The new MidPoint Corridor Route 66 Association, with the blessing of the Oklahoma Route 66 Association, is seeking to tout about a dozen small towns along Route 66 in between Tulsa and Oklahoma City before the highway’s centennial in 2026.
The Oklahoman newspaper a few days ago published a front-page story about the new association, which was launched by Eddy Gochenour of The Chicken Shack restaurant in Arcadia after a trip down the Mother Road.
[He] reached out to representatives of Sapulpa, Kellyville, Bristow, Depew, Stroud, Davenport, Chandler, Wellston, Luther, Arcadia and Edmond to enlist their help by joining the organization, which he formally announced in May.
As a first effort, he convinced community representatives to stage their annual holiday activities this year across parts of the months of November and December, thinking opportunities to partake in fresh activities might keep people traveling the highway interested in seeing its sites along the way.
Sapulpa got things rolling on Nov. 16 when it held its Christmas Chute celebration, shutting down its main street and historic Route 66 to offer folks and their children chances to enjoy a candy land, a ginger bread display, cookies, pictures with Santa, an activities gazebo, food trucks and more.
Kellyville, Stroud and a couple of other communities kicked off their holiday celebrations within days of that, followed nearly a week later with Bristow and its Cowboy Christmas and Davenport with its Small Town Christmas.
Similar types of events could be staged up and down MidPoint communities as many as four times or more a year, keeping them relevant as tourism destinations over that time, Gochenour believes.
Gochenour said his goal is to organize four or five events a year in those towns.
Rhys Martin, president of the Oklahoma Route 66 Association, said the MidPoint association’s efforts could boost those towns.
“Towns don’t really need to compete for folks to come visit because they are coming anyway – they just are following the road,” Martin said. “And to see all these towns come together, really buy in to that idea and work together on something like this is so heartening, because Route 66 is not a competition.
“What Sapulpa does helps Kellyville, and what Kellyville does helps Bristow, and so on and so forth. And to see towns like Depew, which was bypassed in the 1920s, be able to take part in something that these larger towns are able to take part in just makes my heart very happy,” Martin said.
The first announcement of the new association came with this news release.
(Image of an Oklahoma Route 66 sign in Chandler, Oklahoma, by scott.tanis via Flickr)