From Troy to Tulsa is the story of Jan Stevens, owner of The Snow Goose, a gift shop in Tulsa’s Utica Square.
Jan grew up in Troy, New York, and after attending high school and college, did Master’s work in Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It was there she began to work in a retail store which sold contemporary gifts, jewelry, dinnerware, and fabrics. Two professors from Tulsa who taught design at the University invited Jan to move to Tulsa to help them set up a store in Fontana Shopping Center.
In 1981, Jan and her sister Elin, opened their own store, The Snow Goose, in Utica Square. It moved to its present location in 1982, and the store observed its forty-fifth anniversary in 2026.
Listen to Jan talk about why she moved to Tulsa and the influence of her father on the oral history podcast and website VoicesOfOklahoma.com.
