In retrospect, I consider Oklahoma a transition state for Route 66. The US highway started very near the northeast corner of the state, worked its way to the southwest towards Oklahoma City and then swung almost due west as it ran towards California.
It’s also a somewhat transitory state in terms of topography. Oklahoma encompasses a wide variety of terrain and ecosystems ranging from hilly, forested regions in the northeast, near subtropical mountain regions in the southeast, with a transition to arid plains to the west of Oklahoma City. Oklahoma reportedly contains ten distinct ecological regions, more per square mile than in any other state by a wide margin. When you drive Route 66 through Oklahoma, you traverse many of these.
Oklahoma Ties to the Birth of US 66
For aficionados of the Mother Road, Oklahoma is also the home to Cyrus Avery, considered the father of Route 66. After moving to Oklahoma from Missouri in the very early 1900’s, Avery saw the benefit of well-developed roads to interstate commerce. He worked for a number of road associations through the years, ultimately getting appointed to the Joint Board of Interstate Highways in 1925. It was in this position that Avery advocated for a transcontinental route from Chicago to LA which conveniently ran through his home state of OK as well as the state of his youth, Missouri.
Although the idea for the highway was conceived and fostered in Oklahoma, the state is not considered the birthplace of the Mother Road. That honor befalls to Missouri, specifically Springfield. It was at a meeting in Springfield Missouri late April 1926 that a major impasse on the number for the new highway was settled. Avery had long wanted US 60 to be the number for his dream highway, and he had gotten all of the states involved to agree. The problem was the Governor of Kentucky, who wanted the coveted US 60 for a highway from Virginia to California that would cross his state.
The numbering stalemate had lasted six months when Avery and his team met in Springfield Missouri to look at options. Kentucky had offered US 62 as an option, but the number “60” was much coveted by both sides of the table. As a last ditch effort, Avery had asked Oklahoma’s Chief Highway Engineer John Page to assemble a list of all unused numbers for cross country highways.
The group reviewed all 24 available numbers. Word of mouth history suggests it may have been Page who noted that the catchy number “66” was still available. In any case, the number caught Avery’s whim and it was quickly agreed to by those present. By late afternoon of April 30, 1926 a telegram signed by Avery and B.H. Piepmeir, Missouri’s Chief Highway Engineer, was sent to the Bureau of Public Roads in Washington.
The telegram clearly stated the preference for US 66 over the lesser US 62 and the Mother Road was born.
One year later, Avery would be instrumental in the creation of the US Highway 66 Association to promote paving the route and promote travel and tourism on the highway. The rest, as they say, is history.