| At Edmond begins the
suburbs of
Oklahoma City. The
Mother Road passes right by
Oklahoma’s capital building, where oil rigs stood not so very long
ago. As you begin to head out of the city, several old motels
and restaurants begin to pop up. In the suburb of Warr Acres, an
absolute “must see” is Ann’s Chicken Fry House, featuring all manner
of Route 66
memorabilia and fronted by a classic 1950s police car, a pink
Cadillac, and vintage gas pumps.
The wandering path soon finds you riding atop the
Overholser Steel Truss Bridge in Bethany before entering Yukon, the
hometown of Garth Brooks. At
El Reno you’ll cross
the old Chisholm Trail before entering more small towns –
Calumet,
Geary, and
Bridgeport, now an official
ghost
town.
Nearby
Hydro is home to Lucille Hamons Station, built in 1927. Lucille was called the Mother of the
Mother Road when she ran the
station and store for 59 years right up until the day she died.
Soon you will pass through
Weatherford on your way to
Clinton,
where the first state-operated
Route 66
Museum resides. It was also here that Elvis Presley once stayed
at the Trade Winds Courtyard Inn.
Next, the
ghost town of
Foss
presents itself before heading west through
Canute on your way to
Elk City,
which provides another great
Route 66
Museum at the Old Town Museum Complex. At nearby Sayre, the
Beckham County Courthouse appeared in the movie,
The Grapes of Wrath.
I-40 killed two more
Route 66
towns, those of Hext and
Texola, on either side of
Erick,
hometown of Roger Miller.
Traveling the
Mother Road through
Oklahoma provides a
smorgasbord of restaurants, architectural styles, historic buildings
and ruins, through its quaint small towns and metro cities. Enjoy its open stretches, winding roads, and many parks and lakes
before heading onto the staked plains of
Texas.
©
Kathy Weiser/Legends
of America, updated September, 2008.
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