Route 66 in Oklahoma
Since we came north in Texas on US281, our trip on Route 66 in Oklahoma started at Bridgeport and ended at the Texas border (near Texola), a total of about a hundred miles.
Our first stop after the Pony Bridge, is Provine Service Station in Hydro, OK. The station was operated by Lucille Hamons from 1941 until her death in 2000. It is on the US National Register of Historic Places. During the Great Depression, she earned the nickname “Mother of the Mother Road.” You can read more about it on Wikipedia.
After the interstate bypassed them in 1972, Lucille was left alone to operate the business.
“After Carl got a truck to earn more money, I was alone here to run this place. During this time, people from Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and eastern Oklahoma were travelling the road to the West Coast to find jobs. … Many times I would have people stop that were completely broke, and I would feed them and give them gas in exchange for some appliance or other articles of value they might have. Sometimes I would just buy their old broke-down cars, and then they would catch the bus and head on west looking for work.”
— Lucille Hamon
Next stop is Sayre, Oklahoma. For this town, we have a view from the 1930s and November 2021.
And now on to Erick, Oklahoma. I photographed a building with a mural but did not get the mural itself. Thanks to google maps, the mural can be made visible…
Also in Erick was the West Winds Motel. The motel was built in 1948 and closed around 1995. You can read more about the West Winds Motel on the National Park Service website. There is also an interesting 1995 video of the motel when it was still operating.
Our last town in Okahoma is Texola, which is on the border with Texas. Texola is a sad sad town now.
And this is probably a good place to put a nice Route 66 map from the Route66 Road Trip website.
Next stop, Texas.