Route 66 in Oklahoma: An Historic Preservation Survey

Stout, Joseph; Brooks, Charles; History Department, Oklahoma State University

From introduction: "Oklahoma was Indian country from 1803, when, as a result of the Louisiana Purchase Agreement, it actually became a part of the United States, until 1889, when the region was opened to white settlement in the great land run. As such, the present state was criss-crossed by trails which Indian hunters and other occasional travelers followed; few well-worn or marked paths of commerce and travel developed prior to white settlement. Perhaps the earliest major east-west trail across Oklahoma was the "California Road," which eager gold seekers in 1849 used to make their way westward to the gold fields of California. North-south trails up which Texas cattlemen drove their animals to railroad connections in Kansas flourished after the Civil War for about twenty-five years. For decades after the wild run for land in 1889, the region remained one through which travel was difficult. Weary travelers had to ford swollen streams where no bridges or ferries existed, struggle along dusty trails, or after heavy rains labor through a foot or more of sticky mud. Permanent citizens in the area were aware of and suffered these problems also. Finally, in 1902 territorial residents decided that the time had arrived to do something about their transportation problem. That year various citizen groups, both in Oklahoma Territory, the western one-half of the region, and in Indian Territory in the eastern section, formed local good roads associations to work for improving travel in the state. To influence the construction of better roads, the concerned citizens petitioned the Bureau of Public Roads, a division of the United States Department of Agriculture, for financial assistance. The government had recently begun assisting some road building in the states. States had to match federal money, but there were almost no other restrictions as to how the funds were to be employed. This cooperative effort between state and federal governments eventually led to the construction of a major interstate system in the country. Route 66 running east-west through Oklahoma was eventually to be part of that new system. Between 1902 and the completion of Route 66 through Oklahoma in 1937, federal-state cooperation in highway construction passed through several developmental stages. Before Oklahoma became a state in 1907, the development of good roads was mostly the dream of progressive planners. As a consequence of the efforts of these individuals, and those of automobile owners, good roads associations became more influential in the political arena. By the time of the writing of the state constitution in Guthrie in 1907, proponents of the good roads movement had gained enough visibility and influence to cause the men of the constitutional convention to include in the draft of the new document a provision creating a state department of highways. Thus, when Oklahoma was admitted in late 1907 as the forty-sixth state, legislators had established the framework for a highway department. Unfortunately, the new constitution did not give the department any authority to oversee road construction, as this function was left to the counties and townships. About all the new highway department could do was to disburse funds for construction when these were available, and to try to get cooperation of local authorities as to routes, methods, and materials of highway construction. This remained the method of operation, despite the fact that the state by means of an ad valorem tax and an auto registration fee provided revenues for much of the construction." Funding was provided in part by a Historic Preservation Fund grant administered by the Oklahoma State Historic Preservation Office and the State, Tribal, and Local Plans and Grants Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

Route 66 in Oklahoma: An Historic Preservation Survey

Collections