Our Story
From private archive to public trust.
The Semple family's records — letters carried west, photographs taken on the porch, ledgers kept by lamplight — were preserved across more than a century by descendants who recognized their quiet importance. What began as boxes in an attic became a working archive, and in time, a museum.
The foundation was established to ensure that these materials would no longer rest in private hands, but be conserved, studied, and offered freely to the public. Today the Semple Family Museum Foundation operates as a small but devoted institution in south Tulsa.
We believe that the texture of a single family's record can illuminate the broader story of a place — and that history, kept well, belongs to everyone who lives among it.
