Route 66 & The Great Blue Whale

After leaving the world's largest totem pole, we found a Comfort Inn in Claremore on S. Lynn Riggs Blvd. for $80.99. Not a bad place - basic room, cheap carpet and furniture, cheap rough toilet paper, and not as clean as you would want it to be, but the wi-fi worked ok and the a/c got the room down to a nice sleeping temperature. It was late and we were tired so it was good enough. The pissy thing is I was charged an extra $1.50 because the room evidently had a safe in it. I didn't even know it did, but the extra $1.50 was for the "safe w/ltd Warranty." I've never seen that one before. I would have argued against the charge, but I had already paid and was in the truck before I noticed it on the receipt so I let it go. If it had been $2.00 though...

The famous Blue Whale on Route 66

It was just a short drive from Claremore through Verdigris to Catoosa and the famous Route 66 Blue Whale (N36 11 36.3 W095 43 58.4). There wasn't a big sign or even a little sign announcing "Here it is!" so you need to look for it, but it's big so if you are paying attention, it's hard to miss.

It began as a special gift for a special lady, but it became one of the most famous icons you will see on Route 66. This land-locked blue whale has greeted travelers since 1972 and offers a welcome break for road trippers and is a perfect place for taking some fun and unique family photos.

The Blue Whale is a concrete structure fashioned with a lot of hard work and creative imagination. In 1970, Hugh Davis began building a structure as an anniversary present to his wife, Zelta. He kept secret from her what it was going to be for several months. She knew it was something for the kids and that it was something big, but thought at first it was an airplane. A few weeks after he started building the actual structure, she caught on.

 Since he was a kid, Hugh had loved animals. As a young man, he traveled through Africa with wildlife experts Martin and Osa Johnson. After returning from Africa, Hugh traveled the lecture circuit giving presentations about wild animals. Zelta shared his passion for animals and accompanied him on the circuit, wrapping snakes around her waist as he proclaimed the beauty of wild beasts. Later, he and Zelta settled down and Hugh made his living as Director of Tulsa's Mohawk Zoo. At his wife's urging, he built an alligator farm on their property which fronted Route 66 and it proved to be a moderate success. Hugh eventually left his position at the zoo, retiring after 38 years on the job, closed down the alligator farm and shaped the pond into a water park.

I'm not exactly a little guy, but there was still
plenty of room for me to walk and climb around.
It's bigger than you might think!

Their children kept saying they wanted something big to jump off of into the pond and Hugh knew Zelta had always liked whales and there’s nothing much bigger than a whale so 2 years after he started building it, Zelta got herself an 80-foot concrete and steel whale for an anniversary present and the kids got something big to play on and jump off of into the pond. It had cost Hugh all of $1,910.24, including the $5.75 worth of nails to tack down the wooden flooring inside the whale.

It took two years to build because he did almost all of the work by himself.  The only construction assistance he needed was the welding work required to form the whale’s steel under-structure because he didn’t have a welding machine or the skills for that part. He would bend the rods, tie them together, and position everything where he wanted it and then get his friend, expert welder Harold Thomas, to come by once a week and weld all the pieces together. They repeated this procedure until the entire under-structure was built. From then on it was concrete work done by hand, all 126 sacks of it.

On the property before the Whale was completed, there were three places to dive off into the swimming pond, but they were low and not much above water level. The swimming  pond started out rather small, but grew larger when road work on Route 66 took place between 1955 and 1959. The road crew took out a few of the sharp curves from the existing roadway and widened it into four-lanes. During that project they were in need of a lot of fill dirt so Hugh arranged for them to come in and take all the dirt they needed right out of the pond. Hugh and his family got a bigger pond, the road crew got their fill dirt and traveler’s got a safer, straighter road.

As Route 66’s traffic flow grew, people would see the kids and a few locals swimming out there and would stop and ask if they could swim there, too. When it first opened, the cost to get in was just 50 cents and soon, the little swimming pond took off in popularity. People came back home, sent postcards out and told everyone they knew about this great swimming place out there in Catoosa, Oklahoma.

The top of the tail where the braver kids used to
 dive off is pretty high. Look real close and you
can see Youngest-daughter sitting there.

When completed, the whale had three diving boards on it, two were at a little lower elevation from the big one that was positioned off the tail.Of course the depth of the pond fluctuated according to how wet or dry it was, but it averaged about 12 feet to the surface of the pond from the main diving board. The kids that jumped off it would often claim they had been all the way to the bottom, but to prove that fact, the other swimmers insisted they come up with a handful of mud. The center of the swimming pond had a deep trench where the earth scrapers had gone in and cut out all the fill dirt needed for the road work so it was  a good challenge to come up with a handful of mud from the 18 to 23 feet depths.

The Blue Whale pond was open for swimming until 1988. Hugh decided to close it down after interest waned. Not many people traveled on Route 66 anymore, folks were getting their own swimming pools in their backyards and kids just started going elsewhere. He had raised the price of entrance to $1.50, but with the cost of maintenance and insurance, it was beginning to lose revenue. Hugh and Zelta were getting elderly and it became harder and harder to keep it up so the time came to close it down.

The children grew up, left home and began their own lives. After Hugh and Zelta passed away, the Blue Whale began to deteriorate as neither of the kids had any interest in keeping up the  property. Eventually, several preservation groups repaired and repainted the whale. In 2002, the Hampton/Hilton Hotels Corp’s “Explore the Highway with Hampton, Save A Landmark” program chose the whale as their 12th project. They repainted the whale, erected a new fence around the grounds, repainted the old snack bar and installed a new septic system.

When Youngest-daughter and I visited, it was early in the morning and nobody was there. The gate was open though so we parked in the little gravel lot next to it and walked in. The picnic facilities were there and were in good shape. The whale itself was also in good shape and seemed to be well maintained. The pond will definitely need to be dredged out though before anyone could think of swimming in it. Part of it was crowded with Lilly pads and the water by the whale was thick with weeds. The piers were broken and falling into the water. We did see a few fish in the pond and spent a few minutes feeding them crumbled bits of crackers we had in the truck. The rest of our time was spent climbing in and around the whale, taking pictures, talking together, and just sitting next to each other, relaxing and listening very carefully in the silence for the splashing and laughter of days gone by.

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Route 66 – Sears House & The World’s Largest Totem Pole

The Sears catalog house in Chelsea, Oklahoma

From the old ruins of the Avon Motor Court, we raced the late afternoon sun through Vanita (where we did not stop at the world’s largest McDonald’s) to the town of Chelsea for a quick stop to see a Sears house. It’s not exactly what you would call an exciting stop, but it was  interesting to see a home purchased from Sears Roebuck. The house is still standing and serving as a private residence. Shipped by train from Chicago in 1913, it was assembled for $1,600. A home with perfect craftsmanship arriving in a box - some assembly required.


We passed through the site of Bushyhead without seeing it because there’s nothing much left of that ghost town except a funny name. Our next stop was in Foyil to see the memorial to a native Foyilan (just what do you call someone from the town of Foyil?). Andy Payne, a 19-year-old Cherokee became famous in 1928 and helped put the Mother Road in the minds of Americans by winning one hell of a foot race.

Soon after Route 66 was completed, Lon Scott, a promoter for the newly formed Route 66 Association, came up with the idea of a transcontinental footrace. Calling it the “Bunion Derby,” the race followed the new highway from the Pacific Ocean to Chicago and then on to New York City.

Running from California, across the desert of Arizona, the open lands in New Mexico, through the Panhandle of Texas and right through his own hometown; through sand storms, snow storms, rain and city traffic, Andy ran 3,423 miles into New York City and the finish line 84 days after the race began. He finished hours ahead of his nearest competitor to claim the $25,000 prize. Andy went home a hero with the American public comparing him to Charles Lindbergh and other famous icons. Will Rogers, a native of Oklahoma, said, “I kind of felt jealous when I read that someone had supplanted me as favorite son.” Andy came back to Foyil, used the prize money to pay off the mortgage on his parent’s farm and married Vivian, his former high school teacher who was one year older than him. He retired after 38 years serving as the Oklahoma Supreme Court clerk and passed away peacefully in 1977. 



A totem pole “gate” in front of the home
Nathan Galloway built by his own hand

In addition to the every-day average person quietly making their way through life mostly one day at a time, Route 66 seems to have attracted more than it’s fair share of “interesting characters” who have made their home along its roads. Nathan Edward Galloway was one of those interesting kind of people; one of those special people who brought a little magic into people’s lives. Our next stop was at his creation just a couple of miles down the road. He was born in Missouri in 1880 and fought in the Spanish-American war. After his release from military duty, he was making his way to California when he ran low on funds and took a temporary job in Foyil, Oklahoma. He stayed for 45 years.



Youngest-daughter and the
world’s tallest totem pole

He became the industrial arts teacher for the Charles Page Home for Widows and Orphans in Sand Springs and in his spare time, he crafted three-dimensional works for his own pleasure. He loved to sculpt, creating beautiful animals, intricate pictures of wood inlay, and became very proficient at hand-carving and making violins. He purchased some wooded land on an unpaved road just off Route 66 and when he wasn’t working or creating his art, he was building a country home of native rock on his property, walking the land to find the perfect stones and placing them just so. When it was finally completed in 1937, he retired from his teaching job of 20 years and moved into the home he had built with his own two hands.

For several years, Galloway had been thinking about a new creation, a very large totem pole, and now with the time to do it, he began construction at the front of his property next to the road. For the internal structure, he used surplus wire the railroad was going to throw away. He combined the wire with pieces of scrap metal he found in the town dump and salvage yards. When complete, the skeleton weighed 6 tons. Sandstone rock was then added and over that he hand-plastered a mortar mix that used 28 tons of cement. Using only a 5-gallon bucket, he hauled hundreds tons of rock and sand from a nearby creek. 

Very interesting piece of folk art

by Nathan Galloway

He sculpted a 30-foot diameter turtle at the base and began to work upwards, carving bas reliefs of head dressed Native American chiefs, mythical birds, owls, fish, flowers, and lizards. The carvings were then covered with brightly colored paint. Inside the structure, he painted murals depicting memorable events in history. When it was complete after 11 years of hard work, the totem pole stood 90 feet tall.

Not being one to just sit back and watch the grass grow, Galloway designed and started building a 12-sided structure that resembled an Indian hogan. Supported by 25 cement totem poles, this was to be his museum to display the 300 fiddles he had carved by hand, each of them in a different kind of wood. When it was finished, not only did it house the fiddles, it also a contained a large number of his hand-made furniture pieces along with beautiful bas-relief portraits of all the U.S. Presidents up to John F. Kennedy. Local residents began calling it “The Fiddle House."

The 12 foot tall cement tree

trunk Galloway built.

Galloway then added a 12-foot cement tree trunk, complete with holes for the birds to build nests in. Local’s and even a few travelers began stopping by to see the interesting structures and to have a picnic in the shade of the large hardwood trees so Galloway added brightly painted cement tables, stools, and benches. Soon, Totem Pole Park as people called it, became a destination in itself. Seeming to work almost non-stop, Galloway kept adding more structures; more totem poles, cement animals, a totem pole gate and a large arrowhead topped with a spinning weather vane.

He was designing another piece of art, but Galloway ran out of time before he ran out of ideas. In 1962, he passed away at age 82. As he was dying, he wrote his own epitaph: “All my life I did the best I knew. I built these things by the side of the road to be a friend to you.”

Sadly, after his death, with nobody to take care of it, Totem Pole Park fell into disrepair. Vandals, weather, the weeds and decay took their toll. Sometime in the early 1970′s, the Fiddle House was burglarized and all of the fiddles and works of art were stolen. They have never been recovered. It didn’t take long for people to forget about the decaying structures along this piece of side road as their brightly colored paint faded.

Totem Pole Park. The Fiddle House and
picnic area.

In the 1980′s, a slow resurgence of Route 66 began and travelers became curious about the structures they could see in the weeds. Finally, in the mid-1990′s, the Rogers County Historical Society, the Kansas Grass Roots Art Association and the Foyil Heritage Association banded together to rescue Totem Pole Park. On the brink of collapse, just in the nick of time, the Fiddle House and the other structures were restored, repainted, the weeds pulled and grass planted. Today, Totem Pole Park survives; a gift to roadside America, created single-handedly by Nathan Edward Galloway, a true Route 66 folk art genius.

The sun setting on a very good day.

As Youngest-daughter and I walked out of the park, I dropped $10 into the little voluntary donation box. The sun was below the horizon and it was time to call it a day. As we got into our truck, my navigator and traveling companion, this young lady who will always be my baby girl no matter how old she gets, paused to take a picture of the sunset. We headed to Claremore to find a motel for the night. It had been a good day; a very good day.


Go to the first Route 66 entry here.

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Route 66 - Oklahoma - Miami to Afton

Continuing west from Commerce, we came to Miami, the first town in Indian Territory which legally sold  land to the white man. By the way, you probably pronounced it wrong. It's not Miami, as in the city in Florida, it's pronounced "my-am-uh," the pronunciation of the Miami Indian tribe from whom it took its name.

The "Sidewalk Highway" outside
Miami, Oklahoma

Just south of Miami, we took an interesting section of the original Route 66 called "The Sidewalk Highway" or "Sidewalk 66."  Built in 1922, the roadway is only 9 feet wide. Originally just a dirt road between Miami and Afton, the road was in dire need of being paved because when it rained, it became an impassable mud pit. According to local legend, there was only enough money to pave it half way, but one of the local officials came up with an idea - if they only had enough money to pave it half way, then they could pave half of it all the way! Thinking half a paved road was better than no paved road, the citizens agreed.

Later, a different alignment of Route 66 was laid out and the Sidewalk Highway never was widened. Today it is fragile - cracked and broken in most spots and sparse graveled and dirt on the sides. It is still open to traffic, but it is not advisable to drive it if it is raining and larger vehicles should not attempt it as the road cannot handle the weight.

Afton Station in Afton, Oklahoma

We passed through the little town of Narcissa, the only town located on the Sidewalk Highway and came to the community of Afton. Established in 1886, the town was named by a Scottish railroad surveyor for his daughter who had been named after a river in Scotland which had been immortalized by Robert Burns in his poem Afton Water. Today, Afton's claim to fame is Afton Station, an old 1920's DX gas station on Route 66 which has been completely restored by David and Laurel Kane. It houses an informal Route 66 museum, the world's largest Route 66 post card collection and one of the best Packard automobile collections anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, it was closed when we came through so we had to be satisfied with just looking through the windows at all the interesting items inside.

The 1922 DX service station that is now
Afton Station.

Sign in Afton Station



Sign in front of Afton Station. I particularly love
the "Old-Fashioned Tourist Trap" wording
at the bottom.

The old Palmer Hotel and Café in Afton

Directly across the street from Afton Station is the remains of the Palmer Hotel and Cafe. Once the most prominent business in town (after the bank, of course), the original wooden building burned down and was replaced in 1911 by the now abandoned brick building you see today. Afton was a railroad town and the hotel mostly served the rail workers until Route 66 came in. Once the Mother Road came to town, the hotel did so much business that a restaurant was opened around 1940. The old timers tell that single male travelers and the rail workers could find female companionship in the rooms if they knew who to discreetly ask. Later, the railroad roundhouse and turn-table were taken out of service and demolished and the interstate highway took away the Route 66 traffic. The Palmer Hotel and Cafe and the building that held them has been abandoned and boarded up for years, serving now only as a reminder of what once was.

The old Avon Motor Courts

Leaving Afton, just a short distance outside of town, we came across the remains of the Avon Motor Court. This was one of The Mother Road's little surprises for us as we didn't have it on our itinerary and I didn't remember reading about it during my research before the trip. And I still haven't found much on it since then either. Very picturesque and interesting, I couldn't resist stopping and spending a good amount of time here. We had walked a lot that day and my poor, broken and bruised toe (here's the story) was barking at me, but I hobbled around taking pictures so long that Youngest-daughter finally gave up on me and waited in the truck.

Once providing welcome rest and shelter to
weary travelers, now there is no shelter, just
weeds and a little trash.

When we finally left the old Avon Motor Court to continue our journey west, the sun was getting low and we wanted to make it to 2 more places before stopping for the night. We would have to hurry if we made both before looking for a hotel in Claremore.

Go to the first Route 66 entry here.

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