A Gas Station in Oklahoma that Became a Longtime Fixture on Route 66

US Route 66 (US 66), known far and wide today as simply Route 66, was one of the original routes of the United States Numbered Highway System to be approved by the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) in 1926 and formally authorized and announced by the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads early the following year. One of the states through which Route 66 originally coursed was Oklahoma, and a still-intact structure along that section of the route has become emblematic of the now-iconic highway.

This structure is a gas station in the town of Foyil in northeastern Oklahoma. The Foyil Filling Station was already in existence by the time Route 66 also became part of that landscape in the Sooner State. The station was built by Thomas B. Millard after he had purchased the property there in 1923. Prior to moving to Texas in 1926, he sold the station and its surrounding real estate to his brother William J. Millard.

It was during the time of William J. Millard’s ownership of the station that Route 66 was brought into being. In 1931, he sold the property to George and Violet Vincent. This couple ended up selling the property about six years later to Joseph Floyd Shaffer, who had already been operating the gas station as far back as 1932. It is worth noting that Shaffer was a brother-in-law to the Millard brothers and one of George Vincent’s cousins.

After acquiring the property from the Vincents, Shaffer went on to operate the Foyil Filling station for about another quarter-century. Shaffer was a U.S. Army veteran who served during World War I, and he had military memorabilia prominently displayed on the gas station’s walls.

Over the years, the Foyil Filling Station firmly established itself as a familiar fixture for numerous people driving along that stretch of Route 66. This gas station even outlasted five others that were in operation in Foyil for several years before shutting down. One of the people who became familiar with the Foyil Filling Station was Gene Autry, who eventually achieved widespread renown as a singer, actor, and rodeo performer. After leaving his family’s Oklahoma ranch in 1925, Autry lived at a boardinghouse near the Foyil Filling Station while he worked as a telegraph operator for the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway.

Shaffer ran into tough times economically after that portion of Route 66 was relocated elsewhere in that region of Oklahoma during the 1950s, and he ultimately closed the longtime station in 1962.  From start to finish, this structure served as a Texaco gas station. It now has the distinction of being one of the company’s oldest gas stations that remain standing today.  

In 2015, the Foyil Filling Station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The accompanying photo of this gas station was taken in 2018.

Photo Credit: Muskola (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

For more information on the Foyil Filling Station, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foyil_Filling_Station