The popular Route 66 Christmas Chute in downtown Sapulpa, Oklahoma, will take a break in 2025 because of a long-planned streetscape redesign on Dewey Street (aka Route 66).
Organizers of the holiday event said it would resume in 2026, the same year as Route 66’s centennial.
The Route 66 Christmas Chute announced the one-year hiatus on Thursday on its website:
In 2025, The City of Sapulpa is scheduled to begin a massive streetscape redesign in downtown. Years in the making, the new streetscape on Dewey Avenue will transform the pedestrian experience of downtown Sapulpa. With this undertaking, the Christmas Chute Committee has decided the best way forward is to take a pause in 2025.
Have no fear, we will be back in 2026 to celebrate the Centennial Anniversary of Route 66 with the best Christmas Chute yet!
The Sapulpa Times reported that official attendance numbers from the 2024 holiday season haven’t been announced, but organizers claimed bigger crowds during its second year.
In 2023 during the chute’s inaugural year, it claimed an estimated attendance of over 400,000 over about eight weeks, drawing nationwide attention.
For the uninitiated, the Route 66 Christmas Chute sprung from a group of business owners and city officials wishing to bring families to downtown Sapulpa. Several blocks of Dewey Street are closed so volunteers can erect 800-foot canopies filled with ornaments and other decor.
The Dewey streetscape project is part of a 2020 general obligation bond and other funding. In November 2023, the City of Sapulpa announced that the project would begin in 2025.
(Image of the Route 66 Christmas Chute in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, in 2023)