Oklahoma Paved a Highway Half as Wide as a Highway in 1922, Then Made It Route 66. One Mile Survives

There is a road in the northeast corner of Oklahoma that is nine feet wide. Not nine feet a lane. Nine feet, curb to curb, for traffic in both directions, with a low concrete curb along each edge. For eleven years it was United States Highway 66, the main road from Chicago to Los Angeles, and every car that met another car on it had to put two wheels in the dirt to get past. It was built in 1922, it was fifteen and a half miles long, it turned six right angles on the way, and about six miles of it are still there, in two pieces. This summer, the county that owns it finished spending five million dollars to keep one mile of it exactly as it was. This is not a story about Route 66. It is a story about a state with half the money a road costs, and the oldest trick in public works: build all of it, badly, instead of half of it, properly. IF YOU ARE GOING UP THERE As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. DeLorme Oklahoma Atlas & Gazetteer: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1946494860?tag=oldalignment-20 WHERE IT IS The Miami section runs along E 140 Road, southwest of Miami, Oklahoma, between US 69 and the granite marker at its west end (36.830015, -94.891055). The first two miles were rebuilt in 2026; the untouched mile is the one with the concrete curbs showing. The Afton section runs between Narcissa and Afton, with the 2010 marker on the curve. It is a working county road with farms on it, so drive it slowly and pull well off to stop. The whole original 1922 alignment, all fifteen and a half miles, can still be driven between Miami and Afton. PRONUNCIATIONS Miami, Oklahoma: locals say my-AM-uh, not like the one in Florida. Narcissa: nar-SIS-uh. A NOTE ON THE IMAGES The research and the script are mine, from primary records and archives, and the sources are listed below. Where no photograph of a place survives, and for this channel that is often, the images are period material from elsewhere rather than the place itself. SOURCES Historical marker, Historic Route 66 Ribbon Road, Sidewalk Highway, west end of the Miami section, 2012 Historical marker, Sidewalk Highway, Oklahoma Route 66 Association, near Afton, 2010 Oklahoma Route 66 Association, "Historic Stretch of Route 66 Endangered", 2024, and the Save the Ribbon Road petition Route 66 News, "County decides to grind up Sidewalk Highway asphalt despite pleas from preservationists", July 2024 Tulsa World, "Pushback on Ribbon Road replacement plan saves 1-mile stretch of former Route 66", August 2024 KJRH Tulsa, on the Ottawa County repaving decision, July 2024 KOAM, on the Ribbon Road restoration compromise, 2024 KSNF/KODE Four States, "Historic Route 66 stretch preserved for future generations", July 2026 405 Magazine, "Route 66's Ribbon Road", on the 1922 opening and the state highway department records Atlas Obscura, Route 66 Sidewalk Highway Route 66 Times and theroute-66.com, on the construction and the surviving sections National Register of Historic Places, Ribbon Road IF YOU WERE THERE If you have driven the Ribbon Road, your family farmed along it, or you were on the county crew that rebuilt it this year, I want to hear it. And if anybody has a photograph of two cars meeting on it in the 1920s, with their outside wheels in the dirt, I would very much like to know it still exists. Comment or write to [email protected]. Old Alignment. Abandoned American roads, railroads and infrastructure. New video every other day. #route66 #oklahomahistory #ribbonroad