Elk City: Route 66, Museums and Historic Sites
Accommodation in Elk City
Elk City is located at the junction of Interstate 40 and State Highway 6, as well as along historic Route 66. This location gives the town a clear connection to transportation and links it to the history of the Mother Road. If you’re looking for hotels in Elk City, you can decide whether Route 66 history, regional museums or outdoor activities should shape your stay.
Route 66 and Transportation History
The National Route 66 & Transportation Museum in Elk City covers all eight states through which Route 66 runs. The National Route 66 Museum offers a virtual tour along the Mother Road. The subject therefore ranges from Route 66’s geographic reach to a virtual look along its route.
Elk City’s events calendar includes the annual Route 66 Festival. If you want to plan your trip around the festival, check the latest event dates in advance. This lets you plan your stay around the specific date.
Historic Sites and Collections
The Casa Grande Hotel and the Whited Grist Mill are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The historic Ackley Baseball Stadium is a distinctive red-rock landmark; the Works Progress Administration (WPA) built it in 1939. Together, these places offer different points of reference for Elk City’s history: listed buildings and a stadium with a specified construction year and material.
The Old Town Museum is housed in a two-story Victorian home and displays artifacts relating to early pioneer life. Here, the building and the collection’s subject go hand in hand. The Farm & Ranch Museum focuses on tools used in early rural life in western Oklahoma. These include tractors, barbed-wire collections and windmills; the examples make the collection’s regional focus tangible.
The Blacksmith Museum adds a crafts perspective. It explains how blacksmiths transformed iron and steel into useful objects by heating, hammering, bending and cutting them. Unlike the agricultural tools at the Farm & Ranch Museum, the focus here is on working the material. The processes described show the steps involved in making the objects.
Recreation and Dining
At Elk City Lake, an 18-hole disc golf course with DGA baskets winds through the lake’s natural terrain. The number of holes and the baskets provide more detail about the course; its route through the natural terrain is also part of its description. If you’d like to include an outdoor activity in your plans, disc golf is a distinct option alongside the museums and historic sites.
A park in Elk City covers 750 acres and includes a 250-acre lake that is regularly stocked with fish. The figures distinguish the size of the park from the size of the lake within it. Along with the disc golf course, this reveals another side of the destination, in addition to its history and collections.
66 ToGo is located on historic Route 66, two miles west of the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City. It serves hamburgers, barbecue pulled pork, fish and chips, and frozen custard. The menu and service may change, so check the current offerings before your visit.
Discover more destinations: Erick.
Back to the regional travel guide: Beckham County.
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