A shoe salesman by trade, the brash and ambitious Missourian saw an opportunity and seized it. He opened a general store, followed by a hotel — the first with baths.
By the time Oklahoma became a state in 1907, Brady was a celebrated city father. He signed Tulsa's incorporation papers, started a newspaper and chartered a train filled with boosters, including humorist Will Rogers, to promote the new boomtown to people in the East.
But a lesser-known side of Brady has become the focus of debate in his adopted hometown nearly 90 years after his death. The son of a Confederate veteran, Brady was a member of the local Ku Klux Klan. And new questions have emerged about his involvement in the most notorious event in Tulsa history, a 1921 race riot that left 300 black residents dead.
