We Got Our Kicks Again On Route 66 5/29/2010

Off we went again, but this time west to Route 66 for some history and caching. Our first stop was on the way up to 66 at the Czech Hall and a virtual cache. In 1899, the members of Lodge Sokol Karel Havlicek and WFLA Lodge Jan Zizka No. 67 joined together and built a hall where Czech people could meet and socialize. In 1901, the Yukon Czech Hall was built on land donated by local Czech immigrants. The building is recognized as a State and National Historic Site.
Since its beginning, the Yukon Czech Hall has been the center of Czech-American culture in Oklahoma as well as serving as a social center and meeting place for non-Czech residents of the surrounding community. Over the years, Yukon Czech Hall has hosted lodge meetings, weddings, anniversary parties, family reunions, Czech plays, Czech language classes, and polka dances. For additional rental information please see our rental page and our Calendar page.
A polka dance has been held at Yukon Czech Hall every Saturday night since 1930, and this continues today! The dances are run by the voluntary efforts of the members of the two aforementioned lodges and are always open to the general public. The two polka bands in the area, Masopust Polka Band and the Bohemian Knights, play for the dances. Additionally polka bands traveling from other states will occasionally play for a dance when they are on tour.

Then it was on up to RT 66 and the small town of Yukon, OK. Yukon is officially known as the Czech Capitol of Oklahoma. The first stop we made was at the Chisholm Trail Watering Hole Historical marker. In its time, the Chisholm Trail was considered to be one of the wonders of the western world. Cattle herds as large as ten thousand were driven from Texas over the trail to Kansas. The trail acquired its name from trader Jesse Chisholm, a part-Cherokee who, just before the Civil War, built a trading post in what is now western Oklahoma City. Black Beaver, a Delaware Indian scout and friend of Chisholm, had led Union soldiers north into Kansas along part of the route after the federal government abandoned Indian Territory to the Confederates at the beginning of the Civil War.
During the Civil War, while many Texans were away fighting for the Confederacy, the cattle multiplied, so that by 1866 they were only worth four dollars a head in Texas. In the North and East, they could be worth forty dollars a head. In 1866 some herds traveled the Shawnee Trail in eastern Oklahoma, but the woods and the region's rough terrain discouraged trail driving.
In 1867 Joseph McCoy built stockyards on the Kansas-Pacific railroad in Abilene, Kansas. He sent men south to encourage Texas cattlemen to send herds to his stockyards. He also encouraged cattle buyers to come to Abilene, where cattle would be waiting. Drovers followed assorted minor trails through south and central Texas northward to the Red River crossing and then joined the Abilene Cattle Trail, which later became famous as the Chisholm Trail. It was so named at least by 1870 for trader Jesse Chisholm, who had operated a ranch near Wichita, Kansas, during the war. After being driven north along the Chisholm Trail to Abilene, the cattle were shipped east to the beef packers.
Herds varied in size from five hundred to ten thousand; however, they usually averaged around 2,500 to 3,000 head. A rancher entrusted his herd to a trail boss who would hire ten to fourteen cowboys, a cook and wagon, and a wrangler (horse handler) for the 100 to 150 horses. The trail boss would also provision the wagon and plan the drive.
On the trail the cattle were watered in the morning and would slowly eat their way northward. The cowboys kept them from stopping, turning back, or leaving the herd. The herd would walk about ten miles per day, stopping only to water and eat. At night the herd would stop at a watering hole and bed down. These herds were less than ten miles apart and were spaced so that each herd could spend the night at a watering point. As a result of this spacing, if any problems occurred, the herds could stack up and time or cattle might be lost. At the Abilene railhead, the trail boss would sell the cattle and horses, pay the cowboys, and return to Texas with the money for the owner, often repeating the trip year after year.
Eventually the Chisholm Trail would stretch eight hundred miles from South Texas to Fort Worth and on through Oklahoma to Kansas. The drives headed for Abilene from 1867 to 1871; later Newton and Wichita, Kansas became the end of the trail. The Cimarron cutoff on the north side of the Cimarron River allowed cattle to be driven to Dodge City, Kansas. From 1883 to 1887 herds headed up the trail to Caldwell, Kansas, making it the last great cow town on the trail.
The Chisholm Trail crossed from Texas over into Indian Territory at Red River Station, near present Ringgold, Texas, heading north. Along the way it passed Fleetwood Store, Blue Grove, Reid Store, Old Suggs Camp Ground and Tank, Monument Hill, Old Duncan Store, Cook Brothers Store, and Silver City on the South Canadian River. North of Silver City, the trail divided. The western route, primarily a freight and stage route, curved slightly northwestward and ran through Concho, Fort Reno, Kingfisher Stage Station and northeast. The eastern branch, used primarily for cattle, left Silver City, curved slightly northeastward, passed west of present day Mustang, crossed through Yukon, and passed to the west of Piedmont, crossing the Cimarron where Kingfisher Creek joins that river. The eastern trail rejoined the western trail at Red Fork Ranch, or Dover Stage Stand, now the town of Dover. North of Dover the trail passed by Buffalo Springs Stage Station (near present day Bison), Skeleton Ranch (near Enid), Sewell's Ranch (near Jefferson), and Lone Tree (near Renfrow), before heading into Kansas south of Caldwell.
The biggest cattle trailing years were 1871 and 1873. After 1881 the drives diminished considerably. The range was fenced in the Cherokee Strip after 1884, an 1886 Kansas quarantine law (against Texas fever) prohibited the entry of Texas bovines, and in 1887 a blizzard destroyed most of the range cattle industry. The Land Run of 1889 into the Unassigned Lands opened central Oklahoma to settlement, peopling the plains with farmers, who built fences and towns. These factors ended the trail-drive era. An estimated six million cattle had traveled the Chisholm Trail during its life, giving rise to many cowboy legends that have survived to this day.

Yukon is home to country music superstar Garth Brooks, the notable Cross Canadian Ragweed Band, PRCA Team Roping (Heading) World Champion Nick Sartain, movie actor Dale Robertson and the Express Clydesdales. Yukon was settled in 1891 by Texas cattleman A.L. Spencer who had traveled on the Chisholm Trail while on his way to the Abilene, Kansas cattle markets. He and his brother, Lewis M. Spencer, named their new town Yukon after a gold rush which was booming in Canada at the time. Wheat production was a major industry in Yukon’s early years as grain elevators and milling plants were built along the railroad tracks. These structures are landmarks today. Then we stopped at the Chisholm Trail Park. Chisholm Trail Park, Yukon City Park and Freedom Trail Playground are interconnected recreation facilities on approx. 100 acres in Yukon just north of I-40. The Copeland Nature Trail runs along a heavily wooded creek on the east side of the park. The trail includes tall cottonwoods and several patches of dense trees with heavy undergrowth. There is a gravel trail through the woods on the south end of the park. The north end of Copeland Trail is dirt or grass and follows along the 5-acre Mulvey's Pond. There is also a wide dirt trail along Spring Creek that goes north from the dam. This trail runs north across open fields to Chisholm Trail Park. There arepavillions, grills, buffalo statues and many many more things to see and do in these parks.

Then it was off up RT 66 to El Reno, OK with a stop along the way for a roadside cache and a cache in the El Reno cemetery. Our next stop was at the Carnegie Library in El Reno for another cache. The history of the El Reno Carnegie Library is a long and rich one. In the 1890s the Athenaeum Club of El Reno organized a small library. In the beginning, members met in each other’s homes and held small entertainments to raise money to buy books. In 1902, the club succeeded in gathering enough citizen support to persuade the city council to establish and maintain a public library. On January 28, 1904, the board voted to accept Andrew Carnegie’s proposition to give $12,500 if the city would agree to maintain the library at an expense of not less than $1,250 a year. The library board accepted the completed building on May 5, 1905. Twenty-four public libraries received grants from Andrew Carnegie between 1900 and 1922 totaling almost $500,000.
Original features of the downstairs section include embossed ceilings, marble lobby, and stairs. The decorative terra cotta above the desk was painted in 1953. The second floor of the library was originally an auditorium with a stage at the west end. The auditorium was used as a local theater for plays as well as the location for the El Reno High School graduations until 1912. In 1927 the stage was walled off and in 1980 the ceiling was lowered in what is now used as the children’s library. At that time, a full time children’s librarian was hired.

Then we drove around the city looking at the historical sections and old buildings before we found 3 NRV caches along the RT 66 road and one along the original RT 66. We also found one at the El Reno Drive-In which is now closed and there is a redneck bar there. Then we found a cache in a park and one close to RT 40. Then we started a series of caches along Rt 270 that runs to Red Rock Canyon. There are a series of 78 caches along the way and we found the first 9 which were all placed along the road either in trees or on barb wire fences. Then we drove back to El Reno to Robert's Grill and an onion-fried burger.
Robert’s is a museum-piece town café, El Reno’s oldest extant hamburger shop, going back to 1926. Starting at six in the morning, its fourteen-stool counter is occupied by regulars who come for coffee and eggs and home fries or – even at dawn – a brace of delicious onion-fried burgers. The place is a little warm, temperature-wise, and very crowded, probably due to the fact they’ve been in business since 1926.
Edward Graham, the current owner, says they serve about 300 burgers a day. He’s developed a scientific technique to squashing the handmade balls of hamburger into patties, globbing on the onions, then flipping everything at the right moment. The burgers arrive in front of your face might tasty and piping hot. Anyway, Robert’s pricing is easy to remember — $2.45 for a burger, a coney or an order of fries (which was easily shared by two people). The burgers are a nice size — not really small like some onion burger places, but not huge and unmanageable. Robert’s Grill is definitely a contender for your onion burger patronage. They’ve got plenty of that old Route 66 atmosphere and all the home-grown people who go along with it. Well we'll tell you that those onion-fried burgers were the best we have ever had and that includes Fuddrucker's. The town is noted for its annual Fried Onion Burger Day Festival, which is always the 1st Saturday in May. Burger Day is where you can witness the cooking of the world’s largest fried onion hamburger , weighing over 850 pounds. The giant burger contains all the important parts of the famous El Reno fried onion burgers which includes meat, fried onions, sliced pickles, and mustard all between two giant buns. Not only do festival goers get to watch the massive burger be built and cooked, but they are also allowed to help eat the monstrosity. Volunteers divide the giant burger into individual sized portions with burger-sized cookie cutters. Other volunteers shuttle back and forth from the burger to the crowd, delivering the free portions to anyone wanting a piece. In 2008, El Reno celebrated the 20th Annual Fried Onion Burger Day.

Then we found the El Reno Hotel which was built in 1892 and the two story hotel remains the oldest commercial building in El Reno and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a rare example of a wood frame commercial building dating to the opening of the Cheyenne and Arapaho lands. Also in this small complex we saw several other historic sites were also near this hotel. The Rock Island RR Depot, engine and caboose, a huge piece of a petrified tree which was found in 1914 when they were drilling a mine shaft, the Possum Holler School c1908, Mennoville Mennonite Church c1893, an old windmill and lots of old farm machinery.

After wandering around here for awhile we headed back to the coach for the day. Well until tomoorw we love and miss you all. Mom & Dad Dori & Dick