Fire on Wednesday afternoon damaged the historic but closed Brookshire Motel along Route 66 in Tulsa, also damaging its slim chances for a new owner to buy and revitalize it.
The fire at the property at 11017 E. 11th St. (aka Route 66) first was reported about 5 p.m., reported the Tulsa World.
According to Rhys Martin, the new president of the Oklahoma Route 66 Association and a resident of the Tulsa area, the blaze damaged the main cottage building, which has two adjoining rooms in the back. Martin said he was unsure whether those units also were damaged.
A local television station filed this report from the scene, including comments from Martin:
NewsOn6.com – Tulsa, OK – News, Weather, Video and Sports – KOTV.com |
The newspaper explained why the motel’s future appears so cloudy after the fire:
In May, Michelle Brooks, the mayor’s press secretary, said, “The property is a public nuisance and has become a haven for criminal activity. The property was declared a nuisance more than a year ago.”
Since then, Brooks said, code violations have gone unaddressed and the city has incurred more than $10,000 in abatement charges.
The owner was given about week to respond with a “plan of action,” according to communications obtained by the Tulsa World. But demolition would be “a very last resort,” Brooks said at the time.
The World reported though the Brookshire Motel had been boarded up, one entrance was open upon firefighters’ arrival — a telltale sign squatters broke into the building and likely started a fire to ward off the wintertime chill. Investigators hadn’t determined a cause as of Wednesday night.
The Tulsa Route 66 Commission earlier this spring tried to find a buyer to save the motel and implored the city to hold off on condemnation as long as possible.
According to Tulsa County property records, the motel’s owner is David Silver of Plano, Texas, who bought the property from the Nathu Patel family living trust on Nov. 8 for $70,000. The fair-market value is $228,400.
Little is known about the Brookshire’s history, although its architecture indicates it likely was constructed in the 1940s.
There still is a chance Silver or another owner will save what’s left of the property. But those chances now seem remote.
UPDATE 2/7/2019: Martin published a history of the motel on his blog.
UPDATE2 2/7/2019: The Tulsa World, in a follow-up story, reports the city’s Route 66 Commission still is considering preserving the detached motel-room buildings.
Arranged in separate buildings around a central courtyard, they aren’t as architecturally interesting as the more prominent office building had been, but they are historic and they could still be renovated, officials said.
“There’s still hope that something can be done with the property,” said Ken Busby, executive director and CEO of the Route 66 Alliance, an organization that promotes the historic highway nationwide. “We aren’t giving up yet.” […]
At least one piece of that history — the motel’s neon sign that even in its current state of disrepair is a beloved landmark for local Route 66 fans — will be saved and put into storage for future use, Busby said.
(Image of the fire at the Brookshire Motel in Tulsa courtesy of Rhys Martin)
Arson? Drunken carelessness? Druggy carelessness? Yet another empty property broken into and damaged by those whose broke in. So common, all around the world.
The city declares it a nuisance, then it’s gutted by fire. Nothing suspicious at all.
Spontaneous combustion? I doubt it.