The Threatt Filling Station, as far as Route 66 historians can tell, was the only Black-owned and -operated gas station on the legendary Mother Road during the Jim Crow era, guaranteeing that almost every Black traveler would stop there, because they weren’t always welcomed at other businesses along the way.
Originally a narrow, mostly unpaved road that zigzagged between farming communities, old Route 7 ran more or less diagonally between Tulsa and the state capital, making it one of the busiest highways in Oklahoma in the early years of statehood.
Allen Threatt, a homesteader who came from Alabama sometime in the early 1900s, owned 160 acres of red dirt near the small town of Luther, along Route 7 half an hour northeast of Oklahoma City. And he capitalized on the highway traffic by opening a small filling station, where he not only sold gas but offered produce from his farm.
The spot became even busier in 1926, when the state highway became part of the federal government’s new Route 66, connecting Chicago and Los Angeles and bringing travelers from all across the United States.
The Threatt Filling Station, as far as Route 66 historians can tell, was the only Black-owned and -operated gas station on the legendary Mother Road during the Jim Crow era, guaranteeing that almost every Black traveler would stop there, because they weren’t always welcomed at other businesses along the way.
“Some of the other surrounding cities were ‘sunset communities,’” meaning Blacks were told not to be seen in town after dark, says C. David Threatt, Allen Threatt’s grandson who now lives in Maryland. “Everybody would stop and get gas, but particularly people of color, because they would feel safe. Sometimes they would even pull around to the backside of the property and spend the night in their cars, because they couldn’t stay in hotels.”