and Opera Companies were founded, as well as Theatre Tulsa, the oldest surviving community theatre west of the Mississippi River. In 1932, Waite Phillips donated his exquisite Italianate mansion "Philbrook" to the city of Tulsa for use as an art museum. Roaring twenties: 1920–1930 Another community that flourished in Tulsa during the early oil booms was Greenwood. It was the largest and wealthiest of Oklahoma's African American communities and was known nationally as "Black Wall Street". The neighborhood was a hotbed of jazz and blues in the 1920s. The scene in Greenwood was so hot that story has it that in 1927 while on tour, Count Basie heard a dance band in a club in Greenwood and decided to focus on jazz. Race massacre: 1921 The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 – also known as the 1921 Race Riot, the Tulsa Race War, or the Greenwood Riot – was one of the nation's worst acts of racial violence and large-scale civil disorder. From May 31 to June 1, 1921 during 16 hours of rioting by whites, more than 39 people were officially reported killed (although unofficial reports state that more than 300 African Americans were murdered, with an unknown number of bodies buried unceremoniously in a mass grave.) Over 800 people were admitted to local hospitals with injuries, an estimated 10,000 were left homeless, 35 city blocks composed of 1,256 residences were destroyed by fire, and $1.8 million (nearly $17 million after adjustment for inflation) in property damage. There are long-standing reports that the local government sought assistance from the state government, at which time, the National Guard was deployed. White assailants utilized private planes to drop munitions on, as well as, shoot at fleeing blacks in the Tulsa Greenwood community. This attack killed upwards of 75 to 300 people and destroyed more than 1,100 homes. Confined mainly to the segregated Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, the riot was responsible for wiping out nearly all the prosperity and success that Black Wall Street had achieved to that time, although some of the residential neighborhood was rebuilt within a few years and flourished until the 1960s. However, several blocks of retail and business buildings still stood burnt out, unsafe, and collapsing for more than 60 years. The blocks at the intersection of Greenwood and Archer streets (thus the name "Greenwood") stood as silent proof of the devastation as late as 1982. Spavinaw