From the records we have, the Old Station was opened on Oklahoma Highway 33 west of Perkins, Oklahoma, in the early 1930s by husband and wife Roscoe and Effie Emerson. It was a Texaco station and grocery market. Emerson's Grocery Market served residents in the surrounding areas for many years until the station was closed in 1959.

For several years prior to closing it was managed by Ross Jacobs, who later went on to manage McDaniel's hardware in downtown Perkins. His daughter, Monta Lynn (Jacobs) Brown, tells of how what is now "Sparrow Cottage," located directly behind the primary station building, became her playhouse as a child. She also recounts how her dad used space in the cellar below the Cottage to candle eggs that were sold in the market.

Sparrow Cottage above the old cellar as it appeared in mid-April 2022

The period photo on the home page shows a glimpse of what the station looked like when it was still being operated by Roscoe and Effie Emerson. We have not come across any photos of the entire station building taken then, but here are a few more photos we have gleaned from that time.

The Bostian Family

Leon Bostian and his wife, Joan, purchased the Old Station property in 1966 and raised their family on the property. Prior to that transfer of ownership, the Old Station served as the headquarters of the Cimarron Valley Honey Co-op. He was an employee of Oklahoma State University and an avid bee keeper. Joan retired as the school secretary of the Perkins school district.  It was Leon and Joan who built the east addition onto the main house and added the home's fireplace and stone exterior.  The Bostian children recount how they helped their father gather the stones for the house.

Jonna Bostian, daughter of Leon and Joan, moved back to the Old Station with her husband, David Crane, in 2006 to help care for her aging parents. Jonna and Dave were operating a cemetery monument business in Tahlequah, and they opened a monument business at the Old Station after moving to the Perkins area. The Grand Opening of Old Station Monuments and More was on April 6, 2006. They operated the business (which marketed monuments, statuary, antiques, and collectibles) until January 2022 when they sold the property to its current owners.

After moving to the Old Station and opening their business, Jonna and Dave began making several improvements to the property. The guest house was expanded with a bathroom. They also had new metal roofs put on all the buildings and gave the station building and guest house their distinctive exterior color scheme of an eye-catching yellow with dark green trim.

ABOVE: Jonna Bostian and her husband, David Crane, standing in front of the Old Station Guest House on April 6, 2006. This picture shows the guest house before the addition of the bathroom.

New Owners

In mid-January of 2022 the new owners, Lynn and Melveta Hazelbaker (long-time residents of the Perkins area) and their son and daughter-in-law, Joshua and Adrienne Hazelbaker, began further improvements to the property with a vision of emphasizing the history of the Old Station and reinforcing and maintaining its unique appeal in the area. The project of preserving and improving the Old Station's historical appeal was divided up into three phases. The first phase was renovating and improving the guest house—that they named Sparrow Cottage. The second phase was renovating the main house. And the third phase was renovating and restoring the station's store building to a condition close to its previous appearance as a Texaco station and grocery market.

The first phase improvements were completed by the end of April 2022 when Sparrow Cottage was opened as a short-term vacation rental. Among other improvements, repairs were made to the exterior walls of the cottage, and the interior of the cottage was renovated, including the addition of a new cooling and heating system. Repairs were made to the landscape terraces outside the Cottage. A new patio was constructed. A new short picket fence was added around the patio as an architectural and safety feature. New lighting was installed. Parking was added. And a privacy enclosure was added on the north side of the Cottage with cedar fencing.

Interior renovations of the Main House (the Old Station's phase two renovations) were completed in October 2022.