An island in name, a peninsula in fact
The water that formed Grand Lake did not cut off Monkey Island’s north end. Despite its name, the land remained connected—a peninsula rather than a true island. [1]
Where did the name come from?
Local historian Bruce Howell’s 2021 newspaper account traces the name to a remark by Bernice resident Gove Bunch during a reported 1938 Tulsa World interview about the coming lake. Howell connects the joke to a zoo visit and a monkey island surrounded by a moat. [1]
Shangri-La: another chapter in the shoreline
Shangri-La became a major part of Monkey Island’s identity. Rather than compress every ownership change into a sentence, one clear modern milestone is the resort’s new hotel: a June 2017 announcement described a 120-room hotel and scheduled its formal opening and dedication for June 23. The article placed that project within seven years of redevelopment under Eddy Gibbs. [2]
That contemporary report is a useful fixed point for a longer resort history. It keeps a modern rebuilding chapter distinct from the earlier lodge and golf-resort stories.
Har-Ber Village: saving pieces of an earlier world
Harvey and Bernice Jones founded Har-Ber Village Museum in 1968. Its name combines the beginnings of their first names. The museum’s own history describes a lakeside collection that began with a chapel and historic buildings and grew to include tools, artifacts and structures interpreting nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century life. [3]
A museum village is a place where buildings and collections are brought together to tell history. It should not be mistaken for an intact town that has stood unchanged on that shoreline since the nineteenth century.
Sailboat Bridge: a crossing built with the lake
The original Sailboat Bridge, officially the Grove Highway Bridge, was built in 1938–39 as part of the wider Pensacola project. It carried U.S. 59 across the north end of the lake between Grove and Fairland. Its raised center allowed tall sailboats to pass below; the Oklahoma Historical Society offers that as a possible explanation for the familiar name. [4]
Construction on the replacement bridges began in February 2000, and the new crossing opened in 2001. One of the two new bridges reused sixteen of the original bridge’s piers—a literal connection between the dam-era crossing and the road people use today. [4]