In 1910, Cattlemen’s Café opened its doors in Oklahoma’s stockyards to serve cowboys, ranchers, cattle haulers and other hungry people. In 2020, the restaurant will mark its 110th year as the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Oklahoma City. Several decades its junior, Tubelite Inc. will celebrate its 75th year in business. These companies’ shared history is connected by the very doors that have welcomed patrons into the restaurant for generations.
“The door of a high-traffic entry, like a restaurant, could see literally hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of openings and closings every year,” said Tubelite’s client development manager in Oklahoma, John Wiemer, CDM, CSI, CDT. “Unlike welded doors which require a total door replacement, Tubelite’s doors feature tie-rod assembly.”
As the name describes, Tubelite’s tie-rod constructed doors use steel rods across the top and bottom of the door. The rods are anchored in the vertical stiles and thread through the horizontal rails, tying the stiles to each other with the rails gripped in between. The rods have threaded ends, and are secured with locknuts on both sides. Welded corners have a bracket that gets screwed onto the stile and then welded to the rail. Shear clip corners have a small piece of aluminum channel that is fastened to the stiles and then bolted to the top and bottom rails. In nearly 75 years, Tubelite has no reported failures of its tie-rod doors.
“This durable construction allows our doors to be refurbished, replacing worn parts such as hardware, providing reliable use year after year. With constant use, a door may need some adjustments to ensure smooth operation and performance,” explained Wierner.
With Tubelite’s tie-rod construction, a local installer can adjust the glass blocks and fasteners to bring door leaves back to square with the openings. Replacing the weathering and seals can enhance the entryway for optimal air tightness. Surface wear from millions of contacts with users, such as a well worn rail or a stile, can be replaced. This local approach to maintaining and modifying existing doors may be considerably less expensive, and less wasteful, than full replacement.
Building upon its original structure, Cattlemen’s Café expanded throughout the years. Preserving its classic character, the interior of Cattlemen’s Café features red vinyl booths and low countertop seating that resemble the décor from its early days. The Cattlemen’s Steakhouse was added in the 1950s catering to couples and families going out to enjoy a meal together. Cattlemen’s diners now have a choice of café or restaurant seating, but, regardless of where they sit, everyone orders from the same menu.
While Tubelite’s customers have more options than ever, all continue to depend upon the same, durable tie-rod construction of Tubelite’s doors. Meeting modern performance requirements, Tubelite’s doors can be specified for blast mitigation, hurricane impact resistance and energy efficiency in a choice of sizes, glass types and finishes.
Like its doors, Cattlemen’s has withstood the test of time, spanning two world wars and 19 Presidents. Many veterans, leaders and celebrities have sat at Cattlemen’s tables – from Ronald Regan and George H.W. Bush to John Wayne and Reba McEntire. Adding to its recognition, the town is known as Historic Stockyard City and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Photography: DaybreakPics.com, Sunny Thomas
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At 55,543 square feet, the new ER is more than three times the size of the hospital’s former emergency space and offers up to 64 beds. The new facility also features a clinical laboratory, a retail pharmacy, a rooftop helipad and an orthopedics unit. UCHealth noted that the new orthopedic unit, on the second floor, “has large rooms with natural light and a rehabilitation gym that gives patients an area to improve their mobility and health without the feel of being in a hospital.”
“Our thermally improved storefront systems achieve the specified thermal performance and contribute to condensation resistance, which also minimize the potential for mold and mildew,” said Mary Avery, Tubelite’s vice president of marketing. “These combined attributes support the hospital’s energy savings goals, as well as provide a healthy, comfortable, open space for patients and other people to enjoy.”
In collaboration with architects at H+L Architecture (now 
Compared to the estimated costs to build a new facility, the $10.7 million, 44,390-square-foot renovation and expansion to the existing structure offered savings without disrupting patient care. General contractor 
“Our thermally improved storefront systems achieve the specified thermal performance and contribute to condensation resistance, which also minimize the potential for mold and mildew,” said Mary Avery, Tubelite’s vice president of marketing. “These combined attributes support the hospital’s energy savings goals, as well as provide a healthy, comfortable, open space for patients and other people to enjoy.”
Beyond the lobby and entry, the UCHealth Cancer Center added a “Main Street” pedestrian corridor to link the lobby with the renovated oncology suite and a new outdoor healing garden. A nutritional center, physical rehabilitation services, alternative medicine therapies and a flexible conference center were among the other additions completed in future construction phases.
* Owner: UCHealth; Denver; 
Mountrail-Williams Electric Cooperative (
The new building was necessary to accommodate a decade of unprecedented growth at MWEC resulting from the oil boom in the Bakken Region of North Dakota. The cooperative currently has 84 substations in its service area compared to just 19 in 2007. The city of Williston’s population has doubled since 2007. The demand has seen MWEC, a not-for-profit, member-owned electric distribution cooperative, nearly tripled its workforce since 2010 to manage a consistent backlog of requests for power.
Tubelite’s sales and engineering teams worked closely with JLG Architects and Fargo Glass from the project’s earliest stages. Tubelite’s architectural take-off (ATO) services group then provided further support to Fargo Glass during the bid stage. Tubelite’s local representative, Hillesheim Architectural Products, Inc. (
Insulated, tempered and laminated glass units using low-e coatings for high thermal performance contributed to achieving the project’s requirements. With the nearby highway, the high-performance glazing also helped meet the acoustic specifications. Multiple glass types were selected for the vision and spandrel applications. “Some of these bays are 64 feet tall and made up of 32 separate units,” noted Joe Haider, branch manager at Fargo Glass.
Validating the system’s dependable performance, Haider said that when the field air/water testing was conducted on the installed, four-story 28-by-64-foot bay, “the engineers said it was the best test results they had ever seen.”
Another environmentally friendly design decision included recycling 92 percent of the weight of the old building when constructing the new and expanded headquarters. One visible example is seen on the walls of each conference room, where the old interior wood trim was repurposed for decorative touches, connecting MWEC’s humble beginnings to its burgeoning future.
