Mystery of the Missing Monument

A photo of the monument near Texola, Okla., from the TxDOT archives.

Delbert Trew, who owns a ranch on old Route 66 near Alanreed, Texas, and has been a longtime Route 66 supporter, writes in the Amarillo Globe-News about a long-missing Texas highway monument that once greeted Route 66 westbound travelers at the border town of Texola, Okla., during the mid-1930s.

It was an art-deco, granite monument that simply alerted Mother Road motorists that they were entering the Lone Star State. It’s believed that the monument was built to coincide with Texas’ centennial in 1936.

Some digging by TexasEscapes.com and the Texas Department of Transportation found a few archived photos of the monument, but little other information.

No one is sure what happened to the monument, either. Trew writes:

The final effort to locate the monument or its grave if that be the fate, is to see if someone, some record or some bit of information is still around in the Wheeler County TxDOT archives or former employee’s memories telling the final end to the mystery. The size and weight of the structure shouts the demise was not easy and its beautiful form was probably shattered in its removal.

Trew also writes about this tantalizing possibility:

A small wooden replica of the monument has been built and is exhibited in the Texas Old Route 66 Museum in McLean. There are rumors a full-size replica of the monument might be constructed. Who knows? Maybe the long lost, Texas Mystery Monument will live again, somewhere.

5 thoughts on “Mystery of the Missing Monument

  1. My name is Lester Mayberry and I have a picture of the Texas granite monument that was on route 66 at Texola. Picture of my wife and I standing by the monument, date Sept 1955. while we were on vacation. If you would like a copy of the picture I would be glad to send it to you. PS. That stone disappeared after 1955. I would like to know where it is too.

  2. You might send a note to a local (city/county) historical society or library. They probably deal mostly in genealogy, but someone there might know what happened to these two lovely monuments.

  3. It was really actually a disguised ICBM and was eventually taken out with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. At least that’s what I was told =)

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