The Outsiders: From Tulsa to Windrixville

The story starts at the movies: Ponyboy Curtis is jumped by the Socs after heading home from the movie theater. Coppola's film used the Circle in its opening scene, shot on location in Tulsa between 29 March and 15 May 1982. The cinema opened in 1928 as a single-screen silent picture house and reopened in October 2004 as a non-profit cinema that still operates. A commemorative plaque from The Outsiders House Museum was dedicated here in 2021.

Visitor guidance: Circle Cinema is a working non-profit cinema, so you can see a film and the 2021 plaque in one visit.

Ponyboy, Johnny and Dallas go to a movie at the local drive-in. Dallas flirts unsuccessfully with Soc girl Cherry Valance and leaves in a rage after she splashes him with Coca-Cola. The scene was shot at the Admiral Twin Drive-In, and on 14 April 2023, as part of the film's 40th anniversary celebration, a plaque was installed there to mark it.

Visitor guidance: A commemorative plaque installed in 2023 marks the scene.

Darry Curtis is left to raise his younger brothers, Sodapop and Ponyboy, and when Ponyboy rushes home, Darry confronts him and slaps him. The Curtis home was a house in Tulsa's Crutchfield neighborhood at 731 North St. Louis Avenue. Danny Boy O'Connor bought it in March 2016 for $15,000, and it opened as The Outsiders House Museum on 9 August 2019, with rooms set up as in the film and over 500 editions of the book.

Visitor guidance: The Outsiders House Museum shows the front porch, living room, dining room, bathroom and kitchen as they appeared in the film.

Ponyboy and Johnny flee to Windrixville and hide in an abandoned church, reading Gone with the Wind aloud; Ponyboy recites "Nothing Gold Can Stay" to Johnny. When the church burns, Johnny breaks his back as part of the structure collapses, and Dallas rescues him. Parts of the film were shot around Skiatook, which the film calls Windrixville. On set, Coppola's craving for realism almost caused disaster, as a small, controlled blaze accidentally triggered a much larger, uncontrolled fire, which a downpour doused.

Location precision: The film calls the place Windrixville and was shot around Skiatook; the pin marks the town, not the church site.

Back at school after the hearing, Ponyboy's grades drop, and his teacher, Mr. Syme, says he will pass him if he writes a decent theme. That essay becomes the book, beginning with the novel's opening line. S. E. Hinton wrote The Outsiders in her junior year at Will Rogers High School, and part of the novel is said to take place there.

Location precision: The book never names Ponyboy's school; the pin marks the Tulsa school Hinton attended, a traditional identification.