The Oklahoma State Historic Preservation Office will conduct a survey of historic assets along Route 66, but the Tulsa Route 66 Commission wants to conduct its own survey that includes the city’s older alignment near downtown.
According to Public Radio Tulsa:
The state is taking an inventory of structures like movie theaters, gas stations and restaurants built during the Mother Road’s heyday that may be eligible for preservation tax credits. Tulsa Route 66 Commission member Amanda De Cort said that work is not looking at an alternate alignment of Route 66 on Admiral Boulevard from Lewis Avenue to downtown.
“We’ve never had any formal recognition from the Park Service, the State Historic Preservation Office or ODOT that this may be an historic alignment of Route 66,” De Cort said.
De Cort said the preservation office is willing to pull Tulsa’s inventory of that stretch into its statewide asset survey and submit it to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and National Park Service.
De Cort said that would make those properties eligible for future government incentives that involve Route 66.
The commission said it would use leftover Vision 2025 sales-tax money for the survey.
It’s a bit startling a part of the older alignment in Tulsa, which carried Route 66 from 1926 to 1932 until it was moved to 11th Street, wasn’t on the survey list. It makes one wonder what other obscure alignments wouldn’t be in the survey.
The state Historic Preservation Office in January put out a request for proposals, due in September, to survey historic properties on Route 66 in Oklahoma. The previous survey was about 20 years old and due for an update.
(Image of an Oklahoma Route 66 sign by Infinite Ache via Flickr)
Excited to hear which properties are found eligible!
Why only from Lewis to downtown? The original Route 66 corridor went past Cyrus Avery’s family properties along Admiral from Mingo to downtown, jogging on Lewis to downtown. Properties along the rest of that alignment would benefit from government incentives too.