Read Ghost Towns of Route 66 Online
Authors: Jim Hinckley
Ghost Towns of Route 66 (11 page)
At exit 53 on Interstate 40, turn north on State Highway 44.
A ghost sign on a weathered wall provides the faintest of hints as to what purpose an overgrown building once served in Foss.
The development of nearby Clinton and Elk City as rail and supply centers was the first blow to the town's economic stability. The population plummeted to 348 in 1920. Providing services to motorists on Route 66 partially stemmed the decline, but this was a short-lived reprieve, as collapsing agricultural prices and the drought that fueled the Dust Bowl spurred a second exodus.
For a brief moment in the early 1950s, with the establishment of an Air Force facility at nearby Burns Flat, it appeared Foss might experience a renaissance. But the closure of the base and the bypass of Route 66 by Interstate 40 sent the old town into a downward spiral. In 1977, the last bank closed for good.
Those who still reside in Foss adamantly deny the community is a ghost town. However, history, the ruins nestled in the brush, and broken sidewalks give credence to the descriptor. There are a few picturesque surviving structures of particular note, including a service station at the junction in a small grove of trees.
The old city meat market in Erick has found new life with the resurgent interest in Route 66 and is now the Sand Hills Curiosity Shop, owned by Harley and Annabelle Russell, better known as the Mediocre Music Makers.
SMALL TOWNS, BIG HISTORY
GHOSTS
that serve as tangible links to a time when this storied highway truly was the Main Street of America line Route 66 from Quapaw to Texola. Not as evident, however, is the rich history that was made along this route. Lead and zinc in copious amounts may have been the most profitable exports from the Commerce area, but they were not the town's most famous contribution. That would be a baseball player with extraordinary talents by the name of Mickey Mantle.
Miami is home to the lovingly restored 1929 Coleman Theatre. The steel truss bridge spanning the Neosho River just west of town since 1937 was the last link in the paving of U.S. 66 in Oklahoma.
Vinita is the namesake of Vinne Ream, the sculptor who created the life-sized statue of the sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln, that stands in the U.S. Capital building. This was also the first town in Oklahoma with electrical service.
Foyil was the hometown of Andy Payne, winner of the 1928 Bunion Derby, a transcontinental foot race from Los Angeles to New York that followed the entire length of Route 66.
Diminutive Kellyville was the site of the worst railroad disaster in Oklahoma history, a distinction earned when two trains collided west of town in 1917.
The town of Erick produced two legends of the American music scene: Roger Miller and Sheb Wooley. It is also the site of the 100th Meridian Museum, housed in an ornate bank building built long before the commissioning of U.S. 66.
Along Route 66 in Oklahoma, no town is too small to have a rich and colorful history. For the traveler, this means endless opportunities for discovery abound.
TEXOLA
Stand quietly on the Texola pump island in a sea of grass, and on the breeze you can hear the clicking of the pump as it counts the gallons.
T
EXOLA, AS WITH GLENRIO ON THE WEST END
of the Panhandle, suffers from a conflicted identity. Straddling the Texas/Oklahoma border, the tiny hamlet, founded in 1901, has been surveyed eight different times and, dependant on the survey, alternatively listed as being in Texas or Oklahoma. It is currently listed as an Oklahoma community one half mile east of the border.
The confliction of identity is also apparent in the various names it has had. At various times, maps show it as Texokla, Texoma, and Texola.
The bright, colorful murals of Water Hole #2 in Texola seem out of place among the overgrown parking lots and weathered façades.
Texola, accessed via exit 5 or exit 1, is south of Interstate 40.
Change comes slow to the Western plains, and as late as the 1940s, the little village gave the appearance of being locked in a preterritorial time warp. Jack Rittenhouse notes this in his route guide: “gas, cafes; no courts; limited facilities. This sun baked small town has an old section of stores which truly savor of pioneer days. Notice them to your right on the town's one main cross street. They have sidewalk awnings of wood and metal, supported by posts.”
Originally the lands here were ceded to the Choctaw tribe by treaty, but an 1896 Supreme Court ruling designated them a part of the territory of Oklahoma. Settlement in the area began in earnest in the 1880s. Establishment of the railroad at the turn of the century provided the accoutrements of civilization necessary for the establishment of towns on these plains.
Texola today is almost a pure ghost town, with a population counted in the single digits. This has kept the vandalism to a minimum, but the ravages of time are taking their toll, as evidenced by the shell of the WPA-era school nestled among the trees along Route 66.
Still, there is a wide array of remnants from better days, many of which bridge the gap between the days of the Western frontier and the glory days of Route 66. Counted among the former is the tiny stone territorial jail a few blocks north of Route 66 on the last street at the east end of town.
A humorous touch in empty Texola is the sign on the old roadhouse that says it all: “No Place Like Texola.”
Sepia tones add an eerie, haunting quality to scenes of empty homes and shuttered businesses amid the prairie grass in Texola.
TEXAS