A nearly 100-year-old fuel pump stolen from a historic gas station along Route 66 in Miami, Oklahoma, was recovered more than 100 miles away in southwest Missouri.
The Miami News-Record reports the antique pump stolen Feb. 25 from the 1929 Marathon Oil gas station in south Miami was found at a store March 5 in Ozark, Missouri, south of Springfield, after a shopper recognized it.
“The owner of the Ozark Antiques Mall, which is located at 200 North 20th Street in Ozark, somebody had let him know or said they saw the pump on a Facebook post on a Miami garage sale site about it being stolen. He then, in turn, called us,” Ozark Police Sgt. Derek Hill said. “We were able to open our investigation for receiving stolen property and started putting together the pieces of who he bought the pump from and how he got it, and the different pieces and information that the suspect had to identify the pump and had used to sell it to him.”
Hill credits Ozark Police Department’s Detective Kelsey Cliffe with tracing the sale backward to identify the suspect and he says an investigation is currently underway. Hill said the suspect is local to southwest Missouri.
According to a police report about the theft, the suspect removed bolts that attached all three antique pumps to the concrete at the station. Only one of the pumps was taken, however.
A report about the theft was picked up by the Associated Press and distributed worldwide.
The station’s current owner removed the remaining pumps and stored them for safekeeping.
The station sits at 331 S. Main St., part of the oldest alignment of Route 66 in Miami. That segment leads to the so-called Sidewalk Highway of Route 66 into rural Ottawa County.
The station’s former owner, Daryl Buckmaster of Miami, bought the station in 1999 and worked diligently to restore it until he sold the property for $18,000 at auction in 2016. Buckmaster also helped police identify the stolen pump.
The gas pumps were restored 1924 models acquired from Parsons, Kansas, and Joplin, Missouri.
(Image of the Marathon station in Miami, Oklahoma, in 2016 via William and William Real Estate Auctions)
Great news that they were found. I wish Det. Cliffe luck in finding and catching the thieves.