Crump, Luther J.

Daily Oklahoman, The
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
January 31. 1957, page 34

Cold Moisture Keeps Pelting Icy Oklahoma

Highways Glazed More Rain, Snow Is Forecast Today.

....A Yukon veterinarian was seriously injured late Wednesday when his auto and a carload of young people from El Reno collided at an icy intersection of Canadian county roads, four miles north of Banner.

Luther J. Crump, 64, the veterinarian, was unconscious and listed in serious condition from head injures. He was at Park view sanitorium, El Reno....

[NOTE: 05-6-2007 - I found no other mention of Luther Crump in the Oklahoman archives. Possible that his obit might be in the Yukon, Canadian County papers - to which I do not have access. I did find numeruous articles about Grady, the silo cow (see below) published in February 1949 and later.]

Daily Oklahoman, The
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
February 26, 1990

Grady's Legend Passed Down To Generations

YUKON [OK] _ Calling it ""a bit of local folklore,'' Ginger LaCroix told the 1949 story of Grady the Cow to a crowd at the Mabel C. Fry Library on the 41st anniversary of the event.

Rain and snow failed to daunt 125 people who attended the recent celebration honoring the cow which spent five days in the silo. On the fifth day, Grady's owner, Bill Mach, tranquilized the animal, covered its body with grease and, with the help of neighbors, pushed and pulled the animal back through the tiny opening.

The cow had bolted from an adjoining barn through a 17 1/2-by-24 1/2-inch opening and into the silo after giving birth to a calf.

The event drew national attention to Yukon in 1949, with Bill and Aleyne Mach receiving more than 2,500 letters from 45 states, Germany and Canada.

Aleyne recalled that most of the letters offered ideas on how to get Grady out of the silo.

Ideas ranged from a helicopter lift to filling the 40-foot silo with water and floating the cow to the top. The submitter of the water idea did not say how the cow was to be gotten down from the top of the water-filled silo.

The grease idea came from a Denver newspaper reporter, who flew down to help with Grady's successful liberation.

Proclaiming last Thursday Grady the Cow Day in Yukon, Mayor Jim Blankenship suggested the day should become an annual event, ""maybe even have a festival.''

LaCroix prepared her oral story of Grady's plight by interviewing the Machs and others who lived in Yukon in 1949 and by reading newspaper accounts of the incident.

She told the story to most of the elementary school-age children in and near Yukon, having spoken one or more times at 15 public and parochial schools.

""One audience had more than 800 children in it,'' she said.

Thursday, the library was decorated with newspaper articles of the events, pictures drawn by children, miniature silos made of potato chip containers, and dozens of paper cows.

Many in the audience wore T-shirts made especially for the event.

Among those attending were Aleyne Mach, whose husband has leg problems and could not attend but did attend festivities that evening); Mrs. Bob Park, whose late husband was owner-editor of the Yukon newspaper in 1949; Zelpha Crump-Harrington, wife of the late veterinarian L.J. Crump, who had helped deliver Grady's calf just before she bolted into the silo; and Chan Guffey of Oklahoma City, who wrote the 1949 Grady stories for The Oklahoman.

That evening, 221 met at the library to honor students who had participated in three Grady the Cow contests, promoter Bettye Jo Watson said.

Daily Oklahoman, The
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
July 25, 1961, pg 532

Grady of Silo Fame Dead at 18

Grady jumped to fame in February 1949 when she popped her 1200 pounds through a silo door little bigger than a newspaper page. The problem was how to get her out without tearing down the silo or calling the butcher. Grady's plight captured the publics imagination and advice flooded in... For three days, press associations and newspapers told her story around the world.

September 1998

Hospital to be Built on Famous Corner

A $30 million hospital is scheduled to be constructed on the corner of the intersection on which a silo once stood. The site became world-famous in February 1949 when a cow named Grady jumped through the silo door and was trapped inside for a week....

Sources: The Oklahoman;

Contributed by Marti Graham, April 2007. Information posted as courtesy to viewers and researchers. The contributor is not related to nor researching any of the above.