Personal Works by Lynn Riggs

The Lynn Riggs Exhibit

Long before Oklahoma! became a Broadway sensation, it began as the vision of an Oklahoma-born storyteller — Lynn Riggs.

Born in Claremore, Oklahoma, in 1899, Riggs grew up surrounded by the rhythms of rural life — the sound of wind through the prairie grass, the laughter and hardship of small-town people, and the blend of Native and pioneer cultures that defined early Oklahoma.

Those experiences shaped his most famous work, Green Grow the Lilacs — a poetic play that captured the spirit of the frontier and the heart of its people. Years later, Rodgers and Hammerstein transformed it into the legendary musical Oklahoma! — bringing Riggs’s words, and his home state, to the world stage.

Here in Claremore, we like to say: “Without Lynn Riggs, there would be no Oklahoma!”

Though his name is less known than the musical it inspired, Lynn Riggs remains one of America’s most important regional voices — a writer who gave Oklahoma its song.

Today, the Claremore Museum of History keeps his legacy alive, celebrating the hometown playwright whose words helped define a state — and a classic of American theater.

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