pop watch” is a tip of the yellow hat to Dick Tracy, who used a two-way wrist radio in his adventures. Dick Tracy was created by Oklahoma cartoonist Chester Gould. Tracy’s two-way wrist radio reportedly inspired the creation of the Apple Watch.
Krumwiede said this early in the museum tour: “We want to exist to inspire the next generation of creators.”
OKPOP endured layoffs in July. Five full-time and six part-time staffers were subject to what was termed a temporary reduction in force. The reduction in force goes into effect Aug. 30.
