The Edmond Sun

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July 1, 2007

Filling station reminds owners of Route 66 glory days

James Coburn

EDMOND — A nostalgic thread of Americana crosses Oklahoma as State Highway 66. The old Mother Road is an avenue for which stories are told from Chicago to California.

Remnants of an old red rock filling station stand in front of dense, green oak on the north side of Route 66, east of Hiawassee Road, on Sam and Martha Gillaspy’s Rock of Ages Farm.

The former two-pump Conoco was built in 1926 after Route 66 was constructed through Arcadia, Sam Gillaspy said. Oil was dispensed from a 50-gallon drum before it closed during the mid-1940s.

“The people that went to California — no telling how many of them stopped at this station,” Sam said of people migrating during the Great Depression.

He purchased the property 47 years ago. Now it’s empty red-rock shell is a reminder of a bygone time. Its tin roof was removed a few years ago as a safety precaution. Decades of graffiti etch the rock. Visitors are welcome there although the native-stone fire place mantle was stolen in recent years.

“This is one thing that bothers me; people have taken things away,” said Martha, 79.

When repairing the chipped wall, Sam placed a rock there that nature shaped like Oklahoma. “I try to keep it just as neat and nice as I can,” said Sam, 80.

“Everytime we come by here there’s people that have stopped — sometimes two or three cars,” said Sam, wearing a cowboy hat.

Unsolved mystery looms there where the body of a murdered man was found during the ’40s. Also, law enforcement broke up a counterfeit money ring a few years later. Counterfeit money was passed through a small window with curtains to a hidden room attached to the back of the building.

The station closed. Now, petunias grace the front window.

Three years ago, the Gillaspys hesitated about repairing an old rock post damaged by a car that slid off the highway during an ice storm. But an insurance adjuster insisted it be fixed.

“If she felt that strongly about it, then it means something to people passing by. They know where they are,” silver-haired Martha said amid the swish of traffic on wet asphalt. “And I think that’s true of the old (Arcadia Red Barn) up there. ...We hate to give up familiar things.”



jcoburn@edmondsun.com | 341-2121, ext. 114

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