'Murica
by Jenny Revitz Soper
Title
'Murica
Artist
Jenny Revitz Soper
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Erick, Oklahoma is smack dab in the middle of Tornado Alley and the westernmost town before reaching the Texas panhandle. Steinbeck's prize-winning book The Grapes of Wrath made the area infamous, focusing on a family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by the Dust Bowl, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures. Along with thousands of other "Okies" driven by hopelessness, they sought jobs, land, dignity and a future in California. In 1930s California, the term Okie (often used in contempt) came to refer to very poor migrants from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, or Missouri.
For those who stayed in Erick, the book was not well received. Even so, 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." The four lanes of Route 66 from Sayre, Oklahoma to Erick were the last Oklahoma section Route 66 to be bypassed by Interstate 40, in 1975. Many of the original Route 66 business are now gone or have been converted to other uses. But not all!
This patriotic mural was painted on the brick wall of a closed downtown business and is in need of some tending to. January 2017
Uploaded
February 26th, 2017
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