I think you can describe it as a landslide.
Readers during a weeklong online poll overwhelmingly voted Tulsa the capital of Route 66. More than 320 people voted, and Tulsa gathered 194 votes (which included four write-ins) for almost 60 percent support.
Tulsa boasts a lot going for it in making its case. It was the home of Cyrus Avery, the so-called Father of Route 66. It remains one of the largest cities on the Mother Road. It’s embraced Route 66 and its culture in the past 15 years. And it’s home to Michael Wallis, author of the seminal book “Route 66: The Mother Road” and voice of the Sheriff of Radiator Springs (and Route 66 technical adviser) in the 2006 Disney-Pixar movie “Cars.”
Tulsa beat the runner-up, Springfield, Missouri, by more than a 4-to-1 margin.
Tucumcari, New Mexico, finished third. Seligman, Arizona, finished fourth, and no other town on Route 66 garnered double-digit vote totals.
Other cities in the voting were Pontiac, Illinois; Atlanta, Illinois; Carthage, Missouri; Galena, Kansas; Clinton, Oklahoma; Shamrock, Texas; Amarillo, Texas; Adrian, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Gallup, New Mexico; Flagstaff, Arizona; Williams, Arizona; Amboy, California, and Santa Monica, California.
Readers chipped in with a few write-in votes, including Chicago; Kingman, Arizona; Lebanon, Missouri; Bristow, Oklahoma; Glendora, California, and (inexplicably) Washington, D.C.
In addition to voters from the United States, people from Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom weighed in.
The foreign voters differed somewhat in the results from their U.S. counterparts. Tucumcari earned the most support from non-U.S. voters, with Seligman and Pontiac tied for a close second. Tulsa tied with Flagstaff for third.
Three people essentially wrote in a “none” for their votes. One wrote: “There is no Route 66 capital; it’s a sum of its parts.”
(Nighttime image of one of the Route 66 gateways in Tulsa by city planner Dennis Whitaker)
How true, that last sentence.