Restoring a Refuge For Black Travelers

An excerpt from Fast Company - 

On Route 66, a family is restoring the only gas station built for Black travelers

The Threatt Filling Station offered refuge for Black travelers driving through Oklahoma. Now, the Threatt family hopes to turn it into a historical center.

BY KRISTI EATON

[Photo: courtesy of the Threatt family, National Register of Historic Places/
NPS, Rhys Martin/courtesy Oklahoma Route 66 Association]

If you were to travel on Route 66 in the early 1900s, you probably passed the Threatt Filling Station, a family-owned gas station for Black travelers traversing the famous route from Chicago to Southern California.

But after closing in the 1970s, the station eventually fell into disrepair. Now the Threatt family is looking to revitalize and preserve it.

Allen Threatt Sr. [Photo: courtesy of the Threatt family]

The Threatt Filling Station, located near Luther, Oklahoma, was a place where Black travelers could fill up their tanks and grab something to eat. The property, which was originally 160 acres, eventually expanded to also include a farm, a field for Negro League baseball games, an outdoor stage, and a bar for those wanting to dance the jitterbug. Allen Threatt Sr. built the station around 1915, and it continued to operate until it closed in the 1970s, according to Ed Threatt, one of Allen’s grandsons. Ed Threatt and other relatives are now working to restore the historic property.

“It’s a part of Black history within the state of Oklahoma,” Ed Threatt said. “For him to acquire 160 acres of land in the Jim Crow era, that’s no small feat.”

https://www.fastcompany.com/90711794/on-route-66-a-family-is-restoring-the-only-gas-station-built-for-black-travelers