<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=32Tn6q_1AvthfFm00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=32Tn6q_1AvthfFm00" width="1650" height="731" ></figure>After several hours of negotiations that stretched past midnight in May 1907, Kendall College (which would later become The University of Tulsa) trustees agreed to close their struggling campus in Muskogee and move the school to a hilltop location 2 miles east of downtown Tulsa. A committee of prominent Tulsans helped clinch the deal by promising to extend a streetcar line to the new campus, ensuring an easy commute to the city’s rapidly growing business district in the early years of the Oil Boom.Cornfields still flanked much of the road when streetcars began making regular stops at Kendall College in September 1909, but suburban development quickly sprang up alongside the rails in the Orcutt Addition and the Kendall-Whittier neighborhoods.By 1920, 11th Street was paved all the way from downtown to College Avenue to handle the traffic to campus and nearby housing developments. Tulsa County began incrementally extending the pavement several miles east to connect with what was called the Albert Pike Highway, an “auto trail” that connected eastern Oklahoma to Arkansas. A few years later, when Cyrus Avery and other federal highway commissioners began mapping a route for the first-ever cross-country highway, they wanted to save money by using existing infrastructure as much as possible. Route 66 was always meant to come through Tulsa, thanks partly to Avery’s local roots but also to take advantage of the existing 11th Street bridge across the Arkansas River. Of course, 11th Street would have made the most direct route through Tulsa to reach the bridge when the highway opened in 1926, but paving had hit a snag. A few miles east of town, 11th veered north to cross Mingo Creek at a narrower spot, creating an awkward bend in the road that resulted in a 3.5-mile gap in the pavement.Because of this unpaved stretch of 11th Street, the original Route 66 swung north to come through Tulsa on Admiral Place, which was originally known as Federal Drive and was already under the U.S. government’s jurisdiction. But Route 66 shifted to 11th Street in 1932 after Tulsa built a longer bridge to allow the pavement to stretch straight across Mingo Creek. The highway’s more direct path through the city, however, robbed traffic from downtown shops and restaurants, prompting Tulsa to create a business loop in 1934. Route 66 turned north on Maybelle Avenue — a street that was later obliterated by the Inner Dispersal Loop — then west on Fourth Street before heading down Cheyenne Avenue to rejoin 11th Street.In 1959, Route 66 moved to the newly opened Skelly Bypass, which later became Interstate 44, but the 11th Street alignment remained a major thoroughfare as “Business 66.” Federal officials, however, removed the business loop designation from most of 11th Street in 1973, after the Inner Dispersal Loop disrupted the highway’s path through downtown. All of Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985, by which time the vast majority of cross-country traffic had long since moved to the interstate system. Today’s historic Route 66 goes past Skelly Field, the Reynolds Center and other University of Tulsa landmarks. But tourists tend to gather farther west at stops like Mother Road Market, Buck Atom’s and the Meadow Gold Sign, perhaps unaware of the role the campus played in deciding the iconic highway’s path.</div></body>

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After several hours of negotiations that stretched past midnight in May 1907, Kendall College (which would later become The University of Tulsa) trustees agreed to close their struggling campus in Muskogee and move the school to a hilltop location 2 miles east of downtown Tulsa. A committee of prominent Tulsans...

The route of Route 66

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After several hours of negotiations that stretched past midnight in May 1907, Kendall College (which would later become The University of Tulsa) trustees a

The route of Route 66

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