Did You Know the Richest Man in Woodward Became His Own Janitor?

In 1916, L.L. Stine was the king of Woodward. He didn’t wear a crown — he wore a banker’s suit and a moustache waxed sharp enough to sign checks with. He’d founded the First National Bank of Woodward in 1901, and by the time oil, cattle, and the railroad were in full swing, Mr. Stine was swimming in deposits, prosperity, and confidence. So he did what every self-respecting banker with more ambition than humility does: he built a mansion.

 

And not just any mansion. Classical Revival, three stories tall, brick walls thick enough to stop gossip (not that it ever did). White columns. Wide porches. It looked like someone had plucked a piece of Washington, D.C., and dropped it smack in the middle of the Oklahoma prairie.

 

His wife was something else, too. First lady of Woodward Society. First to own a motorcar — and the last to enjoy the smell. The story goes she had planters installed beside her car’s back doors, always full of fresh flowers, just so she could sniff roses instead of gasoline. That kind of maintenance doesn’t come cheap.

 

They were living large, y’all.

 

But then, 1929 rang in like a broken piano: loud, off-key, and full of dread. The stock market crashed. Banks buckled. And here’s where the legend parts the curtains. Folks around here say Stine had been sending money overseas — investing in foreign bonds, maybe even German ones. When everything crumbled, that money couldn’t get home. And neither could the trust of his customers.

 

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The bank closed. Depositors lost their savings. Stine lost his job. His reputation. And his wife — she left him, taking her flowers and her high standards with her.

 

Now, here’s the part that makes people lean in when you tell it.

With no one else knowing how to care for the mansion — the one he built — the new owners supposedly hired him to stay on as the caretaker. That’s a polite way of saying he became the janitor. The same man who once hosted banquets in the ballroom was now sweeping its floors. The richest man in town, mopping his own marble.

 

Some say he lived in a shack behind the house. Others claim he quietly took his meals in the kitchen, stepping around hired help who didn’t know his name used to carry weight.

The house stood proud while he faded.

 

Today, the mansion still hosts weddings, receptions, and the occasional Halloween tour. And sometimes — depending on who you ask and how many glasses of punch they’ve had — guests report seeing movement upstairs. Lights flicker. A piano chord plays when no one's near. One bride swears an old man in suspenders tipped his hat to her before vanishing into the pantry

 

And here’s a twist: the house is for sale right now. If someone wants to own a piece of Woodward history, this might be your chance to live inside the legends.

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Is it Stine? Still watching over the house? Still trying to make good?

 

Maybe. Maybe not.

 

But here in Woodward, we know a thing or two about comebacks, curses, and the way stories stick to old brick walls.

 

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The Takeaway:

 

You can build a mansion, but you might still end up sweeping it.

 

Or, as the locals say:

“Don’t spend it all, or you’ll be washing the windows of your own dreams.”

 

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