A Very OK Podcast
Episode 54: “Cyrus Avery and the Founding of Route 66”
January 20, 2026
Episode Transcript
(upbeat music playing)
Trait Thompson: Hello, and welcome to A Very OK Podcast. My name is Trait Thompson, the executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society. And here with me as always, is the man, the myth, the legend, Dr. Bob Blackburn. And Bob, it’s great to be with you in 2026. I hope you’re doing okay today.
Dr. Bob Blackburn: I am, Trait. Just having a good winter. Spent some time with the family over the Christmas holidays south of the border. We had a great time. I’m back back in the saddle, working on some museum projects around the state and still reaching out to the people I know in towns and cities and around here in Oklahoma City. So I’m having a busy winter, and I’m enjoying it.
Thompson: Well, you got a little beach time, didn’t you?
Blackburn: I did. You can see the sunburned nose. Yeah. We were on the beach in Puerto Vallarta, 82 degrees every day. I didn’t lack for cerveza, and just in the water with my grandsons, making sure they didn’t get washed out to sea. And so I actually lost weight, even with all the cerveza, because I was fighting the waves and riding the waves, and playing with the kids.
Thompson: Well, and unlike me, you don’t have much weight to lose, but I could lose a few pounds myself. Well, we had a great Christmas holidays as well. In fact, a few days after Christmas, my son turned 18, which it’s hard to believe that I’m old enough to have an 18-year-old son. It’s a little bit crazy, but we had a nice time with family together, and jumping right back into 2026. And there’s a song that’s been going through my head a little bit lately, Bob. And that is “if you ever plan to motor west, travel my way, take the highway that is the best. Get your kicks out on Route 66.”
Blackburn: Alright. A little crooning here.
Thompson: There you go. A little, that’s a little present for all of our listeners there, but this year is the 100th anniversary of Route 66. And, we teased this a little bit at the end of our last episode, but all of our episodes this year are going to have something to do with Route 66, and we’ve got plenty to talk about. Believe me, we’re not going to run out of things to talk about. And I’m very excited that we are starting off with a bang. And boy, do we have two great guests to kick us off. We’re going to be talking about today, the birth of Route 66. And we couldn’t ask for two better people. So I’m going to introduce them now. You’ve probably heard them in the background, but here we go. The first, the route, the “GOAT” of Route 66, if you will, which that stands for “Greatest of All Time.” He is Michael Wallace. He’s a best-selling author, an award-winning reporter, a historian, and a biographer of the American West who has gained international notoriety as a speaker and voice talent. In fact, he is the voice behind the sheriff in the animated Cars movies, which there’s now been three of those. And when my son was young, I about had those movies memorized. He is the co-founder of the Route 66 Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to the promotion and enhancement of the Mother Road. And in 2023, President Joe Biden appointed him to the National Route 66 Centennial Commission. He has published 19 books, including Route 66: The Mother Road and is credited with the resurgence of interest in the highway. His book, The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny was published in 2017, and I have to tell you all out there, you have to read that book. It is fantastic. Whatever you think you know about the Donner Party, I promise you, you don’t until you read this book. And his 20th book, The Biography of Belle Starr, was just published in 2025. And our other guest with us today is Ken Busby. He is the cultural czar of northeast Oklahoma. He also serves as the executive director and CEO of the Route 66 Alliance that we just spoke about. He is dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and enhancement of Route for the past, present, and future. He’s the chair of the Tulsa Route 66 Commission and was appointed by the governor to the Oklahoma Route 66 Centennial Commission in 2020. He’s the past president of the Oklahoma Museums Association and serves on committees for the Tulsa Symphony, the Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust, and the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence. That is Ken Busby and Michael Wallace. Welcome to our podcast. We are thrilled to have you today.
Michael Wallis: Well, we’re we’re thrilled to be with two of our favorite people.
Ken Busby: Absolutely. When you first asked us about doing this, and you said you’re going to get to be with me and Dr. Bob, I was like, well, this doesn’t get any better. I mean, we’ve got four of the best people ever together.
Wallis: I would, I would say we’re a fearsome foursome.
Blackburn: All right. We’ll take on anybody. And Trait, if I might add a little addendum to your introductions on both Michael’s and Ken’s relationship with the Historical Society, how they fit into the big picture. I met Michael in the early ’90s. His book had just come out, and he agreed to serve as our consultant on building a new museum with a new business plan, which I call the entrepreneurial business plan of a combination of private, public, investment, sustainability through revenue and special events and marketing. And that was the Route 66 Museum in Clinton. And Michael helped us create that. It’s been a success ever since. And, when we started the annual meetings again, I actually had met Michael before that because we started annual meetings around the state in 1987, and Michael and Robert Henry and George Nigh were my standbys. All three of those gentlemen spoke at least two or three times at our annual meeting, so I could always count on them. They were always willing to come drive to whatever city we were in and do it. And with Ken, we had always tried to bridge the turnpike gap between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Even though the Historical Society is headquartered here in Oklahoma City, we have a statewide mission. We’re supposed to serve every citizen equally. They’re all paying for support. And I’d been trying to get into Tulsa for a long time. There was one director of the Tulsa County Historical Society who did not want us in Tulsa and came out publicly, said that behind my back, fought some things. We were both pursuing common goals with collections and the ability. And I helped with the Travis Mansion, with all of that. But one person who stood up in town who had a leadership role, high profile, was Ken Busby. Ken said we want the Historical Society in Tulsa, and that led directly to the OKPOP project, which you’re helping to finish here with funding and vision. And that was a rough beginning. George Kaiser, of course, was a supporter. And Ken Levit, but on the other side, Ken Busby was out there in the community talking us up. Yes, they will be good partners. Yes, we can do this together. It doesn’t have to be us and them. It can be all of us, and Ken was a champion. And so I appreciate what Michael and Ken over the years. That’s, gosh, 40-some years of working together for a common goal.
Busby: That’s neat. Thank you, Bob. That was really nice.
Wallis: Yeah. Very nice.
Thompson: Well, gentlemen, today we have a great topic to talk about. And I want to get into how we go from in the early 20th century, we get in from very little to no roads, and what roads there were were pretty terrible. And then we go into this, Good Roads Movement era, and then we get into Route 66. So, Bob, if you could, why don’t you kind of kick us off and let’s talk about the state of roads in the, particularly Oklahoma, but nationwide really in the early twentieth century. And how do we get this process of building roads kicked off?
Blackburn: Well in 1907. Let’s begin there. Snapshot, 1907 Oklahoma. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention are trying to do the best they could for all the residents. One reason we have so many counties that people typically got from point A to B, if not by railroad, and that would be a long distance and expensive. Most people couldn’t afford those. The way to get from point A to B: horse power, on horseback, with a wagon pulled by horses. And so the delegates to the convention wanted everyone to be able to get to their county courthouse in one day’s ride. So that’s why we have so many counties. That’s why the fight was over county courthouses. That’s where the center of state services were going to be for the residents of the state. Very few state agencies, not very well-funded. What people wanted, though, how do you improve that road between your farm or ranch and the market? How to get to the cotton gin? How to get to the stockyards? The county commissioners did that. If people were hungry and starving, who reached out? County commissioners with commodities. County commissioners had control over the county school systems, and that’s where the services were. And that’s what they well, even though a highway department was in the Constitution, it was not funded until 1911, which shows that there was not a high demand for it, because elected officials tend to respond to what the voters want in the next election. And in 19, in the first elections in 1907 and following elections, it wasn’t a big deal. So no funding until 1911, and then only nominal funding. Most of the power road building was in the hands of those county commissioners providing those local services. But as we got out of 1907, in fact, that’s a pivotal point. And another thing, the widespread use of automobiles. Henry Ford had already come up with what he called the Model T, which narrow little tires could get through sand and mud, high clearance to get through all of that mass, light enough where two or three people could upright it if it tipped over on a bad road. The price, he eventually got down to $400 a vehicle, building assembly plants across the country, including here in Oklahoma City on West Main Street was an assembly plant built in 1915. And so automobiles were becoming affordable. More people were buying them. And as people wanted better roads to drive their cars on, that created the demand. The elected officials respond. Our earliest governors really didn’t care. The demand wasn’t there, but it was beginning to change by World War I, and it was changing across the country. And as the as it looked like the United States was going to be drawn into the European War, Congress started looking, well, how are we going to fight if we have to fight? How do we get men and material from point A to B? The railroad system was not enough. You needed to be able to go into the interior, connect resources from town to town, state to state. And that’s when Congress really starts in 1916, saying we really need a federal system and start with the first funding, block grants to the states. The feds did not want to build the roads, but they said we will provide money to the states. But with federal funding then, as now, comes with red tape. You have to build the roads based on the federal specs. You have to have certain conditions, safety, durability. And so typically that money was available. But here in Oklahoma, where county commissioners reign supreme, they weren’t going to apply for that because their jurisdiction stopped at the county line. So if you look at a map of Oklahoma highways in 1924, we have a reproduction of that that was done by Martin Trapp, the governor who became the Good Roads governor. It shows that almost all the paved roads were in the urban counties, and we were becoming more urbanized from 1900 to 1910. And then that sped up by 1920. In 1924, all of the paved roads, like in Oklahoma County, county line to county line, Garfield County, county line, Tulsa County, of course, Pittsburg County a little bit. So you have a few counties that are doing it but not many. And so there’s no way for the state to pool resources to match the federal grants. And at first, 50/50 and, just could not match it. And so basically, Oklahoma fell behind in terms of building any roads, much less an interstate highway system. But all of that market is changing. So if you talk about supply and demand, the demand is the citizens saying, we need better roads, the supply is the money coming out of Washington, DC, to match whatever we can generate in the state. In Oklahoma, this has always been a low tax state. Oklahomans don’t like taxes. Use fees are different. And in this case they looked at a use fee on how to generate it. And of course, we get into that story a little bit more here today. But the demand was growing. The supply of money was there. How do you seize it? How do you pull all of these various parts of this story together, and how does that impact Oklahoma? And that’s the story of Route 66.
Thompson: Yeah. Michael or Ken, I’ll let either one of you start out with this. But how does the Good Roads Movement play into this?
Wallis: Okay, well, the Good Roads Movement was critical because as Bob was saying, until Henry Ford came up with his marvelous assembly lines, which made automobiles no longer just a play toy of the rich in the early 1900s. Now farmers and school teachers and clerks could actually afford a sliver and get out on the road. You know, a lot of people weren’t too keen about getting the roads paved. This is even true after Route 66 was created in 1926. It took another 10, 11 years to pave the whole road. And a lot of folks in western Oklahoma and in the Texas Panhandle kind of liked it a dirt road, because those farmers and ranchers could make a little money. When we had a big cloudburst out west, and it made that gumbo mud, and you had to pay a farmer a rancher to haul your vehicle out of the mud. So fortunately, it wasn’t an overwhelming anti-road lobby at all. Everybody was pretty keen on it. And of course a person that we’re all interested in who was really keen on it, was a man who, like me, wasn’t a native to Oklahoma, like me, he was an adopted Okie and his name was Cyrus Stevens Avery. Cy Avery, an incredibly versatile, bright, entrepreneurial, civic-minded man who really took charge of Good Roads in Oklahoma and the whole Good Road Movement and is, in fact, famously known now as is “the Father of Route 66.”
Thompson: Yeah. And you know, looking back, I found a great article in The Chronicles of Oklahoma about some of this early Good Roads Movement. And interestingly enough, some of the earliest call for good roads weren’t for automobiles, but they were for bicycles. Bicycling had become such a big hobby, and bicycles were becoming prolific, particularly in the 1890s and early part of the 1900s, that in 1893, more than 150,000 citizens in the United States signed a petition demanding Congress, hey, do something to improve those road conditions. And then, you know, there were two million bicycle riders in 1896. And so, all right, this was the first impetus for, hey, let’s improve our roads.
Busby: Absolutely. And the League of American Women was formed back in 1890, and their whole purpose was to lobby for good roads for cyclists, because, you know, at this point, we don’t have automobiles prolific yet, because they’re just coming. But this idea of how to have better roads because people are bicycling more and more. And so that whole, their whole purpose is I think, I said 1890, but it was 1880 actually that got it first got going. Is that right?
Wallis: Yeah.
Busby: And so, you know, this idea of better roads. The other thing that’s funny, I think, is if you go for just a little bit to about 1903, Teddy Roosevelt is addressing the annual, the annual, his annual address to Congress, and he’s talking about the importance of good roads, that it’s good for the counties. It’s good for everyone. We’ve got to do this. And I’m oversimplifying it, but it was about ten years later, in 1913, when Congress really addressed the first big money to developing these good roads that Teddy asked for ten years earlier. So, you know, history repeats itself. The same thing happens today. We ask for money, and ten years later, Congress takes action.
Wallis: Yeah, and a little personal footnote here. Speaking of bicycles, everybody was riding it. And in fact, it was sort of liberating because young women were riding bicycles, and it gave them a chance to move around on their own with their pantaloons on. (laughing) And I had an Irish grandpa down in Texas who was a bona fide cowboy in San Saba country. And when before he went into the Spanish-American War, he was a great bicycle racer. So it was part of our family lore. And I have a little box now down in my treasury of things, filled with Spanish-American War memorabilia and bicycle racing medals.
Thompson: That’s great. That’s great. And yeah, Ken, to your point. Really, most, the federal government was not involved in roads at all, and the state government wasn’t really either. And Bob mentioned in 1911, we get the state highway, the state highway department, which really doesn’t do a whole lot. In 1910, we only had 23 miles of hard surface roads in the entire state of Oklahoma. But in 1916, Congress passes the Federal Aid Road Act and provides $75 million in matching funds for road building, which is that first time that the federal government really gets involved. But we have this little thing called World War I that happens that really stalls things out until we can get to 19- the Federal Highway Act of 1921, which divided the nation’s highways into primary and secondary roads and specified 7 percent of the mileage of those roads as designated by each state, would be eligible for federal funds. So that’s what really gets us going. But World War I kind of stalls things out.
Busby: Oh, absolutely. It was, yeah. Go ahead. No, I mean the war effort was everything. And so all of the hopes and dreams really just really did get put on hold. So we have to get through 1914 and 1918, and then we can start thinking again about that future. And, but that spark has never left Avery or any of those early pioneers that were really thinking about this, about what, what road travel was going to mean and what it was going to mean, and we’ll talk about more of this later, but what it’s going to mean for commerce. That we’ve moved beyond communication and mail delivery and all of those things, and we’re now really focused on a future that’s going to be built on the automobile and where that is really going to take our nation as it’s developing.
Wallis: Yeah. You know, Bob mentioned that Oklahoma was a little slow on all this. And that’s true, and Cyrus Avery knew that. And he had become very enamored with our neighbor to the east, Missouri’s Good Roads Movement. That impressed him very much. So he formed up and joined the Oklahoma Good Roads Association. And then he became the president of what they called the Albert Pike Highway Association. It started during the war, in 1917. It was around for all the way up I think to 1916. And this was when he had already been elected chair with the Tulsa County Commissioners, and the Albert Pike Highway was named for the old Confederate general and it was a predecessor to a lot of this. He was very responsible for making sure that that road came through Tulsa and crossed on a bridge that would become very important to Route 66. And that’s the old 11th Street bridge, which replaced an old wooden bridge, the first bridge across the Arkansas. Before that, they had a ferry across the river, ferry over to the west bank to get big slabs of ice at the ice plant, bring them back over here to cool the churches. They put big slabs of ice in the basement and blow fans on them. And that was a big deal to get that bridge built. And that that bridge played a big part in 66. Avery also became a very big proponent and greatly involved with the formation of another group, and that’s the Ozark Trails. And that Ozark Trail system roads really connected St. Louis to Amarillo. Yeah, that’s a stretch of Route 66 today. So he was already thinking way back then, World War I, right after, about a route that could come from east to west, and it carried more people as the roads became paved.
Blackburn: You know, Trait, Michael, Ken, and most of our listeners, you’re going to think, well, why wasn’t everybody jumping on the bandwagon? Why was Cyrus Avery so exceptional at the time? He was a minority of leadership in the state because most people, when they thought about interstate transportation, it was the railroad. The railroad was the king. It was the 800-pound gorilla and of lobbyists at the State Capitol, at the national Capitol. They had the money, the corporate interest. They could tell governors and mayors what to do just because they had the power to change rates, to really serve a community or not serve. And so they were huge. And so Cyrus Avery was this little voice out here in the wilderness speaking up, saying it, this is where we are going. As a visionary, he could see it. Most people did not. And the railroads, who would later fight highway motor transportation by demanding that Congress regulate trucks, and at one point, eventually in the 1930s, you get regulation of trucking. But the railroads were against a lot of this, and they had the power. So what Cyrus Avery and his associates were able to do through these associations, finding a few allies here, and they’re pulling together their their resources. It was exceptional what they were doing. This was not an inevitable thing that was going to happen.
Wallis: Absolutely no it wasn’t. Yeah. You hit it right on the head. And again it speaks to the vision and the tenacity of Cy Avery.
Thompson: Well, and Bob, I want you to talk a little bit because you mentioned Governor Martin Trapp, who only finds himself in that position because his predecessor, Jack Walton, was impeached, and he ends up being a great governor in the midst of the 1920s. We have an impeached governor in Jack Walton, and then after him, Henry S. Johnston ends up getting impeached. So it was kind of a tumultuous decade, which we’ve talked about on previous podcasts. But in 1924, he signs the Oklahoma Highway Law and what this did is it made the state government responsible for highway construction across the state, and it set up a cent-and-a-half, gasoline tax that would pay for state building roads. And then a portion of that would also go to counties to continue to build roads, because we know here in Oklahoma, if you’re going to give something to the state, you have to give something to the counties in the rural areas as well. And then what it also did is create this three-member commission, where at least one member had to be of the minority party, which back in those days, that meant the Republican. But Cyrus Avery, he saw this as a way to professionalize what we’re doing. You know, he had been Tulsa County commissioner. He saw this as a way to professionalize. And then, Governor Trapp names him to be the chair of the commission. How much did that do for changing Oklahoma and modernizing how we approach?
Blackburn: Oh, it’s the modern, what we now call the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, ODOT does not date to 1907. It dates to 1923 and ’24 when the bill was passed, and Trapp lobbied for that. He was a bond salesman. He was dabbling in oil and real estate. He wanted good roads, and he would eventually run for reelection. He thought he could run for a full term rather than just the three years he got as lieutenant governor, serving as acting governor. Supreme Court said, no, you can’t. But he ran his campaign as “the Good Roads Governor,” and he was a shoo in. No one else of stature filed to run that season because they thought, well, Trapp has got it. He’s so popular. People love what he’s doing with highways. Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation created during his tenure. And people said, you know, he is going to be elected. Well, we’re just the hangers on like Henry Johnston, who had already filed, as he did every time since 1907. He’s elected governor, incompetent. He’s impeached. So Trapp is in there. I kind of put him a rank below E. W. Marland who was probably the most progressive, productive governor in all of Oklahoma history, and he only had four years to do it. But right below him was Martin Trapp. And part of that was what he did for us today with working with Cy Avery and the advocates for good roads and making that Highway Commission. Professional, meeting federal standards, and having a pool of money to get the federal matching funds, bring the money to Oklahoma.
Wallis: That’s right. While all that’s going on with his increased relationship with the feds, at the same time, we have Avery making quite a name for himself now. And he was actually, and he was elected the president of what was called the Associated, Highway Association of America. And in 1923, he became appointed to the Oklahoma State Highway Commission. And there, he cleverly helped implement a gasoline tax. I know they don’t like taxes, those Okies, but he got one. And that was used to fund the highway department.
Thompson: Yeah. In 1924, when he is in as chairman of the commission, Oklahoma had 290 miles of hard-surfaced roads in the state. By 1928, which shows how much he was able to do in a short amount of time, we had over 1,100 miles of paved roads around the state. So, gentlemen, I want to take a quick break and we’ll be right back and we’ll jump in to how does this road called Route 66 get created?
Announcer: You’re invited to join us on Thursday, February 12th, at 6 p.m. for a live recording of A Very OK Podcast, focusing on Will Rogers and Route 66. We will be at the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore to talk about “Oklahoma’s Favorite Son.” Learn about Will’s life growing up in the Cherokee Nation, his rise to stardom through vaudeville and movies, his family life, and his connection to Route 66. The special guests are Tad Jones, director of the Will Rogers Memorial Museum, and Jennifer Rogers, Will’s great-granddaughter. Admission is free, so mark your calendars on Thursday, February 12, at 6 p.m. inside the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore.
Thompson: Okay. And we’re back. And we are with our guests, Michael Wallace and Ken Busby. They’re calling on the phone from Tulsa with us. And let’s jump into this thing called Route 66. And, Michael, you alluded to it earlier, but the American Association of State Highway Officials, they began to lobby the US Department of Agriculture because, believe it or not, the Bureau of Public Roads called the BPR, was housed within the Department of Agriculture at that time. And that goes all the way back to when this whole roads thing started, the roads were really to try to connect farmers to the cities, to get their crops to market.
Wallis: That’s right, that’s right.
Thompson: And so the AASHO which is a bit of a mouthful, but they began to lobby the Department of Agriculture and say we really need to create a network of roads across the United States. Let’s talk about that process and how we get all of that started.
Wallis: Yeah. Well, you’re right. In 1925, the US Secretary of Agriculture, appointed Avery to the Joint Board of Interstate Highways, and they were charged with designating this new federal highway system and marking them. And that’s where we are in 1925. It was only a year later that 66 came about, and they were looking at a different routes and different ways the road could run east to west in terminal towns and cities and where it was going to go. And they had all kinds of help, all kinds of suggestions, all kinds of people lobbying for that. The suggestion was that, big suggestion was what became the states that now are considered the Route 66 states, the eight states of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and of course, California. So he started pushing the road east from Springfield to St. Louis, up to the east and then Chicago, and it seemed like a natural pattern to go. Remember when we’re talking about old trails and traces, in some cases of the Illinois, old Indian trails, the Old Wire Road coming down from St. Louis diagonally, coming down into the to the Ozarks, Old Wire Road that was used so much during the Civil War. So I always think about this when I was going to the University of Missouri, that beautiful campus, going the library, all of a sudden, people get off the sidewalks, and there was a little shorter way to go. And they started making the diagonal paths that made it more convenient. Well, when happened, by and by, the school just paved that path. Okay? And there you have it. That’s sort of the way it happened with Route 66. So all these commissioners, especially Avery, are meeting, and they’re discussing all of this, the current east to west routes and so forth. And that’s where we started getting into a little trouble, and I’ll let Ken explain that the, just how the numbers 66
Busby: Oh, yeah.
Wallis: came to be.
Thompson: Ken, before you do that.
Busby: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Thompson: The AASHO, they created this three person committee to look at the routes. And on the committee was Missouri’s head highway engineer, B. H. Piepmeier, and then the vice president of the AASHO, Frank Sheets from Illinois. And they had these meetings in six different regions around the country where they would take, you know, they put maps out and they would look at different routes and things like that. So they put a lot of time and effort into trying to get people’s thoughts and opinions on this. And so, you know, a question that I got as I’m going to go on through this, and I know Cyrus Avery was one of the advocates for this Chicago to Los Angeles route, but there’s a lot of ways that you could get there. But how can we call Avery the father of Route 66 and not Piepmeier or Sheets, you know, father of Route 66?
Busby: There’s several, I think there’s several reasons. But the I think the main one, because you’re right, they work together really well. But Avery at this point is living in Tulsa and he’s got, he’s got the old 11th Street bridge, built 1917, 1918. Michael talked earlier about the the wooden bridge was replaced by this bridge. But that bridge was the first concrete and steel reinforced bridge that crossed the Arkansas River anywhere in the country. And you had to cross the Arkansas River somewhere as you were going to get to California. And so, I mean, Michael’s probably got more on this.
Wallis: Well, you’re telling it right.
Busby: But I really think, it was because of that bridge that gave Avery a little more leverage as he’s making the case for why this would be a better route to come. It was going to be a safer route.
Wallis: Well, that that was key. And I think this is a good time. Let me give you a little more background on Mr. Avery. It’s important to know, you have to know what Avery, what he, what he did the get to this point. There’s this man, born in Pennsylvania, and his family, like so many other families, moved west, and he ended up living in Missouri. He was in Missouri by 1881. And by 1890, he’d moved down to Noel, Missouri. A great little community over there, right over in Missouri. And he went to, that’s when he decided to, he’d been certified to teach in public schools. He went to William Jewell College, still going up in Liberty, Missouri, and he got a BA in 18, I guess it was 1897.
Thompson: Yep.
Wallis: And that’s when he married, Essie McClelland who, after graduation, they were married and then they moved to OKC, Oklahoma City. And he sold insurance. In 1903, they moved to Vinita up in old Indian Territory, and that’s where he expanded to spread his wings a little bit started loaning out real estate money. And he got involved in the booming oil industry, and he actually established Avery Oil Company at that time. So by ’07, statehood year, when he moved to Tulsa, he knew he had found his home. And he set up a farm outside of Tulsa where he raised some crops and a lot of hogs and cattle and so forth. And in the few years later, expanded that farm into more diversified things. And, meanwhile, they had three children, and then he set up a business on what became Route 66, sort of a, you know, an early inn, if you will, a rest stop for people. He really knew, at that time, I think he fully realized that he wanted that road that they were planning, you now in the ’20s, to go through his adopted hometown and then to move on through the state capital. He didn’t want to take a northern route above Oklahoma or a southern route down through into Arkansas and then south through the belly of Oklahoma. He wanted that road to go right where it was eventually laid out. And that’s why he deserves, by far, he’s the best candidate to be called the father of Route 66.
Thompson: And Bob, I want to, you know, mention something. Since Michael mentioned his businesses, he was in real estate. He was in the oil business. He had businesses, you know, he had a restaurant, hotel, those kinds of things along Route 66. But I think this speaks to the character of the person, because we have found many of our Founding Fathers in Oklahoma, after we learn more about them, are difficult to support because of some of our values today that we find out the kind of people they were really. But Cyrus Avery was known to treat Indians fairly, in his dealings. He also had an opportunity to interact, and he had real estate dealings in Greenwood and was known to be fair to the Black population in Tulsa’s Greenwood area, and actually was one of the people advocating for rebuilding Greenwood after the Tulsa Race Massacre.
Wallis: That’s exactly right.
Thompson: And then he was anti-KKK, which if we know anything about politicians in the 1920s in Oklahoma, many of them were involved in the KKK. And so, in fact, that was one of the things that got him on the wrong side of Henry Johnston after Johnston was elected. So, you know, it’s always nice to see that, from a character standpoint, he looks like a man we could root for, Bob.
Blackburn: I think you’re right. And, as far as I know, there’s not any tarnish on his reputation anywhere.
Busby: Yeah.
Blackburn: And, and I even like things like he advocated planting clover on right-of-way and on rural roads. Let’s beautify here. Why should we accept ugly? We can do better. And then working with others to make a change in his community. But he should be applauded as one of the leaders in Oklahoma.
Wallis: Definitely. He was even known to have clover seeds in his pocket and spread it himself. And yeah, he had the guts to take on the Klan, my god, and he was a strong voice of reason during the horrors of the Tulsa Greenwood Massacre. Yeah. Again, I sure wish in ’34 we would have made him a governor. It would be interesting, though. What would have happened then? To have Avery and have Marland in office, you know, back-to-back.
Thompson: Ken, you were going to talk to us about the numbering system and how we get to the highways being numbered across the country.
Busby: Right. Yeah. So, I mean, it’s I mean, just in a nutshell, you know, as they as they’re trying to figure this out, and they’re trying to set up a system and they’re going to go through this with the association. They look at north-south highways, and they figured those could end in one and five, and then the east-west highways can end in zero. And so, you know, this, it’s a simple process. But as they’re looking at, you know, they’re starting from scratch. They’re going to have the first federal highway. They know terminus points, Chicago and Santa Monica. It’s it’s, you know, as Michael likes to talk about the fact that it’s a crooked road. So it’s not just drop south and and head west, but it’s still there’s more, more or less of an idea that we’re going to do that. And a lot of the challenge with the whole numbering system came from the Kentucky governor.
Thompson: Yeah. Governor William Fields of Kentucky really got his undies in a bunch, didn’t he?
Busby: Oh my God, I mean, so much so that he was like, no, we’re not going to go to Illinois. We’re going to bring US 60 because at the time, that’s what they’d come up with. It was going to be US 60. And so that was the number, okay, and everything’s going along fine. No one’s thinking about Bobby Troup at this point. So it’s all good. So US 60, and so he freaks out, and then he’s totally trying to bypass Oklahoma. So he’s wanting a route, you know, that’s coming from Chicago down to Louisville and Kentucky and coming that way through Tennessee and Arkansas, hitting southern Texas, as Mike was talking about, then heading on to New Mexico, Arizona, and California and then the finishing out the road. So he’s doing this whole, you know, other another option, another version, if you will. But what’s funny, is Congress gets involved in this dispute too.
Thompson: Which always makes things better.
Busby: Right. We’re from the government, and we’re here to help. So Congress gets involved and literally almost ended the whole National Highway System. They almost said, well, we’ll just let the states and the counties, to our previous conversation, figure it out, which we’re very fortunate that didn’t happen. But then it was and then it was, Avery’s really diplomatic skills and his ability to work with the other members of the commission and so forth. And, you know, and to approach Governor Fields with this idea of, okay, we’ll compromise. You can have US 60, and it can run through your state, but we’re keeping this route of ours, this one that we know is better because it’s shorter. It’s flatter. It’s lower cost to produce it and so forth. And then they come out, of course, with the number of 66,
Wallis: Which he loved that number. He always said, “I love that 66.” It just rolls off your tongue, 66.
Thompson: And they tried to give Kentucky 62 and of course, Kentucky said no. And then they said, well, Avery, you name your road 62. And Avery said, no way, no how.
Busby: That’s right.
Thompson: Avery said, by the way, we’ve already printed all these signs that say highway 60 in Oklahoma. And he was really, really resistant to the idea of changing it. And it was an Oklahoman, and Oklahoma highway engineer, John Page, he suggested 66, and that’s when it became acceptable. So on April 30, 1926, Avery and Piepmeier sent a telegram to the BPR director at the Department of Agriculture, and it said this regarding Chicago- Los Angeles Road. “If California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Illinois will accept 66 instead of 60, we are inclined to agree to this change. We prefer 66 to 62.” And April 30th is when that change was made.
Busby: That’s right, that’s right. And 72 at that point, we also haven’t entered Kansas at that point. That that came a little bit later. But yes. And that’s, that’s how it happened. And that’s why we give Springfield the credit, because that’s where the telegram went for being the birthplace of Route 66.
Wallis: Well, it was, that telegram. Well, we, not begrudgingly, but we do allow Springfield, Missouri, to call themselves the birthplace of 66, because technically that’s where the birth certificate, in quotes, came, and Avery was there, and they were all gathered there. However, we maintain, rightly so, and in fact, now it’s indelible, and it’s been trademarked, that Tulsa is indeed the capital of Route 66. And you can take that to the bank. (laughing)
Thompson: On August 4, 1926, US 66 became official. And on November 11, 1926, the US Highway System and all of the numbering for the highways was made official and finalized as well. And thankfully, Avery was able to get all of this done before the gubernatorial election because Johnston quickly moved to pass legislation to change the nature of a highway commission to put five commissioners on instead of three. And pretty soon, he fired Avery. And in a letter to his friend, Avery wrote, “The Kluxers pitched me out on my head although they had to change the law and create a commission of five instead of three, and they changed the length of the terms. Although every paper in the state and every chamber of commerce and road association was for us, we went the way of the wang doodle.” And I don’t know what a wang doodle is. (laughter)
Busby: That’s funny, but it’s really true. And once again, politics rears its ugly head.
Wallis: Yeah.
Thompson: Well, at the end of the day, Cyrus Avery, he was a public servant. He had served Tulsa County. He had served the state of Oklahoma. He even raised money for war bonds during World War I. And then many people said, if you would have asked him, Michael, you talked about this a few minutes ago, that his proudest accomplishment was Spavinaw Dam project and bringing bringing fresh water to Tulsa. And we didn’t talk much about that.
Wallis: Absolutely it was. And it was going on, he was involved in that in the late teens and early ’20s when he was he, you know, he can multitask, this man, and Tulsa had terrible water. You know, it was just horrible and well known for being horrible for grit and grime and everything else. But out in Spavinaw Creek, it very near a little town of the same name in Mayes County. That’s where they got together. And Avery was right in the middle of it, planning and starting the financing that began couple of years after World War I. And it was a big project and took a while because they had to create, to build a dam. It created Spavinaw Lake, big lake, impounded that creek. And then they had to create a 55-mile-long pipeline, and we’re pretty good at build pipelines in his state, to carry that water to a big reservoir we have near Tulsa, where it could be properly treated and pumped out to all the customers here. So it broke ground for that in ’22, and it was all completed a couple of years later. And, yeah, the treatment plant was, I think, finished up right before about 1929. And, it was considered to be, what did they call it, Ken? The longest gravity flow water pipeline?
Busby: at the time.
Wallis: In the country?
Busby: In the country, yeah. And he, he was also responsible, in part and large part actually, for the creation of the Tulsa airport.
Busby: Oh, yeah. The first Tulsa municipal airport. He was part of the gang of, well, all of the all of the greats at the time, from Phillips to Getty and so forth. And, and this is also at the time that Charles Lindbergh has made his trip to Tulsa. And, he commented about how what a great city we have. And of course, we have our great water supply, and Tulsa is on the verge. But the one thing we didn’t have, we just had a little airstrip. We didn’t have much of any kind of airport. And so at a dinner at the Mayo Hotel, Lindbergh says, you know, you’ve got a great city. There’s so much here, but you really need a great airport. And, Phillips and Getty and others, I think it was Phillips, I believe, but stood up at for dinner. I said, you’re right, Mr. Avery. If you’ll give us one year, we will have an airport befitting someone of your stature. And sure enough, and Avery donated the land, where the airport was built. And a year later, they opened the Tulsa Municipal Airport, a beautiful Art Deco style building, and we had, you know, and we were on our way because air travel was going to be the next big thing for Tulsa.
Thompson: So, Bob, we’ve got the 100th anniversary of Route 66. There’s going to be celebrations all year. But I guess the question is, why should we care?
Blackburn: Well, today, if we look at quality of life, and what has happened, especially in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, even moderate-sized cities like Woodward and Enid, Atoka, you know, is that our ability to get to school, to get to worship, to get to shopping, all depends on transportation. Transportation is critical to economic development. And if we are going to understand the role, not just of roads, but the oil and gas industry and encouraging the building of that bridge across the Arkansas to get to the oil patch, of oil and gas driving the wheels of the economy and generating tax revenue that could go into quality-of-life. We’ve got to understand, Route 66 is the best example of making an impact overnight, one of those turning points. It’s like usually most history courses are divided by war. So pre-Civil War, after Civil War, even in 20th century, you think of World War I, World War II. Well, we need those kind of mile markers on how the state evolved. And if we’re going to look at transportation as changing, railroads, you know, yeah, we’re there, but that was last century. The newest thing, like the internet today, would be one of those turning points. Highway transportation would change the nature of the quality of life in Oklahoma, economic development, where people could start a business, how farmers could get their products to market more easily, how we could move men and material during war. World War II, was fought differently because we had a good interstate highway system. And so Route 66 is the best example that simplifies a very complex story. And so that's the reason I think the state and everyone has agreed, you know, the lieutenant governor's led a charge to really commemorate and celebrate. The legislature funded the commission that’s giving grants around the state to develop infrastructure to tell this story. So whereas we opened the Route 66 Museum in 1995 to tell this story, because we understood it would be a way to understand transportation in general, you know, now we’re going to have multiple sites. You know, someone can spend a day or two in Tulsa alone and see the impact of Route 66. So Tulsa’s leading the way. Their mayor at the time, Ken, and a lot of people in town, were very involved with getting city government to invest. And so in fact, Ken, before we end this, why don’t you talk a little bit of what you have done in Tulsa that really started the ball rolling that everyone is trying to catch up with?
Busby: Sure. Well, one of the best thing that probably happened was our former mayor, Dewey Bartlett, when we established the Tulsa Route 66 Commission, because we really didn’t have anyone focused on on our 28 miles and our two alignments of Route 66. And it's just sort of there. And at that point, the chamber is not doing much with it either. It’s just sort of there. And so we work with Dewey Bartlett, and he establishes the commission. I got to be the founding chair of that commission. And so within a couple of years of getting that started, we did the the neon sign grant, a matching grant, up to $10,000, matching to another $10,000 to allow people to either restore or build new signs. And so all of a sudden, not all of a sudden, over the last six years, we've added 84 neon signs, either new or refurbished, all along 11th Street and Admiral, our two alignments of Route 66. And that kind of investment has really paid dividends because so people start sprucing up, and people start looking at their businesses and their properties because we got more traffic coming to see what’s happening on the road. So a couple years, about three years ago now, we added a façade grant program. Now those were slower to get started. We’ve only done two now, and we’re getting ready to do our third one. But again, helping businesses that are on the road that are historic, and they want to preserve those assets, to give them funding to help spruce up or add a sidewalk where they need one, or fix an awning that’s gone or whatever. And so Tulsa, and during this time too, the Chamber of Commerce and Visit Tulsa has really come on full bore to understand the power of Route 66 from a tourism angle, from economic development. It generates sales tax, hotel, motel taxes, people are traveling and expanding and spending time in our city, and the entrepreneurism of the city with people like Mary Beth Babcock and William Franklin who invest in businesses and come up with clever ways to engage, not only locals, but also visitors to our community. And it’s all working for Tulsa. So we just, we just sort of are leaning into it with everything we’ve got, and it’s really paying dividends now as we hit the centennial. But, you know, you the lieutenant governor earlier. The other thing that Michael and lieutenant governor and I are all talking about is we're launching with this centennial, we’re launching the next hundred years. I mean, Trait talks about this too as he's giving presentations, because he’s heavily involved in the federal commission and the and the state centennial commission. And it’s like, we know we’ve got something special here. Oklahoma’s special, and so we just want to say, but it’s not over, folks. We turned 100. But it’s going to be amazing in ’27, ’28, ’29. We’re laying the groundwork for the next hundred years.
Wallis: It’s because Route 66, this is what I often say. You have to remember, it’s a road of the future. It’s an unfinished road. It never, it’s a work in progress, and it continues to evolve.
Thompson: Michael, I would love to know, as we’re starting to wrap up here, what would the sheriff say to people who speed down Route 66?
(laughter)
Wallis: (In a deep, gravely voice) Not in my state, you don’t! (laughter) You’re working your way to the impound yard, pilgrim.
Thompson: That’s fantastic. I’m sorry, I couldn’t, I couldn’t let this go without getting a little bit of the sheriff from Cars.
Blackburn: And, Michael, your book is still in print. Let’s tell our listeners the title again so they can go out and get the book that started a lot of this awareness of the importance of Route 66
Wallis: Yeah, I appreciate that. My book was first published, the book we’re talking about, it was my second book. It was published in 1990, Route 66: the Mother Road. Some years later, we came out with the 75th anniversary edition. And now, in the merry month of May, my 100th-anniversary edition of the book will be out. So I’ll have a busy summer. Well, and as Jimmy Buffett said, “That mailbox money comes in handy.”
Busby: That’s true.
Wallis: It does indeed.
Thompson: Well, gentlemen, I just want to thank you so much for being a part of this. It’s been such a pleasure talking to you. I can’t imagine a better way to kick off our 2026 on this podcast than by having you two on with us.
Blackburn: Well, you two have been good public servants and preaching the gospel on history and investment and working together. The spirit of Route 66 is very much alive in what you two have been doing individually. We appreciate you.
Wallis: Well, and right back at you, too. We are so pleased that we’re able to spend this time with two genuine movers and shakers in Oklahoma.
Busby: And I’ll just close by also just quickly saying that, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats, and I think the four of us really get that and really approach everything we do as what’s good for me is good for you, and what’s good for us will be good for everyone else. And I think that mentality is what is is the backbone of Route 66.
Thompson: Well, Bob, we get to take our show on the road next month. We will be heading to Claremore for a live episode of A Very OK Podcast. I have been saving the topic of Will Rogers for five years, and we will be in Claremore on Thursday, February 12, at 6 p.m. at the Will Rogers Memorial Museum for a live recording of this podcast. And our guests will be Tad Jones, director of the museum, and Jennifer Rogers, Will Rogers’ great-granddaughter. And we want everybody to come visit us. There will be giveaways, there will be free food, and we want to have a big party. So everybody come out and see us in February for our live broadcast of A Very OK Podcast. Okay. With that, that’ll wrap us up for today, and we will see you all next time.
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You’ve been listening to A Very OK Podcast, hosted by Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn. The podcast is produced by the Oklahoma Historical Society. Visit us at okhistory.org and find us on social media by searching for @okhistory. I encourage you to purchase a membership to OHS to help us continue our mission to collect, preserve, and share Oklahoma’s unique and fascinating history.
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