Tulsa County plans to spend $1.25 million to $2 million to improve the historic Golden Driller site at Expo Square in Tulsa.
And Route 66 is an impetus for the upgrades, an official said.
According to the Tulsa World, which talked to Expo Square President and CEO Mark Andrus:
The new plaza is intended to provide a safer, more beautiful entrance to the fairgrounds and highlight the Golden Driller with new lighting and signage.
“We are thinking about an electronic kiosk or some permanent information,” Andrus said. “Because right now people show up and they say, ‘I wonder how tall it is.’ ‘I wonder how old it is.’ We’ll have all that. We’re also going to have designated areas where your best photos can be taken from.”
And here’s the Route 66 connection:
With the state’s renewed efforts to promote tourism along Route 66, Andrus believes the planned improvements to the area around the Golden Driller could not be coming at a better time. Work on the project — which must still be approved by the fair board — is scheduled to begin in November and be completed in the spring or early summer.
“We’re a half-mile from Route 66,” Andrus said. “… I think 100% of people who say, ‘I’m going to Oklahoma to drive Route 66,’ I think 100% of them will say, ‘Hey, let’s turn off Route 66 and take a picture of the Golden Driller.”
The Golden Driller stands about two miles from the 11th Street alignment of Route 66, on 21st Street in Tulsa (map here). But it’s so kitschy and so iconic, quite a few Route 66 travelers are willing to make a side trip to photograph it.
The 76-foot-tall, 43,500-pound statue of a oilfield roughneck was erected in 1966 as a tribute to the region’s petroleum industry and to kick off the International Petroleum Exposition that year. It’s reputedly the sixth-tallest statue in the United States. The Oklahoma Legislature in 1979 declared the Golden Driller a state monument.
And because it’s more than 50 years old, it’s eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
(Image of the Golden Driller in Tulsa by Greg McKinney for Wikipedia)