The Oklahoma Route 66 Association recently announced it had placed about 30 years of its quarterly newsletters on an online archive, including its very first issue in 1990.
Association President Rhys Martin stated the archive provides “a window into the past to show how far we’ve come.”
The newsletters chart the ups and downs over the last several decades. Stories like the installation of the first Historic Route 66 signs in the country to the destruction of historic properties by fire or neglect. Issues celebrate the opening of the Route 66 Museum in Clinton and the 2004 International Route 66 Festival in Tulsa. Others mark the passage of the National Route 66 Preservation Bill or the designation of Oklahoma Route 66 as a National Scenic Byway. Some even feature stories written by late Oklahoma Route 66 advocates like Cheryl Nowka and Laurel Kane. […]
All told, 105 archived newsletters are now available for viewing. Issues from 2020 and later are not yet part of the public archive. “These newsletters wouldn’t be possible without the support of our members,” Martin said. “We want to make sure these do remain an exclusive membership benefit for a time after they are published.”
All told, the archive contains 105 newsletters. Newsletters dating since 2020 are not part of the public archive; Martin said those would remain exclusively for current association members.
Former association president Kathy Anderson tracked down a few old newsletters, as did longtime member Ben Nagel.
The association, however, still is missing 14. Anyone who owns these issues should contact it so they also can be placed in the archive.
- Volume 2, Number 4 (Late 1991)
- Volume 3, Number 1 (Early 1992)
- Volume 3, Number 2 (Mid-1992)
- Volume 6, Number 4 (Mid-1994)
- Volume 9, Number 1 (Early 1997)
- Volume 9, Number 2 (Mid-1997)
- Volume 9, Number 4 (Late 1997)
- Volume 10, Number 2 (Mid-1998)
- Volume 10, Number 3 (Mid-1998)
- 4th Quarter 2010
- 3rd Quarter 2011
- 4th Quarter 2011
- 1st Quarter 2012
- 3rd Quarter 2013 (Issue 06)
(Partial image of the Oklahoma Route 66 Association’s first newsletter in 1990)