TULSA, Oklahoma — As the USA prepares to mark the centennial of Route 66 in 2026, Oklahoma is making a deliberate case that the Mom Highway’s future issues as a lot as its previous.
It might be straightforward to drive straight by means of with out ever stopping. Interstate highways permit motorists to cross the Sooner State in a matter of hours, pausing just for gas or quick meals earlier than pushing on to some other place. However to take action would miss the purpose — and the place.
Oklahoma, which in 1907 turned the forty sixth state admitted to the Union, gives guests a glimpse of the true America: a state formed by motion and migration, by frontier ambition and reinvention and by communities that rose, tailored and endured because the nation modified round them.
With greater than 400 drivable miles — the longest steady stretch of Route 66 in any state — Oklahoma is leaning into the anniversary as a approach to drive trendy tourism.
Tourism, which makes up the state’s third-largest business, is very necessary to state and native governments as a result of funding for core companies, together with police and fireplace safety, is essentially pushed by gross sales tax income.
To higher perceive what the Route 66 centennial represents for Oklahoma, this author sat down for an unique interview with Lieutenant Gov. Matt Pinnell earlier this month in Tulsa.
“We reside or die on the gross sales tax,” mentioned Pinnell, who was in Gov. Kevin Stitt’s cupboard as secretary of tourism and now chairs the Tourism and Recreation Fee. “You need folks to return into your state, drop {dollars} after which go dwelling.”
Route 66 enters Oklahoma Metropolis, the state’s capital and largest metropolis, not as a relic however as a part of a working capital the place tourism, authorities and tradition intersect. A number of historic alignments hint how motorists as soon as moved by means of city earlier than interstates reshaped journey patterns, and people routes now cross a few of the metropolis’s most consequential landmarks. The State Capitol gives a pure place to begin. Rising from a landscaped campus north of downtown, the limestone constructing is the one state capitol with an energetic oil effectively on its grounds.
Constructed in the course of the oil growth years, the 109-year-old domed construction, with its neoclassical design and neighboring midcentury trendy workplace buildings, displays the identical confidence and ahead momentum that outlined Route 66’s early many years, when vehicles promised freedom, prosperity and connection. Don’t overlook the close by Oklahoma Historical past Middle, a state historical past museum that’s fairly good. Trendy and effectively curated, it covers everything of Oklahoma’s story.
A brief drive away, the Nationwide Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum provides cultural depth. Lengthy considered one of many premier Western museums within the nation, it explores ranching, Native American historical past, Western artwork and the mythology of the frontier.
For Route 66 vacationers, the museum locations the freeway inside an extended historic continuum. Lengthy earlier than motorists took to the street, routes cast first by Indians after which cattle trails and railroads formed the land.
West of Oklahoma Metropolis, the panorama opens up, damaged solely by the occasional city or roadside attraction, together with retro diners and interval buildings.
Seventy miles away in Weatherford is likely one of the most sudden highlights of the Oklahoma Route 66 expertise.
Thousands and thousands of {dollars} in state revitalization grants have helped communities alongside the previous freeway spruce up streetscapes and create new points of interest aimed toward guests. One instance is the current addition in downtown Weatherford of a 30-foot “House Man” statue honoring native son Gen. Thomas P. Stafford, an astronaut who flew on Gemini and Apollo missions and later commanded the Apollo-Soyuz Take a look at Undertaking.
The large draw right here is the Stafford Air & House Museum.
What started as a modest exhibit on the native airport is now a Smithsonian affiliate with a powerful assortment, together with a disarmed nuclear bomb and artifacts linked to Stafford and NASA extra broadly. You don’t look forward to finding a museum of that caliber in Oklahoma, not to mention in a city of 12,076 folks. That shock alone can flip a fast cease into an in a single day keep.
Farther west, Clinton gives the narrative spine of Oklahoma’s Route 66 expertise.
The Oklahoma Route 66 Museum is hardly roadside kitsch. The reveals chronicle the freeway’s full arc from Mud Bowl migration to postwar street journeys and the disruption brought on by the interstate system.
On the japanese finish of Oklahoma sits Tulsa.
If Route 66 has a capital, it could be right here. The state’s second-largest metropolis has absolutely embraced the freeway as a part of its identification.
Tulsa’s architectural legacy additionally looms massive over the route. One standout is Boston Avenue United Methodist Church. With its distinctive Artwork Deco design, the landmark displays the oil-era prosperity that paralleled the golden age of automobile journey.
Music historical past provides one other layer by means of the legacy of musician and songwriter Leon Russell, who remodeled a derelict Methodist church right into a recording studio. That house, recognized in the present day because the Church Studio, stays energetic. Excursions provide guests an opportunity to discover its previous and glimpse its future.
Driving the sluggish method by means of Oklahoma is an invite to do greater than comply with an previous freeway. It is a chance to cease, linger and uncover a state that persistently punches above its weight.
“Tourism is the entrance door to financial improvement,” Pinnell mentioned. “After we can get folks right here for 3 days or every week, we will present them what Oklahoma actually is — a contemporary frontier, a fantastic place to do enterprise and a fantastic place to boost a household.”
A century after Route 66 was established, Pinnell and different Oklahoma leaders are betting that vacationers will select curiosity over pace. Those that do might discover that the Sooner State is not only one thing to cross by means of, however someplace value returning to lengthy after the centennial banners come down.
In case you go
The airports in each Tulsa and Oklahoma Metropolis are steadily served by the key airways. You’ll in all probability wish to fly into one airport and out of the opposite.
For motels, the Fordson Resort in Oklahoma Metropolis, which is a part of Hyatt’s Unbound Assortment, is housed in an Albert Kahn-designed former Ford Motor Firm meeting plant. Alternate options embody the Omni and Hilton’s Skirvin. In Tulsa, the Ambassador Resort, a Marriott Autograph Assortment property, or the Hyatt Regency are choices.
Dennis Lennox writes a journey column for The Christian Put up
Dennis Lennox writes about journey, politics and non secular affairs. He has been printed within the Monetary Occasions, Impartial, The Detroit Information, Toronto Solar and different publications. Observe @dennislennox on Twitter.
