Danny Boy O’Connor first saw the Tulsa house being used as the Curtis brothers’ home in The Outsiders when he was touring the city with House of Pain in 2009. The 1920s bungalow at 731 North St. Louis Avenue was still standing, but it was badly deteriorated. Years later, O’Connor bought the property and decided not to repair it as a private home; he wanted to turn it into a museum devoted to S.E. Hinton’s novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film. Smithsonian reports that O’Connor bought the house in 2015, while the museum’s own account and a 2016 fundraiser describe the purchase as taking place in 2016.
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