Admiral Flea Market in Tulsa to close after nearly 40 years

Admiral Flea Market, a fixture along the Admiral Place alignment of Route 66 in east Tulsa for 39 years, will close at the end of the year because of the owner’s retirement.

The business at 9401 E. Admiral Place posted this announcement Thursday on Facebook:

This comes with a heavy heart to announce. With the support of the family Sam has decided to retire. The Admiral Flea Market after 39 years is closing at the END OF 2019.
We will continue to sale and be open every weekend until the end of the year. More information to follow…

An earlier Tulsa World story reported Admiral Flea Market is run by the Bogue family. Lewis Bogue founded the business after going to garage sales with his father as a child. Lewis had been in poor health two years ago, and his wife Sam mostly took over running the place, including serving her biscuits-and-gravy at the market’s snack bar.

The Admiral Flea Market is open Friday through Sunday.

Across the road is the sprawling Ashley’s Great American Flea Market, which is still operating.

Both places are packed with so many oddities, odds-and-ends and weirdness, I made a video about them nearly 10 years ago.

Both markets sit only a few hundred feet from the massive “Route 66 Rising” sculpture erected this year at the Admiral Place and Mingo Road traffic circle. The roundabout is called Avery Traffic Circle, a former site of a long-gone Cyrus Avery’s motel that also consisted of a gas station and the Old English Inn. Avery long has been known as the “Father of Route 66.”

Admiral Place served as Route 66 from 1926 to 1932, when it was realigned to 11th Street to the south.

(Image of Admiral Flea Market sign in Tulsa via Facebook)

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