Tuesday marked the final meeting of Tulsa's Route 66 Commission before the Mother Road's centennial year arrives, an anniversary the commission hopes will bring national attention and tourist traffic to the city.
"Now that it's here, it's like, all eyes are on Tulsa," said Ken Busby, a commissioner and the executive director of the non-profit Route 66 Alliance.
"We've had this great national exposure from National Geographic and so forth. People are looking at Oklahoma and so, for me, Route 66 is the great story to highlight our city and our state."
The commission has been playing up the planned festivities in Tulsa to mark 100 years of the historic road.
"It's not just for visitors coming in, it's for us," said Busby. "[If] we make it good for us and make it good for the locals, it'll be good for anyone who comes to visit us."
Tulsa will host a classic car parade in May, dubbed the “Route 66 Capital Cruise,” and a variety of live music performances on Veterans Day as part of the centennial celebrations.
"Five years in the making and we are here now," said Busby.
Centennial events are planned throughout the state. The road's anniversary falls in the same year as the U.S. semiquincentennial, or 250th anniversary of adopting the Declaration of Independence.
Mother Road will now sing, sort of
Tuesday also saw the announcement of a new feature added to Tulsa's stretch of Route 66: pavement that plays music.
The city announced the receipt of a $90,000 state grant to install a "musical road" on the Southwest Boulevard Bridge, which runs parallel to the historic Cyrus Avery Memorial Bridge spanning the Arkansas River.
Musical roads are stretches of grooves installed into asphalt that, when driven over at certain speeds, cause vehicles to rumble at frequencies that mimic melodies.
The gimmick has been tried in other states to mixed reception.
"Quirky's a great word for it," said Busby.
Commissioners on Tuesday said the exact song the road will ostensibly play has not been determined yet. Some song choices voiced by commissioners included Chuck Berry's "Route 66" and Danny Flowers' "Tulsa Time."
Tulsa's musical road will be the first constructed in Oklahoma.
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Editing by Krista Almanzan
