Renovations being made to Lawton landmarks

LAWTON, Okla. (KSWO) - Renovations are ongoing at a few iconic Lawton Landmarks, some noticeable like the McMahon Auditorium and others that aren’t like the historic Carnegie Library.

This comes thanks to the 2019 CIP which allowed for the renovations to be made to maintain the buildings and make them accessible to handicapped individuals.

Jason Poudrier with the Lawton Arts and Humanities division says trying to save these buildings means they have to use them, and to do that, they needed a lot of elbow grease.

“What we know with the City of Lawton is if a space isn’t used, there’s nobody there to monitor it.” Poudrier explained. “And so now that we’re back into this building, we’re in it almost every day, we’re looking at what’s going on. There was some substantial water damage done to this first floor. So now we’ve ripped out the tile, we’ve ripped out the subfloor that was damaged and new tile and subfloor will be going in soon.”

From the historical standpoint, the Carnegie Hall Library is one of the oldest buildings in Lawton dating back to the early 1920s.

Lots of generations have stepped foot through the doors and for some, they remember when the dust-filled structure used to be lively with weddings, meetings, dances and so much more.

For those like Ronda Norrel with the Arts for All Festival, they hope to keep that history alive for more generations to come.

“It is history.” Norrel voiced. “It’s the old classical style that Mr. Carnegie designed for a lot of libraries across the United States. It’s fun to see the history stay here and actually see the passion of the people. Because our people are passionate about this building.”

Arguably non are more passionate about Carnegie Hall and the McMahon Auditorium than the art community within Lawton Fort Sill.

They along with the rest of the community will be able to reap the benefits of having Carnegie Hall reopened to the public as soon as early next year with various art classes taking place at the Hall.

Everything from water color, to graphite, to photography and mixed media will be available.

Executive Director of the Leslie Powell Gallery Matthew Hughes who will be teaching one of the classes says this project unites artists from all preferences together for one common goal.

“We do have a really decent sized art community.” Hughes voiced “We have a lot of people who support art one way or another. Not everybody is going to support visual arts the same as not everyone is going to support performing arts. I think we have a nice diverse pool of interests.”

All of those interests create a melting pot of art, cultures, backgrounds that make the community unique.

Seeing them all rally behind this cause motivates those working on it and gets those who planned it excited for what’s to come.

“It’s fantastic, it’s exciting.” Poudrier added. “It’s the community support and the McMahon Auditorium Authority and that board advocating for these buildings and it’s really all these buildings going towards public use and how can we make this more accessible for the public to be in these buildings again?”