Montford Inn

09/01/2026

The matchup may not be the biggest of the season, but the first home football game is still a great reason to spend a weekend in Norman—and we have just five rooms remaining!

A large hotel might offer familiarity. An Airbnb might offer a place to lay your head. At the Montford Inn, you’ll find the best of both: high-quality accommodations paired with warm, personal hospitality.

Here’s what you can look forward to:

🥞 A homemade gourmet breakfast each morning
🥤 Fresh fruit and our signature smoothies
☕ Freshly brewed coffee and hot tea
🍪 Afternoon cookies, treats and refreshments
🛁 Private en-suite bathrooms, with jetted tubs or private hot tubs available in select rooms
📍 A convenient location within walking distance of OU and downtown Norman

If you’ve been waiting for a game weekend with a little less intensity and a little more time to fully enjoy Norman, this may be the perfect one.

Only five rooms remain, so reserve yours to make the first home game a true weekend getaway!

08/11/2026

Well… the time has come to pass the torch and allow a new owner to move the beloved Montford Inn into a new era. For more than 31 years, our family has welcomed travelers from all walks of life, from all over the world to come and find comfort and incredible hospitality in Norman, Oklahoma.

We are excited to share that we have transferred the inn to Robert Gowens. We have hoped and prayed for the next caretaker(s) of the Montford, and we feel that he will continue to honor its heritage while offering genuine hospitality, wonderful breakfasts and the peaceful setting our guests have enjoyed for decades.

The journey started as a dream to own and operate a family-owned world-class bed and breakfast inn in Norman, a place we all held dear as the family has roots in and around the area as far back as the 1870’s.

That dream came to fruition, when, after months of planning, meetings, working through all the intricacies of zoning, designing and building, Montford Inn opened its doors and welcomed our first guests of friends and family on November 20th, 1994.

There are too many names to list to give our biggest thanks to, but we know we weren’t able to be so successful without the help of numerous local people as well as so many others from across the country mentoring, advising, and helping, including former innkeepers Dot Williams, the late Ruth Williams, and Ellen Grinsfelder, and the transition team of Carol Edmondson with InnAdvisors, Gayla Artman with Equity Commercial Realty Advisors, and Dianne Klein with Siano & Company, Metro Brokers of Oklahoma.

We must include our appreciation for our longtime staff member Tegan Pruitt Scott and her incredible family as all of them have worked at the inn in some capacity over the last 20 years. Tegan came to the inn through another longtime staff member, the late Rebecca Roberts, just to help her out on a busy weekend…and lo and behold, 20 years later, she was with us to the final day of ownership. Her presence was a blessing beyond measure and the success of the Montford Inn could not have been reached without her.

Another longtime employee, Tammy Smallwood, was with us for the last 10 years until our final day of ownership and her hard work, loyalty and contribution cannot be overlooked.

So many other staff members over the years are still wonderful friends and acquaintances. We are so appreciative for each of them. We all traveled the same path for a short time and we feel like we made their journeys a bit lighter, as we know our path was better with them on it.

Reflecting on what Montford Inn was and will continue to be, brings back so many wonderful memories over the years. So many guests have become lifelong friends. Literally getting to know different generations of families as they continued to find comfort and rest at our inn when they visited Norman.

People travel for all different reasons. People come to Norman to do things, participate in events, do research, visit family, interview for a new job, weddings, funerals, buying property, selling property, meet their biological children they gave up for adoption, move here with their family, are displaced due to something they chose to do to their homes or something that happened to their home.

They come to celebrate. They come to relax, and slow down their lives to spend real time with one another. They come to grieve. They come to clean out family’s homes. They come to teach. They come to speak and to be heard. They come to learn and ask questions. They come to talk and they come to listen.

Many times, they come just because we were a comforting place where they can lay their head at night on the way to another destination the next day.

We are all travelers on our own journey. And we all have our own “baggage”. As innkeepers of the Montford Inn, we took our job very seriously as we shared our path with fellow travelers. We always endeavored to make sure that the path of those that traveled with us became a bit easier while we were together.

With love and gratitude,
William, Leigh Ann and Phyllis Murray

04/01/2026

Ooh!! Thanks AGAIN, for voting for us as Best Bed and Breakfast in the Norman Transcript’s Readers’ Choice. We are always humbled and honored. 🙏🏼❤️

01/31/2026

It’s that time again to show your support for the places, services and things to do in Norman!

Check it out now!

01/31/2026

It’s that time again to show your support for all the places, services and things to do in Norman! 

Check it out now!

01/31/2026

It’s that time again to show your support for all the places, services and things to do in Norman!

Check it out now!

01/31/2026

It’s that time again to show your support for your favorite places, services and things to do in Norman!

Check it out now!

09/26/2025

UPDATE: This room is no longer available!

A last minute cancellation has opened up a room for OU Parent’s Weekend 10/3-4, with a two night minimum.

Call us or book online. Hurry…it’ll go quick!

08/12/2025

“It’s football time in Oklahoma!”

OU v Illinois State 5pm

We have a couple of rooms available for the opening football game weekend 8/29-8/30 with a two night minimum. You can book online or give us a call.

Boomer Sooner!

08/08/2025

Wow!! We are so honored, humbled and excited to have this happen! It tells our story before we even knew it was ours.

Come by and see it…it’s right up next to our NE property line on City of Norman property.

A huge ‘thank you’ to Andy Reiger and the City of Notman staff members that helped on this project.
You all are helping make Norman a better place!

Posted yesterday on various pages…

Norman's New Historical Marker!

Located at the corner of Webster & Tonhawa near The Montford Inn

Here's the text:

Montford Johnson, Chickasaw Rancher

Montford Johnson, the Chickasaw rancher who Norman’s Montford Inn is named for, traversed the state in the years before Oklahoma’s 1907 statehood. As a post Civil War entrepreneur, he bought and sold cattle, and negotiated with the Indian tribes where he was respected and trusted.
Johnson’s ranch brands were well known and revered in Indian Territory. His travels and cattle drives took him through what later became Cleveland County and the Townsite of Norman.
Montford Johnson was born in Indian Territory in 1843. His father, known as “Boggy Johnson” was an Englishman. He met Montford’s mother while running an Indian trading post in Mississippi.
Together they were among the Chickasaws forcibly removed from their lands to Indian Territory. Montford’s mother died a few years after he was born and his father moved to New York and left Montford and his older sister, Adelaide to be raised by their grandmother.
As a young man, Montford became head of the household, built ranches and cabins for his family and others. He was trusted by the Indians because he only employed Indians and African Americans on his ranches.
In the early 1870s, Montford met and befriended Abner Norman, the young Kentucky man hired by the government to survey land west of the Indian Meridian. The survey crew had stayed near Camp Arbuckle in southern Oklahoma and were directed to the dugout camp and spring where Montford and his son, E.B. Johnson, had employed ranch hands. When the railroad crews came through in 1880 working out the right-of-way, they also were directed to the camp near what is now the intersection of Classen Boulevard and Lindsey Street.
Years earlier the survey crew had burned “Norman’s Camp” in an Elm tree. That became the name for the new town and railroad depot.
Earlier Montford was driving cattle up the Shawnee trail and turned west toward what became Norman. He saw an Indian lookout on a hill overlooking the South Canadian River. He pushed his herd towards the hill which historians believe was on what is now Robinson Street near the water tower and Fire Station.
Johnson reports seeing an enormous Indian camp in the area now known as the Ten Mile Flats. He estimated nearly 5,000 Comanches. They were on a buffalo hunt and needed a place to rest and run horse races. He reported buffalo-skin teepees were scattered along the banks of a small creek.
Montford’s son E.B. Johnson and his cowhands reported stopping at the railroad section house in Norman for a delicious, home-made 50 cent meal. E.B. and Mollie Johnson would later move their family to Norman in 1898 and lived here for the rest of his life. His four sons, Neil, Hap, Graham and Eddie played football for the Sooners. Montford Johnson, who died in 1896, was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in 2020.