Amazing Grace Ministries is seeking photographs and stories about El Sueno Motor Court along old Route 66 in Claremore, Oklahoma, so it can make appropriate repairs to at least one of the buildings.
Laurie Paquette Ault, a member of the First Methodist Church in the city, said in a phone interview the owner has allowed the Claremore-based organization in the last two years to use four or five of the 12 units as short-term apartments for the homeless, and it may add more.
The complex at 402 N. J.M. Davis Blvd., which was Route 66 from 1931 to 1958, contains nine buildings, Alt said.
That alignment is less known because Route 66 was shifted a block east on Lynn Riggs Boulevard and has remained there.
More old Route 66 motels — Albuquerque, Santa Fe in New Mexico and Flagstaff in Arizona — are being converted to housing for low-income people or the homeless.
According to Route 66 Times and other sources, El Sueno was opened about 1938 by Jack Sibley:
Nine cottages held a total of 18 guest units. The two story building in the center held the office on the first floor and the owners quarters on the second floor. That center building also used to be connected by a wall between itself and the two cottages fronting the street.
Quinta Scott’s “Along Route 66” book (Amazon link) stated Jack Sibley was a former tax commissioner before diving into the motel business:
A year earlier, Jack had traveled west along U.S. 66 looking for architectural ideas for his tourist court. The family legend has it that he saw an Alamo look-alike somewhere on 66 in northwest Arizona. In fact, he needed to look no further than Oklahoma City, where Lee Torrence had just opened an Alamo Plaza Hotel Court. When Jack built El Sueno, he followed the Alamo Plaza plan and elevation closely.
I did a deep dive on Newspapers.com to find more information:
- Typical for its varying eras, the site was called El Sueno Motor Court, El Sueno Tourist Court, El Sueno Court and El Sueno Motel.
- A newspaper article in 1940 stated owner Bob Sibley was going to build four new cabins on the site to “correspond with the design of the original court.”
- From the early to late 1950s, the motel was selling an assortment of fireworks.
- In 1958, a newspaper ad stated the motel was “priced to sell” for $35,000.
At some point, the complex was turned into apartments and renamed Adobe Village.
Ault said she’s checking varying grant sources, including the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, to shore up the buildings in a way that would be historically accurate and generate interest.
“We just following God’s lead on this,” she said.
Ault said she’s maintained a keen interest in old motor courts on Route 66 because she was in a military family that stayed in them, including in the Route 66 town of Barstow, California.
Anyone who has photos or stories about El Sueno should email her at lault@claremorefumc.org.
(Postcard image of El Sueno Motor Court in Claremore, Oklahoma, courtesy of 66Postcards.com; excerpt from Google Street View of El Sueno Motor Court in 2023)