A few days ago, I received an e-mail from Corkey Mayberry of Park Hills, Mo., asking me to solve a mystery.
In September 1955, he and his wife were on a Route 66 trip. The couple stopped to have their picture taken at a sizable stone monument in Texola, Okla., marking the spot of the Texas border. As you can see from the photo above, the main stone in the monument was shaped like the state of Texas.
In May this year, Mayberry decided to stop in Texola to see whether he could find the monument. He found the spot where the photo was taken 55 years ago, but no monument.
Corkey would like to know what happened to the Texas monument and whether it still exists somewhere. I’ve traveled through Texola for about 10 years, and don’t remember ever seeing it. I asked the Texas Old Route 66 Association about it, and they only thing they know is the monument has been gone for a very long time.
Earlier this week, I e-mailed the Texas Department of Transportation and asked whether it knew of the monument’s whereabouts. I have not received a response. If I do, I’ll post it here.
If anyone knows anything about the monument, let me know in the comments portion of this post, or shoot me an e-mail.
That isn’t the only monument to have vanished along Route 66 in Texola. This graceful art-deco monument stood in the tiny town during the 1930s. Nobody seems to know its whereabouts, either.
UPDATE: An important update to the story can be found here.
(Photos courtesy of Corkey Mayberry)
Those two pictures are really cool!
I don’t know anything about that exact monument but I know where there are two that are the same as that one. Both actually located in Texas across the Red river from McCurtain county, Ok. One is on Hwy 37 and the other is on Hwy 259 right across their respective bridges in Texas