Oklahoma Historical Society

With the start of World War II and then the United States’ subsequent entry into the war in 1941, the nation shifted from the ordeal of the Great Depression to the war effort. As a result, there was an immediate transition to a manufacturing economy oriented completely on the war effort. The Oklahoma City metropolitan area became one of the nation’s primary military training and manufacturing centers when the federal government decided to construct the Midwest Air Depot military installation (known today as Tinker Air Force Base) a short distance east of downtown Oklahoma City.

This ushered in a new wave of construction all around the metropolitan area, including the 2,500-resident planned community adjacent to the Midwest Air Depot that would become known as Midwest City, as well as initiatives to upgrade highways and other roadways necessary for the network of defense highways. According to Historian Roy Stewart, “One hundred and twenty-three manufacturers and wholesalers in the city, including sub-contractors, received what was called National Defense contracts” in 1941 alone.

Despite the upswing in manufacturing and the economy due to the war effort during the early 1940s, manufacturing of automobiles for personal use all but ceased, and gas rationing prevented Americans from being able to regularly travel. Some of the mom-and-pop businesses were also forced to close during the war due to military drafts or the loss of business. However, business owners who were forced to close due to loss of business did not have to look far to find jobs if they were not called into the military.

With the military build-up in the early part of the decade and the post-World War II surge of population into the city, Oklahoma City area’s population increased from 204,424 residents in 1940 to 243,504 by 1950. Riding the wave of the burgeoning economies established by the oil industry in the late 1920s and the manufacturing and military-based economies established in the early 1940s, Oklahoma City experienced growing pains by the mid- to late-1940s due to the increased traffic in the area. In 1947, the Beltline route of Route 66 was extended west along Britton Road from N. Western Avenue to N. May Avenue, where it then turned south until it met the original alignment again at N.W. 39th Street. Planning began around the same time for a new four-lane highway between Oklahoma City and Tulsa to help alleviate the high traffic volumes on Route 66. The planning also included another new bypass alternative for Route 66 within Oklahoma City, which ultimately replaced the Beltline route along Britton Road.

At the time the Beltline was extended, there was some existing residential development at the western edge of Britton (between N. Western Avenue and approximately Waverly Avenue); however, the land west of Britton in what would soon become the city of The Village was still largely undeveloped.

The Village’s first addition was developed beginning in 1949. Several more additions soon followed, and the town of The Village was incorporated in 1950. Just nine years later, it was incorporated as a city in 1959. The Beltline extension provided new residents and business owners of the burgeoning community an upgraded transportation route to easily travel to and from Oklahoma City and other communities in the area. Since the early 1950s, the Beltline extension corridor has been densely developed with residential and commercial properties.

In the post-World War II years, Oklahoma City was rapidly expanding to the northwest. In the decade between 1950 and 1960, the city’s population increased by 33% from 243,504 to 324,253 residents. Neighborhood after neighborhood was constructed at a break-neck speed. While a strip of land near the former Bell Isle Lake (area east of Penn Square Mall where present-day Belle Isle Station is located) was still undeveloped, there were intense development pressures in the area and on Classen Boulevard north of N.W. 50th Street. City transportation engineers collaborated with the State Highway Department’s engineers to design a bypass route for Route 66 that would traverse the city from the northeast corner where it would connect with the new, four-lane highway from Tulsa under development and extend diagonally across the north/northwest side of the city to connect with N.W. 39th Street.

The new bypass route would pass through the areas under intense development pressures, but the City was able to stave off those intense development pressures threatening to gobble up available land long enough for the State Highway Department to get federal approval for the bypass alignment plan and to begin purchasing right-of-way. The new bypass route was designed by the Treat Engineering Company of Oklahoma City, and was estimated to cost $3 million. The Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce was involved in the right-of-way acquisition process, as well.

The new route partially followed Grand Boulevard, which was established in the early twentieth century as an outer loop around the city to connect a series of parks, as previously discussed, and partially followed State Highway 3. The new highway between Oklahoma City and Tulsa called the Turner Turnpike was completed in 1953, and the new Route 66 Bypass was completed in 1954.

A few years later, Turner Turnpike and the new Route 66 Bypass were co-designated I-44. For a short time, the new Route 66 Bypass also followed Northwest Expressway west from N. Western Avenue to May Avenue before turning south to N.W. 39th Street. In 1955, the Northwest Expressway and N. May Avenue segment was eliminated when a new connection between the new Route 66 Bypass near Pennsylvania Avenue and State Highway 74 was constructed. When construction of the new Route 66 Bypass route was completed, the original alignments on Lincoln Boulevard and N.W. 23rd Street, and the third realignment on N. May Avenue were re-designated as the Route 66 Business route.

The State Highway Department also undertook an initiative to plant trees along the new Route 66 bypass as part of the new highway beautification program.

Not long after the new Route 66 Bypass was constructed, Lincoln Boulevard south of the Route 66 Bypass/I-44 was widened and a new interchange at the Route 66 Bypass/I-44 and Lincoln Boulevard intersection was constructed. This resulted in a slight realignment of Lincoln Boulevard just south of the interchange, leaving a short, remnant segment of the original Route 66 alignment intact. Now known as Beverly Drive, the remnant segment of the original Route 66 alignment is located between N.E. 50th Street and Central Park Drive. After Lincoln Boulevard was widened, the corridor between the Route 66 Bypass and the State Capitol began transitioning from its early twentieth century landscape of oil wells, restaurants, and gas stations to one of office and professional services buildings constructed in the Modern and post-Modern architectural styles.

New hotels and motels also began replacing the tourist courts. One more revision to the Route 66 Bypass alignment happened in the mid-1970s when Classen Circle, which was located at the intersection of Classen Boulevard and Route 66 Bypass was reconstructed and the roundabout which gave the street its name was removed.

*This content is excerpted word for word from the Route 66 in Oklahoma City Historic Context Project Report (2020), prepared by Blanton and Associates for the City of Oklahoma City. The complete report is available online here: https://www.okhistory.org/shpo/docs/okcrt66.pdf. This report has been financed in part with federal funds from the U.S. Department of the Interior National Park Service (NPS). The contents and opinions do not necessarily reflect the reviews or policies of NPS, nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation by NPS.