"Pasthits on Route 66" is an Antiques and Thrift Store housed in an old gas station about 1.5 miles east of Seaba Station in Oklahoma. There was no historical marker on the property to explain its history.
As I entered Chandler (population 2,858), I saw a large, aluminum-coated, hemispherical building, but there were no signs indicating what it was used for.
The Lincoln County Museum of Pioneer History is located in the downtown area of Chandler, along with a recently restored old cottage-style Phillips 66 gas station. I took some interior pictures of the gas station through a window.
On the outskirts of Chandler is a Route 66 Interpretive Center that reportedly features many exhibits and a few films. Unfortunately, everything was closed when I visited Chandler. Obviously not my day for visiting Route 66 attractions.
Also closed was the Route 66 Bowl, a family-entertainment center featuring a bowling alley, arcade, laser tag, mini-golf, and a Restaurant & Bar. Apparently, the facility is only open on weekends and evenings.
There was a large collection of gas and automotive-related signs in the parking lot and on the front side of the building.
In the late 1800s, Stroud (current population 2,719) was in Oklahoma Territory, where alcoholic drinks could be sold legally. Towns located along the boundary between Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory were known as "whiskey towns," or "wild towns," due to the many saloons and other businesses that catered to cowboys and travelers from "dry" Indian Territory. When Oklahoma became a state in 1907, Stroud became a "dry" city.
Stroud is also the location where a flying saucer landed in someone's backyard. After landing, one alien stayed in the ship, another hid behind a tree, and two others went exploring in their off-road SUV. I did not have the opportunity to visit with any of the aliens.
Just a short distance down the street, there was a nice painted mural on the side of a building.
Ed Smalley Centennial Park contains a Veterans' Memorial and Stroud's first school bell.
A replica of an original Ozark Trail Marker, as it existed from 1915 to 1926, is located along Route 66 (Mani Street) at the southwest corner of 2nd Avenue. Ozark Trail was actually a network of locally maintained roads that ran from St. Louis to El Paso and Santa Fe via several routes. These roads comprised the major highway system until U.S. Highway 66 (Route 66) was built in the 1920s.
The first Ozark Trail Markers were telephone poles painted green and white, but were later replaced with concrete Obelisks painted white with green directional lettering that pointed drivers to the correct destination. The current concrete marker is 21 feet tall, four feet square at the base, and six feet below ground. The marker contains 12 cubic yards of concrete and weighs around 48,600 pounds.
Directly across the street from the marker was an old building that appeared to have been a Chevrolet Dealership at one time. I walked over, looked in the window, and saw a light on, so I tried the door, and it was unlocked. As I was inside looking around, a woman came out from the back part of the building and asked if she could help me. I told her I was intrigued by the building and asked what business was currently located there. She said they sold parts for 1955, 1956, and 1957 Chevrolet cars, and I was welcome to look around and take as many pictures as I wanted. There were lots of signs, and even a cutaway of a Chevrolet 265 CID straight-six driveline with a manual transmission. Since it was a floor shift, the driveline was probably from a pickup.
Diagonally across the street is the famous Rock Cafe and Curio Shop. During its heyday, the Cafe was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, when Interstate 44 bypassed the town, business declined. But the devastating blow was when the town's 53-store Tanger Outlet Center and the Sygma Foodservice Company distribution center were destroyed by a tornado in 1999, resulting in a loss of 800 jobs. Neither business was ever rebuilt.
The town was struggling to recover from the tornado when, in 2001, the Pixar crew stopped at the Rock Cafe while conducting research for the animated movie Cars. Dawn Welch, the Cafe's owner, was a longtime promoter of Historic Route 66 in Oklahoma and had a passion for preserving Route 66 landmarks and bringing new life to the small towns along the route. The Pixar crew was so impressed by Welch's personality and her efforts to promote and rebuild Stroud that she became the inspiration for the Cars movie character Sally Carrera.
In 2008, a fire gutted the Rock Cafe, so Welch hired historic preservationist David Burke to rebuild it, and the cafe reopened in 2009. Dawn Welch was selected as Oklahoma's 2009 Woman of the Year.
Some of the historic motels along Route 66 in Shroud are still open for business.
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