Take a ride through the heart of Tulsa as we follow a 20-mile stretch of Historic Route 66—a corridor where neon memories, mid-century diners, and the enduring pulse of the Mother Road still echo across Oklahoma’s second-largest city. From Catoosa’s edge to the quiet outskirts of Oakhurst, this journey reveals both the vitality of Tulsa and the resilient charm of America’s most famous highway.
We begin our drive at the eastern gateway to Tulsa, near the intersection of Admiral Place and South 193rd East Avenue. Though technically within Catoosa city limits, locals treat this stretch as Tulsa’s own. Heading south for about a mile, Route 66 veers right onto 11th Street, a transition that marks our official entry into Tulsa proper. From here, the surroundings start to shift—rural outskirts give way to a grid of aging storefronts, motels, and service stations that once welcomed legions of travelers in the heyday of cross-country road trips.
As we continue west along 11th Street, we reach the interchange with Interstate 44 and Oklahoma Highway 66, where Route 66 briefly flirts with the modern freeway system before asserting its own identity once more. The road expands into a four-lane arterial, carrying us past US-169 and deeper into east Tulsa. The character of the road here is unmistakably urban—block after block of locally owned shops, auto repair garages, vintage signs, and wide sidewalks hint at decades of commercial bustle. On the left, the red brick spires and sweeping lawns of the University of Tulsa rise, anchoring this part of the route with academic grandeur and green space.
The road pushes forward through the historic Renaissance and Terrace Drive neighborhoods, where rows of bungalows and Tudor-style homes line the cross streets in tidy order. At the junction with US-75, Route 66 dips into downtown via a modern roundabout—a new addition that brings a bit of European flair to Tulsa’s storied past. Here, 11th Street merges briefly into 10th Street, guiding us beneath glass towers and old brick facades through the heart of downtown. The route turns again just before US-64, where it resumes its westward path along 11th Street—but only for a moment. Once we clear the overpass, we find ourselves on 12th Street, hugging the southern edge of downtown’s industrial fringe.
That shift leads us into one of Route 66’s more visually distinct sections: Southwest Boulevard. Bearing left, we cross the Arkansas River, a crossing as symbolic as it is scenic. With Interstate 44 nearby, Southwest Blvd runs almost parallel to the highway but feels a world apart—more grounded, more local. The surroundings here are a mix of light industry and working-class businesses, each with its own Route 66 flair. The overpass at 41st Street marks another brush with I-44, but Route 66 remains faithful to its surface roots.
Our path then meanders through the Red Fork and Park Grove areas, neighborhoods steeped in oil boom history and blue-collar pride. The Red Fork Depot isn’t far from here, a reminder of the railroad and petroleum ties that fueled Tulsa’s growth. Under the Gillcrease Expressway, the landscape softens a bit as we approach Oakhurst, a quiet suburb with scattered signs of Route 66 nostalgia. We end our drive turning left onto 49th Street, right where the historic trail begins to taper off into more rural surroundings—a fitting pause at the edge of the city.
This drive through Tulsa’s stretch of Historic Route 66 is more than just a ride through urban Oklahoma. It’s a living museum of asphalt and ambition—where each block tells a different part of America’s 20th-century story, and the pulse of the past still reverberates through neon signs and concrete.
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