George Milburn

George Milburn was born on April 27, 1906, in Coweta, Indian Territory, and grew up in eastern Oklahoma. After working as a young newspaper reporter, he attended several colleges before leaving school to travel, taking odd jobs and writing joke books for the Little Blue Book series. His experiences riding freight trains and living in Chicago and New Orleans later shaped his writing about working people and life on the margins.

Milburn gained attention with The Hobo’s Hornbook (1930), a collection of hobo ballads and lore gathered during his travels. He went on to publish Oklahoma Town (1931), No More Trumpets (1933), Catalogue (1936), Flannigan’s Folly (1947), and Julie (1956). His stories appeared in major magazines including The New Yorker, Harper’s, Scribner’s, Vanity Fair, and the Saturday Evening Post, and his work earned praise from H. L. Mencken.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Milburn also wrote for radio and film, including work in Hollywood and for the Office of War Information. His fiction is especially remembered for its biting but vivid portraits of Oklahoma towns, where humor, prejudice, religion, and local pride collide. He died in New York on September 22, 1966.