TULSA, Okla. — On a particularly windy day in the Crutchfield neighborhood here, the writer S. E. Hinton was touring the renovations of the future Outsiders House museum. The rundown Craftsman bungalow was where the Curtis brothers — Darry, Sodapop and Ponyboy — lived in the 1983 Francis Ford Coppola movie based on Ms. Hinton’s book “The Outsiders.”

The book, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this month, was arguably one of the most influential young adult books of its time, and leading this tour was the self-described fanboy Danny O’Connor, 48, who made his own contribution to pop-culture history as a member of the 1990s hip-hop group House of Pain.

Mr. O’Connor, who lives in Beverly Hills, Calif., bought the Outsiders House for $15,000 in 2016, determined to turn it into a museum. During the recent tour, Mr. O’Connor was showing Ms. Hinton a first-edition hard cover of “The Outsiders,” pointing out a wide paper sash wrapped around the jacket that read in bright orange, “A remarkable novel about teenagers, for teenagers, by a teenager.”

Mr. O’Connor has been on a quest to find artifacts to include in the museum, amassing a collection of memorabilia from the movie, vintage photographs and hard-to-find editions of the book. Next on his search list, he told Ms. Hinton, 68, was a claw-foot tub like the one 18-year-old Rob Lowe (Sodapop Curtis in the movie) stepped out of with just a towel wrapped around his waist.