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Erick, Oklahoma
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Erick, Oklahoma
Erick (/ˈɪərɪk/ EER-ik) is a city in Beckham County, Oklahoma, United States. It is located 15 miles (24 km) west of Sayre, the county seat, and 6 miles (9.7 km) east of the Oklahoma-Texas border. The population was an even 1,000 at the time of the 2020 census.
A post office, originally named Dennis, was established to serve the local community on November 8, 1900. This community developed along the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad line (later the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway), built in 1902. On November 16, 1901, the name was changed to honor Beeks Erick, the townsite developer and president of the Choctaw Townsite and Improvement Company, and the town incorporated that year.
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. 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.
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. 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.
The city prospered briefly in the era between WWI and WWII, when natural gas deposits were found in the area. On July 14, 1930, the Frederick (Maryland) Post published, "Reports received 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." 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.
John Steinbeck's 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, 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."
Early 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."
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Erick, Oklahoma
Erick (/ˈɪərɪk/ EER-ik) is a city in Beckham County, Oklahoma, United States. It is located 15 miles (24 km) west of Sayre, the county seat, and 6 miles (9.7 km) east of the Oklahoma-Texas border. The population was an even 1,000 at the time of the 2020 census.
A post office, originally named Dennis, was established to serve the local community on November 8, 1900. This community developed along the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad line (later the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway), built in 1902. On November 16, 1901, the name was changed to honor Beeks Erick, the townsite developer and president of the Choctaw Townsite and Improvement Company, and the town incorporated that year.
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. 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.
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. 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.
The city prospered briefly in the era between WWI and WWII, when natural gas deposits were found in the area. On July 14, 1930, the Frederick (Maryland) Post published, "Reports received 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." 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.
John Steinbeck's 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, 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."
Early 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."
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