The first—or last, depending on your direction—sizeable town east of the Texas border, Elk City (pop. 10,510, “Home of Suzanne Powell, Miss America 1981”) was a popular stopover on Route 66, as evidenced by the many old motels along the various alignments of the old highway through town.
Long before Elk City had its Route 66 heyday, it was a wild frontier town along the cattle trails from Texas to Dodge City, Kansas. The area’s cowboy and pioneer history is recounted in the Old Town Museum (daily; $5; 580/225-6266), on the far west side of town, where there’s a re-created Wild West town, complete with doctor’s office, schoolhouse, “Indian TeePee,” and rodeo museum. A newer addition to Old Town Museum is the official National Route 66 Museum, which has an old pickup truck decorated to look like the one from Grapes of Wrath, and lots of other old road–related memorabilia.
During the 1940s oil was discovered underground, and the town experienced another short boom; this aspect of Elk City’s past is the focus of the small Anadarko Basin Museum (by appointment; 580/243-0437), housed in the lobby of the old Casa Grande Hotel at 107 E. 3rd Street. The most impressive object here is towering Rig 114, a record-breaking, 180-foot-tall drilling rig, installed after its retirement in the park next to the museum.
