The town of my youth was Erick, a small town in far Western Oklahoma. It lies next to Interstate 40, just about six miles from the Oklahoma/Texas border. It is about equal distance from Oklahoma City and Amarillo, about 150 miles. When I was a child the town had a population of about 1,500 people, as compared to perhaps 2,500 in Sayre and 4,000 in Elk City. These were the primary towns in Beckham County. There were some other smaller settlements which in their mind may have been considered towns, such as Sweet water, Retro, Delhi and Carter. There were some other smaller settlements but all these would be considered only settlements and communities by objective observers.
El Reno, Oklahoma, the county seat of Canadian County, Oklahoma, is an old town with its principal industry being railroads. It was a crossroad for major train traffic in a time when roads were pitiful, the airlines were not dreamt of and the trains provided the most efficient means of travel both for people and freight. El Reno was a major railroad town even before statehood in 1907.
Beginning in El Reno toward the end of the 19th Century, investors began construction of the Rock Island Rail Road west, finally going into the Texas Panhandle and on toward Amarillo. An allotment of land was allowed the company for the construction as it was in the best interest of the Territory, its economic interest, for the line to built. The “Rock Island Line” was a familiar sight at Erick. Like other towns in Western Oklahoma, the railroad provided access to the greater world. There had been some development of the area utilizing the freighting industry as it was prior to railroads, the freight wagon companies with large wagons heavily laden with freight being drawn by mules or oxen. But it was the railroad which really provided the impetus for development and growth.
There was a company created which was always in the forefront of the development along the Rock Island Line. The Choctaw Townsite and Improvement Company was a corporation which had some kind of relationship with the railroad company. It was probably simply that the principals were the same. But along the way from El Reno west the Choctaw company was instrumental in developing the townsites along the route. At Bridgeport and then again at Hydro, the Choctaw company obtained title to a townsite which was surveyed and sold off to people wishing to settle there. The principals in the company were familiar names from my childhood, people such as John Bonebreak and Beeks Erick.
After Hydro they moved on westward with the construction of the railroad and did the same thing in Weatherford. When they learned that another line was approaching the present location of Elk City, they went there and acquired land to create another town. Elk City was created by the same people using the same methodology and the Rock Island Line ran through it and on to Sayre. All of this activity was prior to statehood. Elk City was created in the year 1901, just six years before Oklahoma became a state. The pattern of townsite development by the Choctaw company was repeated in Sayre and then in Erick.
Land was acquired in Erick by the Choctaw Townsite and Improvement Company, it was surveyed and sold off to prospective businessmen who saw it as an opportunity to create businesses and homes. In many ways it was the last frontier in the United States and was seen as a last chance for people to make something of their lives. The development of the railroad west of Erick did not afford the same opportunities. In Texas there were other developers who would take advantage of opportunities there. As the last stop for the Choctaw company, Beeks Erick, who lent his name to the town, set up business there making it the base for his life and fortune, as did H.E. and John Bonebreak. Bonebreak’s Hardware was an established business operating well into the middle of the 20th Century. Both men also had farm land outside of Erick.
When the town was first formed it sat at a simple crossroad of county roads and cattle trails. The Territory had been surveyed (would eventually be surveyed twice) and roadways had been determined. But there were no paved roads at that time. These roadways were generally simply section lines. Farmers and ranchers could come into town by horseback or wagons but there was no longer a need for the freight wagons to bring goods from the outside. The railroad provided the connection to the world with its goods. The railroads provided the shipping for the produce of the farms and ranches to the more populated markets.
With the development of the automobile, Western Oklahoma changed as did the entire American society and culture. What little travel there was from town to town had to take advantage of the section lines and the county roads which were themselves often merely cow trails. The road from Erick to Sayre is a very good example of this connection. To get to the town of Erick one would go directly west out of Sayre to the North Fork of the Red River. There would eventually be a wooden bridge which was later designated the Corn Stalk Bridge. There is little information available that would indicate when it assumed this moniker but it was probably long after a modern bridge was constructed over the same river just south of Sayre and was used as the crossing for Route 66 when it was built. The old Corn Stalk Bridge remained in service for years but was allowed to go into disrepair. It finally washed out and was not replaced sometime in about 1960 or 1961. In earlier days after crossing the river at the Corn Stalk Bridge the traveler would go west until just directly north of Erick. A straight line along the county roads would take you into the northeast quarter of the town.
U.S. Highway 66 was conceived by people in Springfield, Missouri. It was one of the first major modern highways designed to connect the country. With its origin in Chicago, it ran through St. Louis, on to Oklahoma, through Tulsa and Oklahoma City. It went west to El Reno and then paralleled the Rock Island Line. On its way to Amarillo and then on to California (it ended at the ocean), it ran through Erick. From east to west, it ran right down through the town and the town built itself around it. Erick was connected to the rest of the world both through the Rock Island Line and Route 66.
The highway was conceived and authorized in 1926 and the roadway was constructed in its present location (basically along Interstate Highway 40 in Western Oklahoma) during the 1930s. It provided needed work for people during the Depression. The final paving of Route 66 was not completed until 1938. John Steinbeck’s novel and subsequent movie, The Grapes of Wrath, shows Okies traveling along paved roads all the way to California. There were a lot of people traveling in that migration along simple dirt roads.
Following World War II, the automobile industry totally changed the American landscape and Western Oklahoma was not immune to that change. By then Route 66 ran right through town and while it was only a two lane road it did, nonetheless, carry a great deal of traffic. Another road was built and paved, connecting people and settlements north and south of the town. With the increased travel, services for the people on the roads were provided. Cafes (few were hardly worthy of the term “restaurant”) and motels (originally called “tourist courts”) sprang along the road, including in Erick. Service stations were there to provide fuel and service for the travelers.
There was a four way stop sign at the intersection of Main and Broadway Streets in Erick. And every car and truck traveling along Route 66 had to go through Erick and had to stop at that four way stop sign. Technology enabled the sign to be replaced with a stop light, a single blinking red light situated to stop all traffic going through town, both north/south traffic and east/west traffic. That stop light would eventually be replaced with a traffic light which remains there today.
The 1950s also saw that portion of Route 66 made into a four lane roadway under the leadership of Raymond Gary, Governor of the State of Oklahoma. He was the only governor of the State of Oklahoma who ever showed an interest in Western Oklahoma and its welfare.
The existence of Route 66 enabled the people of that little town to be connected with the world. It was before television, before the internet, before all those institutions which would bring people together and make the world smaller. World War II had exposed an entire generation to a larger world and the development of the automobile industry with better roads and facilities had allowed that area of the state to interact with people from all over the world. Having grown up in and near Erick and being well acquainted with people from the entire area, it seemed there was a social and intellectual advantage to living on that fabled road. It brought prosperity to the town. People had to purchase gasoline and other services while passing through. They ate at cafes. They stayed in motels. More significantly, it opened the world to us. We met and sometimes visited with people from all over the world. People from New York stopped at my father’s service station and they were no longer a mystery. Illinois, California, the Eastern Seaboard. These people were now known to us. The Pacific Northwest. Canada. The Northeast.
I could tell a difference in people who lived along that road, the Mother Road of the United States. Kids and their families who lived ten and fifteen miles both north and south of the road did not seem to be as aware of the world as those who lived on Route 66.
Erick was prospering. It was benefiting from the economic advantage of having a railroad pass through it and having a major highway pass through it. In the 1940s and 1950s there were families on nearly every quarter section of land. These 160 acres farmsteads were often home to families with any where from two to four kids. These families would come into Erick for their shopping needs and for church. Sometimes, even for their kids to receive an education. It was a common sight for families to come to town on Saturdays to sell produce and to purchase necessities. And they simply came to socialize.
You could see everyone on Saturdays. You could go to the barber shop (there were two of them in town) and you could go to a drug store (two of them) which had full fountain service. You could go to the grocery store, clothing store and any other store you needed. There were movie theaters (two and for a short time a third), pool halls, car dealerships, cafes, ice cream parlors, and many other businesses. Two good banks and a host of churches. Main street was lined with cars, often double parked, and the sidewalks were crowded with people. It was a prosperous and busy time and Erick was at its peak both socially and economically.
President Eisenhower had a vision of a modern highway system for America. He had been impressed with the Lincoln Highway as a young Army officer and with the German Autobahn during and after World War II. He envisioned the construction of four lane highways all over the country to be used for military purposes and, when not so used, to be available for commercial and personal use. That vision led to the Interstate Highway system.
Erick and its surrounding area began to fail. Part of it is that it is an agricultural area and that industry isn’t as profitable as it once was. Mechanization and chemicals made it possible for a single farmer, with his crew, to work more land. This resulted in fewer farm families working the same land and whereas there had once been a family on each quarter section, the land became more sparsely populated. As young people grew up there were no jobs available for them and they were unable to stay. They had to leave Erick to find a job.
The other reason for Erick’s demise was the development of the Interstate Highway system. I-40 was built in Western Oklahoma to follow the same basic route as the old Route 66. But it did not go through the towns. It bypassed the small towns along the route so that traffic could flow at a greater speed.
Erick, like every other small town along the way, was bypassed. And with that the town began its rapid spiral downward.
The interstate highways also enabled the trucking industry to develop and this spelled the death of the railroads. Years later, while driving along an interstate highway, fighting my way through the heavy truck traffic, a passenger in the car said, “They should build a road just for trucks so we wouldn’t have to drive in all this.” I replied, “They used to have such a road. It was called a railroad.”
With the death of the railroad (and the eventual disappearance of the Rock Island Line) and the loss of traffic through town, businesses were lost which once marked the prosperity of that little community. Cafes and motels were the first victims. Then service stations. Then loss of other businesses was like cutting into and removing muscle. Erick was a little doomed town that would reach a pitiful level of population and services. With any luck it would arrive at a level plateau and the town would never actually disappear completely. It seems some towns remain alive simply because there is no place for the last of the people to go.
Several years ago, Disney came out with the movie Cars. It was the story of a small town in Arizona which was bypassed by Interstate Highway 40. The old Route 66 had once run right through Radiator Springs but when I-40 was built around it it began to decline and by the time of the story of Cars it was struggling to just barely stay alive. A children’s story, I watched it with interest. There, I thought, is the story of Erick.
With its boarded up store fronts and its dilapidated buildings, the single little traffic light flashes signals to roads with little traffic. It stands as a sentry to a better time and if one will just look back past the empty bank buildings, the empty grocery and drug stores, the disappeared cotton gins and movie theaters, the abandoned motels and cafes, the deserted service stations, one can see the ghosts of people who once lived and loved and made Erick their home.
El Reno, Oklahoma, the county seat of Canadian County, Oklahoma, is an old town with its principal industry being railroads. It was a crossroad for major train traffic in a time when roads were pitiful, the airlines were not dreamt of and the trains provided the most efficient means of travel both for people and freight. El Reno was a major railroad town even before statehood in 1907.
Beginning in El Reno toward the end of the 19th Century, investors began construction of the Rock Island Rail Road west, finally going into the Texas Panhandle and on toward Amarillo. An allotment of land was allowed the company for the construction as it was in the best interest of the Territory, its economic interest, for the line to built. The “Rock Island Line” was a familiar sight at Erick. Like other towns in Western Oklahoma, the railroad provided access to the greater world. There had been some development of the area utilizing the freighting industry as it was prior to railroads, the freight wagon companies with large wagons heavily laden with freight being drawn by mules or oxen. But it was the railroad which really provided the impetus for development and growth.
There was a company created which was always in the forefront of the development along the Rock Island Line. The Choctaw Townsite and Improvement Company was a corporation which had some kind of relationship with the railroad company. It was probably simply that the principals were the same. But along the way from El Reno west the Choctaw company was instrumental in developing the townsites along the route. At Bridgeport and then again at Hydro, the Choctaw company obtained title to a townsite which was surveyed and sold off to people wishing to settle there. The principals in the company were familiar names from my childhood, people such as John Bonebreak and Beeks Erick.
After Hydro they moved on westward with the construction of the railroad and did the same thing in Weatherford. When they learned that another line was approaching the present location of Elk City, they went there and acquired land to create another town. Elk City was created by the same people using the same methodology and the Rock Island Line ran through it and on to Sayre. All of this activity was prior to statehood. Elk City was created in the year 1901, just six years before Oklahoma became a state. The pattern of townsite development by the Choctaw company was repeated in Sayre and then in Erick.
Land was acquired in Erick by the Choctaw Townsite and Improvement Company, it was surveyed and sold off to prospective businessmen who saw it as an opportunity to create businesses and homes. In many ways it was the last frontier in the United States and was seen as a last chance for people to make something of their lives. The development of the railroad west of Erick did not afford the same opportunities. In Texas there were other developers who would take advantage of opportunities there. As the last stop for the Choctaw company, Beeks Erick, who lent his name to the town, set up business there making it the base for his life and fortune, as did H.E. and John Bonebreak. Bonebreak’s Hardware was an established business operating well into the middle of the 20th Century. Both men also had farm land outside of Erick.
When the town was first formed it sat at a simple crossroad of county roads and cattle trails. The Territory had been surveyed (would eventually be surveyed twice) and roadways had been determined. But there were no paved roads at that time. These roadways were generally simply section lines. Farmers and ranchers could come into town by horseback or wagons but there was no longer a need for the freight wagons to bring goods from the outside. The railroad provided the connection to the world with its goods. The railroads provided the shipping for the produce of the farms and ranches to the more populated markets.
With the development of the automobile, Western Oklahoma changed as did the entire American society and culture. What little travel there was from town to town had to take advantage of the section lines and the county roads which were themselves often merely cow trails. The road from Erick to Sayre is a very good example of this connection. To get to the town of Erick one would go directly west out of Sayre to the North Fork of the Red River. There would eventually be a wooden bridge which was later designated the Corn Stalk Bridge. There is little information available that would indicate when it assumed this moniker but it was probably long after a modern bridge was constructed over the same river just south of Sayre and was used as the crossing for Route 66 when it was built. The old Corn Stalk Bridge remained in service for years but was allowed to go into disrepair. It finally washed out and was not replaced sometime in about 1960 or 1961. In earlier days after crossing the river at the Corn Stalk Bridge the traveler would go west until just directly north of Erick. A straight line along the county roads would take you into the northeast quarter of the town.
U.S. Highway 66 was conceived by people in Springfield, Missouri. It was one of the first major modern highways designed to connect the country. With its origin in Chicago, it ran through St. Louis, on to Oklahoma, through Tulsa and Oklahoma City. It went west to El Reno and then paralleled the Rock Island Line. On its way to Amarillo and then on to California (it ended at the ocean), it ran through Erick. From east to west, it ran right down through the town and the town built itself around it. Erick was connected to the rest of the world both through the Rock Island Line and Route 66.
The highway was conceived and authorized in 1926 and the roadway was constructed in its present location (basically along Interstate Highway 40 in Western Oklahoma) during the 1930s. It provided needed work for people during the Depression. The final paving of Route 66 was not completed until 1938. John Steinbeck’s novel and subsequent movie, The Grapes of Wrath, shows Okies traveling along paved roads all the way to California. There were a lot of people traveling in that migration along simple dirt roads.
Following World War II, the automobile industry totally changed the American landscape and Western Oklahoma was not immune to that change. By then Route 66 ran right through town and while it was only a two lane road it did, nonetheless, carry a great deal of traffic. Another road was built and paved, connecting people and settlements north and south of the town. With the increased travel, services for the people on the roads were provided. Cafes (few were hardly worthy of the term “restaurant”) and motels (originally called “tourist courts”) sprang along the road, including in Erick. Service stations were there to provide fuel and service for the travelers.
There was a four way stop sign at the intersection of Main and Broadway Streets in Erick. And every car and truck traveling along Route 66 had to go through Erick and had to stop at that four way stop sign. Technology enabled the sign to be replaced with a stop light, a single blinking red light situated to stop all traffic going through town, both north/south traffic and east/west traffic. That stop light would eventually be replaced with a traffic light which remains there today.
The 1950s also saw that portion of Route 66 made into a four lane roadway under the leadership of Raymond Gary, Governor of the State of Oklahoma. He was the only governor of the State of Oklahoma who ever showed an interest in Western Oklahoma and its welfare.
The existence of Route 66 enabled the people of that little town to be connected with the world. It was before television, before the internet, before all those institutions which would bring people together and make the world smaller. World War II had exposed an entire generation to a larger world and the development of the automobile industry with better roads and facilities had allowed that area of the state to interact with people from all over the world. Having grown up in and near Erick and being well acquainted with people from the entire area, it seemed there was a social and intellectual advantage to living on that fabled road. It brought prosperity to the town. People had to purchase gasoline and other services while passing through. They ate at cafes. They stayed in motels. More significantly, it opened the world to us. We met and sometimes visited with people from all over the world. People from New York stopped at my father’s service station and they were no longer a mystery. Illinois, California, the Eastern Seaboard. These people were now known to us. The Pacific Northwest. Canada. The Northeast.
I could tell a difference in people who lived along that road, the Mother Road of the United States. Kids and their families who lived ten and fifteen miles both north and south of the road did not seem to be as aware of the world as those who lived on Route 66.
Erick was prospering. It was benefiting from the economic advantage of having a railroad pass through it and having a major highway pass through it. In the 1940s and 1950s there were families on nearly every quarter section of land. These 160 acres farmsteads were often home to families with any where from two to four kids. These families would come into Erick for their shopping needs and for church. Sometimes, even for their kids to receive an education. It was a common sight for families to come to town on Saturdays to sell produce and to purchase necessities. And they simply came to socialize.
You could see everyone on Saturdays. You could go to the barber shop (there were two of them in town) and you could go to a drug store (two of them) which had full fountain service. You could go to the grocery store, clothing store and any other store you needed. There were movie theaters (two and for a short time a third), pool halls, car dealerships, cafes, ice cream parlors, and many other businesses. Two good banks and a host of churches. Main street was lined with cars, often double parked, and the sidewalks were crowded with people. It was a prosperous and busy time and Erick was at its peak both socially and economically.
President Eisenhower had a vision of a modern highway system for America. He had been impressed with the Lincoln Highway as a young Army officer and with the German Autobahn during and after World War II. He envisioned the construction of four lane highways all over the country to be used for military purposes and, when not so used, to be available for commercial and personal use. That vision led to the Interstate Highway system.
Erick and its surrounding area began to fail. Part of it is that it is an agricultural area and that industry isn’t as profitable as it once was. Mechanization and chemicals made it possible for a single farmer, with his crew, to work more land. This resulted in fewer farm families working the same land and whereas there had once been a family on each quarter section, the land became more sparsely populated. As young people grew up there were no jobs available for them and they were unable to stay. They had to leave Erick to find a job.
The other reason for Erick’s demise was the development of the Interstate Highway system. I-40 was built in Western Oklahoma to follow the same basic route as the old Route 66. But it did not go through the towns. It bypassed the small towns along the route so that traffic could flow at a greater speed.
Erick, like every other small town along the way, was bypassed. And with that the town began its rapid spiral downward.
The interstate highways also enabled the trucking industry to develop and this spelled the death of the railroads. Years later, while driving along an interstate highway, fighting my way through the heavy truck traffic, a passenger in the car said, “They should build a road just for trucks so we wouldn’t have to drive in all this.” I replied, “They used to have such a road. It was called a railroad.”
With the death of the railroad (and the eventual disappearance of the Rock Island Line) and the loss of traffic through town, businesses were lost which once marked the prosperity of that little community. Cafes and motels were the first victims. Then service stations. Then loss of other businesses was like cutting into and removing muscle. Erick was a little doomed town that would reach a pitiful level of population and services. With any luck it would arrive at a level plateau and the town would never actually disappear completely. It seems some towns remain alive simply because there is no place for the last of the people to go.
Several years ago, Disney came out with the movie Cars. It was the story of a small town in Arizona which was bypassed by Interstate Highway 40. The old Route 66 had once run right through Radiator Springs but when I-40 was built around it it began to decline and by the time of the story of Cars it was struggling to just barely stay alive. A children’s story, I watched it with interest. There, I thought, is the story of Erick.
With its boarded up store fronts and its dilapidated buildings, the single little traffic light flashes signals to roads with little traffic. It stands as a sentry to a better time and if one will just look back past the empty bank buildings, the empty grocery and drug stores, the disappeared cotton gins and movie theaters, the abandoned motels and cafes, the deserted service stations, one can see the ghosts of people who once lived and loved and made Erick their home.
You said your family ran a service station which was it? My grandpa ran the Texaco
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