Jack & Jackie's Travels: 16. Rt.66 Clinton to Oklahoma City

Rt.66 Clinton to Oklahoma City

On our way out of town we stopped to take a picture of the McLain Rogers Park. It is one of the many art deco neon signs that were alongRt.66. A few miles down the road was the Cherokee Trading Post. There were a couple of buffalo that Jackie got a picture of.

In Hydro, OK we stopped at Lucilles. It was a service station and roadhouse. She died in 2000 and the place was closed but a new owner has restored it. Unfortunately it was closed when we were there.

I found an article/interview, here is the link: http://route66news.com/2013/07/30/a-look-back-at-lucille-hamons/ Here is an excerpt from another article I found.

“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 traveling 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

See: http://amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/exhibition/exhibition_10_4.html

Further east, near Hinton Junction we crossed the Pony Bridge. It was built in 1933 and spans the Canadian River. The individual trusses are called Ponies, there are 38 that make up the bridge. It is long. One article I found puts the length at 3944.33 feet. The bridge was featured in the 1939 film “the Grapes of Wrath”. In the movie the grandpa dies and is buried near the west end of the bridge.

Soon we were approaching Oklahoma City and our campground.

The next day we were sightseeing we started at the Oklahoma National Memorial. This is the site of the Alfred P Murrah building was destroyed by a homemade bomb on April 19, 1995. There is nothing like visiting a site like this to drive home the impact of what happened here. You wonder what would drive a person to bomb a building and kill all those people, 168, 19 of which were children.

The Gates of Time: 9:01 the instant before the bomb went off, 9:03 a building and so many people’s lives shattered.

The Survivor Wall, the only remaining portions of the Murrah building are the north and east walls. There is a large plaque with the names of the people who lived.

The Field of Empty Chairs sits on the site of the Murrah Building.

On the second floor was a day care center, 19 children were killed. I think most people will remember this photo. From Wikipedia:

Charles Porter's photograph of firefighter Chris Fields holding the dying infant Baylee Almon won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography in 1996. A similar photo was taken by Lester LaRue.

Children from all over the country responded with messages of encouragement , a wall of tiles was sent to Oklahoma City in 1995.

People remember.

We then went to the town of Arcadia, where we visited POPS. They have a 66 foot tall pop bottle that is illumined at night. There a gas station, restaurant and gift shop.

Notice the Corvettes? While we eating lunch, they began pulling in. Other caravans of Corvettes bypassed POPS and continued heading east on Rt. 66. I got talking with some of the people and was told they were part of the Lone Star Corvette Club from Texas they had 200 -300 cars going to Bowling Green Kentucky for the annual get together of Corvette owners. They were anxious to see the sink hole at the museum. Later that evening we met club members who were from a California club.

We drove a short distance west and stopped at the Old Round Barn. It was built in 1898 by William Odor. When he talked about building a round barn, many of his friends said it couldn’t be done. So, he built a saw mill, cut the boards from native bur oak trees. Soaking the green boards, he put them in special jigs to give them the proper curvature. Over the years there were many owners and with time the barn deteriorated. In 1998 the roof collapsed and fortunately a retired building contractor, Luke Robinson came along and restored it. The story is more complicated than this “short version”. Read more at: http://www.arcadiaroundbarn.com/Round_Barn_Website/HISTORY.html and below.

That evening we had the pleasure of having dinner with an old friend. Haley used to live in our area and about three years ago moved to Oklahoma City due to her job. After dinner we walked around a small part of what is known as Brick City.