Editing Erick, Oklahoma (section)

==History==
Erick was established in 1901 as an agricultural community on what would become the edge of the [[Dust Bowl]] during the [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s.<ref name="nps-westwinds">{{cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/route66/west_winds_motel_erick.html |title=West Winds Motel-Route 66: A Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary |publisher=US [[National Park Service]] |access-date=2012-12-27}}</ref> It was located on the [[National Old Trails Road]], one of the predecessors to the 1926 numbered [[US Highway]] system. Large segments of that road became part of [[U.S. Route 66]].<ref name="66encyc">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6--OtYFBZCIC&pg=PA99 |title=The Route 66 Encyclopedia |author=Jim Hinckley |page=99 |date= 2012-11-11|publisher=Voyageur Press |access-date=2012-12-27|isbn=9780760340417}}</ref>

At statehood in 1907, the population was reported as 686. In June 1908, Erick competed with Sayre for becoming the county seat, and only lost by a small margin in the election.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=SA027 |title=Sayre, Oklahoma|publisher=Oklahoma Historical Society|access-date =July 11, 2020}}</ref>  By 1909, Erick had become a busy community. In that year, it could boast of having 13 general stores, 2 hardware stores, multiple cotton gins and blacksmiths, a livery, a harness shop, a lumber store, five meat markets, several grocery stores, a bakery, and a confectionary, two banks and two weekly newspapers (the ''Beckham County Democrat'' and the ''Erick Altruist''. Baptists, Christian, Methodists and Presbyterians had organized churches. By the 1910 U.S. census, population had grown to 915, increasing to 971 in the 1920 census, and reaching a peak population of 2,231 in 1930 due to a brief oil boom. The city economy was bolstered by six cotton gins, a high-density cotton compress, and an ice plant. But in 1940 the census reported 1,591 residents.<ref name="EOHC-Erick"/>

The city prospered briefly in the era between WWI and WWII, when natural gas deposits were found in the area.<ref name="66encyc"/> On July 14, 1930, the ''Frederick (Maryland) Post'' published, "Reports received [[Shamrock, Texas|here]] by Sheriff W.K. McLemore, Wheeler County, said negroes were driven out of Erick Oklahoma last night and from [[Texola, Oklahoma]] today by a mob seeking reprisal for the death of Mrs. Harry Vaughn, wife of a farmer in a nearby county in Texas, who was beaten to death Friday by a Negro."<ref>{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=RuTUBAAAQBAJ&q=Sheriff+W.K+McLemore%2C+Wheeler+County&pg=PA100 |title=The Illustrated Route 66 Historical Atlas, p.100|isbn=9780760345436|access-date=July 11, 2020|last1=Hinckley|first1=Jim|date=21 October 2014|publisher=Voyageur Press }}</ref>  In a separate incident in 1933, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow (better known as [[Bonnie and Clyde]]) kidnapped law enforcement officers from the [[Wellington, Texas]] area, drove them to a point near Erick, and left them tied to a tree with barbed wire cut from a fence. The officers freed themselves, but the trail of the criminals had gone cold.<ref>''The New York Times'', June 12, 1933, either page 1 or 4, depending on edition</ref><ref>''Great Plains'', by Ian Frazier, Penguin Books, 1989, p. 244</ref>

Steinbeck's [[The Grapes of Wrath|Grapes of Wrath]], published in 1939, was poorly received locally. According to Erick city clerk Nyla Tennery,  "I can remember plainly when the book came out my parents and other people who stayed here were just real upset. That book gave all Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma people a shiftless, bad name, like that was the only kind of people who were here."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/route6600susa |url-access=registration |title=Route 66: The Highway and Its People |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |author1=Quinta Scott |author2=Susan Croce Kelly |page=[https://archive.org/details/route6600susa/page/111 111] |date= 1990-08-01|access-date=2012-12-27|isbn=9780806122915}}</ref>

===U.S. Route 66===
Early [[motel|motor courts]] began to appear by 1940, with the DeLuxe Courts being the first local Route 66 lodging to appear in the ''AAA Directory of Motor Courts and Cottages''. While civilian motorcar travel was greatly curtailed due to wartime rationing, by 1946 guidebooks listed the Erick Court and trailer park, the Elms Garage, cafés and filling stations.

Erick prospered in the post-war heyday of Route 66, with various roadside businesses catering to motorists. Guidebooks promoted the tiny city as "the first town you encounter, going west, which has a true 'western' look with its wide, sun-baked streets, frequent horsemen, occasional sidewalk awnings and similar touches."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wfGPEX0PA3wC&pg=PA315 |title=Preserving Western History |page=315 |access-date=2012-12-27|isbn=9780826333100|last1=Gulliford|first1=Andrew|date=2005-08-01|publisher=UNM Press }}</ref>

The four lanes of Route 66 from [[Sayre, Oklahoma]] to Erick were the last Oklahoma section of US 66 to be bypassed by I-40, in 1975.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CKPB9V-QK_kC&pg=PA8 |title=Route 66 in Oklahoma |author1=Jon Sonderman |author2=Jim Ross |page=8 |date= 2011-12-05|publisher=Arcadia |access-date=2012-12-27|isbn=9780738590516}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fOOEXzXkZNMC&pg=PA67 |title=The Complete Route 66 Lost & Found |author=Russell A. Olsen |page=67 |date=2008-09-24 |publisher=Voyageur Press |access-date=2012-12-27|isbn=9780760334928}}</ref>

Many of the original Route 66 business are now gone or have been converted to other uses.

World War II navy veteran Cal Rogers opened Cal's Country Cooking on US 66 in May 1946, relocating to a new log cabin restaurant on an Interstate 40 exit in October 1979 after the Interstate bypassed traffic away from the old road.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3mPr1WEUw6gC&pg=PA230 |title=The Route 66 Cookbook: Comfort Food from the Mother Road; 1926-2001 |author1=Marian Clark |author2=Michael Wallis |page=230 |date= 2003-03-01|publisher=Council Oak Books |access-date=2012-12-27|isbn=9781571781284}}</ref> The family sold the business and antiques in a 1999 auction; the building is now a steak house.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://amarillo.com/stories/072099/new_eatery.shtml |title=Landmark eatery Cal's goes to auction block |newspaper= Amarillo Globe-News |date=1999-07-20 |access-date=2012-12-27}}</ref>

The West Winds Motel, originally built with individual carport garages and promoted in its heyday with neon signage of bucking broncos, still stands but is no longer open to visitors<ref name="nps-westwinds"/> despite attempts to restore the property.<ref>{{cite news|last=Juozapavicius |first=Justin |url=http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/travel/hotels/2007-05-19-route66_N.htm |title=Route 66 motels endangered |newspaper=[[USA Today]] |date=2007-05-21 |access-date=2012-12-27}}</ref>

Efforts to put "Historic Route 66" back onto maps as a tourist attraction date to the late 1980s, with the first [[Route 66 Association]] established three years after the last section of original highway (in [[Williams, Arizona]]) was bypassed by [[Interstate highway]] in 1984. Various local businesses and attractions cater to seasonal tourists attempting to find what remains of the old road.

The former City Meat Market building is now the Sandhills Curiosity Shop, one of the many Route 66 stops on [[Pixar]]'s research trips for 2006 animated film ''[[Cars (film)|Cars]]''. Its owners Harley and Annabelle Russell, who bill themselves as the "Mediocre Music Makers", served as model for the country hillbilly accent used by [[Larry the Cable Guy]]'s character [[Mater (Cars)|Mater]] in the film.<ref name="HarleyRussell">[http://blog.disneystore.com/blog/2012/04/get-your-kicks-on-route-66-and-some-cars-history.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120418131358/http://blog.disneystore.com/blog/2012/04/get-your-kicks-on-route-66-and-some-cars-history.html|date=April 18, 2012}} [http://edgeoftheroad.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/04/mediocre-music-makers-erick-ok.html]</ref>

The 3000 square foot [[Roger Miller Museum]] was a museum opened at the corner of US 66 (Roger Miller Boulevard) and Oklahoma 30 (Sheb Wooley Avenue) in 2004 <ref>{{cite news|author=Chet Flippo |url=http://www.cmt.com/news/nashville-skyline/1488141/nashville-skyline-roger-miller-gets-a-museum.jhtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607002301/http://www.cmt.com/news/nashville-skyline/1488141/nashville-skyline-roger-miller-gets-a-museum.jhtml |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 7, 2011 |title=Roger Miller Gets a Museum |publisher=CMT |date=2004-06-03 |access-date=2012-12-27}}</ref> in a former 1929 café <ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_aVEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5397,1411986 |title=Western Oklahoma sees increase in tourism |agency=[[Associated Press]] |newspaper=Durant Daily Democrat |date=July 21, 2003 |page=12 |access-date=2012-12-27}}</ref> and drugstore building.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dg0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA50 |title=National Parks |page=50 |access-date=2012-12-27|year=2004 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=laBZYAZxwJsC&pg=PA25 |title=Oklahoma 3 |author1=David Fitzgerald |author2=Jane Jayroe |page=25 |date=2006-09-15 |publisher=Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co. |access-date=2012-12-27|isbn=9781558689855}}</ref> It closed permanently on December 23, 2017. The space is now home to the 100th Meridian Museum.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DIhBsUfgIjoC&pg=PA73 |title=Ghost Towns of Route 66 |author1=Jim Hinckley |author2=Kerrick James |page=73 |date= 2011-06-06|publisher=Voyageur Press |access-date=2012-12-27|isbn=9780760338438}}</ref>

===Country musicians===
Erick was home to two of [[country music]]'s more idiosyncratic performers. [[Sheb Wooley]], the actor, songwriter, and singer who recorded the saga of the "one-eyed one-horned flying [[Purple People Eater|purple people eater]]" was born there in 1921. [[Roger Miller]], country superstar and author of "[[King of the Road (song)|King of the Road]]," "[[Dang Me]]," "[[You Can't Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd]]," and many others, was born in [[Fort Worth, Texas]], but grew up in Erick from the age of three. When asked by an interviewer where Erick was near, Miller wryly replied, "It's close to extinction."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rogermiller.com/memorybook_erick.html|title=Roger Miller - Memory Book}}</ref> Herbert Mayfield, one of the Mayfield Brothers of [[West Texas]], was born in Erick but moved to [[Dimmitt, Texas|Dimmitt]], [[Texas]], when he was ten years of age.