In 2026, Route 66 celebrates its 100th anniversary. The epic 2,448-mile road trip crosses eight states from Chicago to Los Angeles. Four of those states — Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico — lie in the Tenth Federal Reserve District, which the Kansas City Fed serves. The Kansas City Fed saw energy, enthusiasm and collaboration happening across Route 66 in the years leading up to the centennial. We reasoned that Route 66 would have lessons to teach other byways around the U.S.
External LinkThe Byways Report: The Scenic Route to Rural Prosperity uses storytelling to reflect how route-based tourism celebrates a community’s unique sense of place. While focused on Route 66 in Oklahoma, the report includes interviews with national experts on rural development and byways tourism, as well as the experiences of people involved with other byways around the U.S. The report is intended to inform and inspire people who want to start or strengthen their town’s use of route-based tourism for economic development. (External LinkGo here to request free printed copies or download the PDF.)
The Clinton chapter, “This is how you pass the torch,” shows how the generations, spurred by younger residents, are working together to use Route 66 to re-energize the town. Along with the original chapter, we offer an update on new developments in Clinton.
Clinton: This is how you pass the torch
In April 2025, Oklahoma’s Route 66 Commission awarded $968,500 to the West OK Co-op, a group of volunteers in their 30s and 40s operating out of a storefront in downtown Clinton, Oklahoma. The grant will pay for the Hub City Gateway project, built over a 400-foot stretch of the original 1926 Route 66 road base. The project will feature a massive double-sided sign structure and art installation designed to entice travelers into downtown Clinton. According to the proposal, this project “reimagines the Route 66 experience, engaging future generations of travelers while bridging the gap between historic legacy and emerging city leadership.”
The grant award marks a significant milestone in a story that began in 2006, when Jason and Meridith Smith arrived in Clinton, Oklahoma, population around 8,500. Over time, the Smiths befriended and began connecting with creative types, including one energetic architect. They named themselves the West OK Co-op. Through weekly meetings, brainstorming and action, they are helping Clinton use its strengths, including its spot on Route 66, in new ways.
The group garnered support from the mayor of Clinton, a 73-year-old Baby Boomer named David Berrong. He is currently in his ninth year as mayor of the town where he’s lived most of his life. “I’m a product of the 1960s and 1970s, the hippie generation,” Berrong said. “With the West OK Co-op, there’s a hippie look, but these are businesspeople. And they are practical. They’re not coming as a radical influence into an older community that is also trying to reinvent itself. There’s some wisdom there.” Berrong pauses for a couple beats. “I was impressed with them from the beginning.”
Jason Smith and Andrew Stone at White Dog Hill, a restaurant on the prairie outside Clinton.
Jason Smith is the guy on the skateboard
Jason Smith grew up southeast of Clinton in Duncan, Oklahoma, where the landscape includes trees and lakes. He moved west to study classical guitar and marketing at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford. He was drawn to the land, so different from Duncan. He saw how that difference affected residents, spread over miles of flat, semi-arid land under an encompassing sky. “People have strong opinions here, but at the end of the day they know that they’re going to need each other at some point,” Smith said, “so there’s this sense of community that I didn’t get other places."
Jason met and married Meridith out west. After graduation they traveled, until Meridith’s sister’s husband needed help in his bail bonds business and on construction projects. They thought the move to Clinton would be temporary. That was nearly 20 years ago.
“When we got here, there was just so much opportunity that no one was recognizing,” Smith said, “like in these old buildings that are selling for $2 a square foot.” Smith learned carpentry from his brother-in-law, and one project led to another. The couple and their three children moved into the second floor of an old brick building they renovated downtown.
“I was always the guy without a shirt, skateboarding in the middle of the street,” Smith said of his time in Clinton. “I don’t know how people judge your maturity, but that’s just who I was.” Smith was off the community’s radar until about five years ago, when he began buying more property. “As we started to purchase property along Route 66 in the historic downtown,” Smith said, “I started asking how come we’re not marketing this, how about signage, how about wayfinding? It felt to me like the community had turned its back on Route 66.” Smith joined some local boards, like zoning, where people began to listen to him.
Pat Smith, longtime director of the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum until she retired in October, 2025.
West OK Co-op is working hard to promote Route 66 in Clinton, Pat Smith said, because co-op members realize what an impact the Mother Road has. Pat Smith (no relation to Jason) recently retired as director of the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum. That doesn’t mean West OK Co-op was embraced from the start. “At first, I think some of the older people here in Clinton were kind of standoffish,” she said. “You know, like ‘they have all these big ideas, but they don’t know what they’re doing.’ But then people realized that this group does know what they’re doing and, in fact, they’re doing a great job.” Smith is a life-long resident of Clinton and served for 30 years at the museum.
West OK Co-op attracts eclectic group of creatives
Jason and Meridith renovated the first floor at 613 Frisco Avenue downtown and painted “West OK Co-op” on the door. They moved in all the creative equipment they ever wanted to use. They have equipment for sewing, pottery, weaving and painting. They also have a woodworking shop, an 1890 letterpress machine, and a recording studio with musical instruments. They even have a ramp for skateboarders.
“I was craving a space that people could come to and take their art seriously,” Smith said. As soon as they opened the West OK Co-op, “it started this family,” Smith said. “We’ve been so lucky with everybody that’s made themselves at home here.”
Artists find a home base at the co-op
Damian Lopez and Sean Gonzales are cousins and artists, in that order. Gonzales’s artist name is SWAB, and he works in mixed media. Lopez’s artist name is Talllly, and he provides illustration in various media. Both work full-time but spend Saturdays and some evenings creating art. Both are members of the co-op’s board of directors.
At first, Gonzales thought “co-op” meant farming co-op. Another artist convinced him to visit. “And sure enough, there was an art space.” He calls Meridith and Jason kindred spirits. Still, the first time he dropped paint on the floor, he was nervous. “Jason just laughed. He doesn’t want it to seem like it’s an art museum. It’s a workshop.”
Sean Gonzales is an artist and a member of the West OK Co-op board of directors.
The various artists in the co-op sometimes produce and sell art together under the name Neverdaze.
The cousins don’t think the co-op set out to change the culture of Clinton, but they think maybe it has by giving artists a place to create. Gonzales said of himself and Lopez, “our art is hanging at the hospital where the two of us were born.”
Andrew Stone adds urban design to the co-op’s focus on art
Co-op cofounder Jason Smith noted that, in its early years, the group’s main contribution to the town of Clinton was murals the artists donated. Things changed when architectural designer Andrew Stone arrived. Stone grew up in Thomas, a tiny town near Clinton. His mother is from Italy; his dad is American. “I had the regular Italian family traditions, but in a very small American town,” he said. Stone’s dad was a home builder. Stone got his bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Oklahoma and worked in Oklahoma City as an architect.
But then, like so many other Oklahomans, Stone left for California. He got his Master of Architecture degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture, SCI-Arc. In 2020, during the pandemic, Stone moved back to his home state and settled in Clinton. Stone sees architecture as a form of public service, and western Oklahoma was where he wanted to serve.
When he arrived, Stone said, he found the West OK Co-op. “It had a cosmopolitan environment situated in a small, localized place, and that was just the perfect fit for me.”
Jason Smith (standing) and Andrew Stone at West OK Co-op. Photo by Ruby Payan.
Stone is a lecturer at the University of Oklahoma, and serves as liaison between the Institute for Quality Communities and the school’s Division of Architecture. He is the founder and principal of Ocra Projects, a firm that focuses on architecture, cultural placemaking and community revitalization. He is also chief design officer for West OK Co-op.
The Social gives old church new life, and Clinton a new gathering spot
When Jason and Meridith designed their second-floor apartment in downtown Clinton, they built a deck out back. It has an outdoor shower overlooking buildings downtown, including a vacant Presbyterian church. “So while I’m in the shower,” Smith said, “this old church is just staring at me.” For a year or two, the church sat there, empty. Staring. The Presbytery was asking $250,000.
Eventually, Smith offered $50,000. They said no and made a counteroffer of $75,000. “I was like, oh gosh,” Smith said. “And then I said no, I don’t need a church. That’s the last thing I really need.” The Presbytery suggested Smith counter. “I said $55,000 and they said, OK, we’ll take it. Then I was like, oh my gosh, I gotta go tell Meridith I just bought a church.”
Stone arrived in Clinton while the Smiths were turning the inside of the church into a wedding venue. There was something else that they wanted: an outdoor space. Stone designed the landscape, and Smith spent 18 months of “solid, back-breaking work” to turn the space into The Social. It’s open Thursday and Friday evenings, with a cocktail bar and catered food. It has become a popular gathering spot. “We went from not having a backyard to having the most legit thing in the world,” Smith said. He is quick to give Stone credit.
Clinton locals gather early on a Thursday evening in June at The Social.
Stone functions at a highly conceptual level, but he will happily translate architect-speak for the layperson. He is so enthusiastic about his work that you cannot help but be pulled along in his wake. The man is having fun.
Smith and Stone have an easy rapport. They appreciate one another’s strengths. Smith said of Stone, “We pick up on a lot of the same nuances, but his go much deeper. He’s a smart guy.” Stone brought to West OK Co-op knowledge of grants available for towns like Clinton and for projects like those related to the Route 66 Centennial.
Oklahoma Route 66 Museum changes the trajectory of Clinton, sort of
David Berrong, Clinton’s mayor, is the third generation of Berrongs to call Clinton home. “This was about as fantastic a rural community as anyone could grow up in,” he said. Berrong left for ten years, then returned to Clinton and joined the family’s wholesale distribution business.
“It was a thriving area for decades,” Berrong said. Then, in the mid-1980s, the farm economy imploded. Big-box stores, technical advances and, in later years, online shopping began to put pressure on “an unchanging economic environment of downtown Main Streets and mom-and-pop stores,” Berrong said.
Berrong calls himself a realistic optimist. “To go forward as a community, one has to deal with the reality of what has happened and what our new challenges are in Clinton.” That’s what matters to him, he said. “It’s the only thing I have any real input on, the narrative of the future.”
We’re meeting downtown at the Route 66 Café on a Saturday morning. The mayor just finished presiding over the Clinton Classic Run, a local 5K and 10K race, delayed by a thunderstorm. He’s wearing a slightly damp pink shirt and a gray Clinton Classic Run gimme cap, and he has bright white hair and goatee.
David Berrong is mayor of Clinton, where he has lived for most of his life. The Glancy Motel sign has since been removed and is being restored with funds from a state grant. It will live on at the Oklahoma Route 66 museum site.
“This was Dorsey’s Fruit Market when I was a kid,” Berrong said. Ten years ago, a couple bought the vacant building and turned it into a restaurant. They saw an opportunity. Locals, he said, could not imagine creating a remarkable future by revitalizing things like Route 66 that time left behind.
Berrong said we wouldn’t be talking about tourism at all, except for one thing: the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum. The state reimagined the old Western Trails Museum in Clinton as the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum, opening in 1995. In 2012, the state wanted to renovate, but grants fell short. Clinton residents raised $389,000 to match state funds and complete the renovation. Today, the museum is considered one of the best along the eight-state route, consistently drawing at least 50,000 visitors a year. Visitors come from all over the world.
The Oklahoma Route 66 Museum typically draws at least 50,000 visitors a year. It is considered one of the best museums along the eight-state byway.
West OK Co-op entices visitors into Clinton, celebrating small town life
The museum is located off I-40 rather than Route 66. You can visit the museum, get lunch at a nearby chain restaurant and hop back on the interstate. Andrew Stone recounted seeing a big group of bikers and their Harley-Davidsons when he stopped by the restaurant recently. “They were eating their sandwiches, sitting around,” Stone said. “When I walked by them, I realized they were all speaking French.” He asked himself, Why are these people not finding their way into downtown Clinton? And how can we fix this?
“Andrew and I get excited about getting people to take exit 69, the Route 66 corridor through Clinton,” Smith said. “We have to sell them on our Main Street, our historic area.” They focused on creating new wayfinding techniques and interests, like the new Clinton sign.
Route 66 has potential to connect people to place, and account for a place’s history in a unique way, Stone said. It shapes people as much as people shape the route. “Yes, we love the milkshakes and diners and stuff,” he said, “but it really is an experience that can be expanded into much broader regional narratives” and even global narratives, with the foreign visitors coming to town. “There’s a sense of metropolitanism that could come with Route 66,” he said.
To benefit from the potential of a byway like Route 66, it requires taking what some might see as relics of the past and showing how they can add value to the present.
The bittersweet nature of memory
Along with the Hub City Gateway in Clinton, Stone designed a project in Hydro, where the town is repurposing an old bridge. Both projects, he said, reuse artifacts from the past. Stone calls them “ghosted.”
“Ghosted means they’re forgotten but not gone,” Stone said. “There is still a physical presence that can be restored, but not in a conventional way. How do we repurpose these ghosted places and make them sites for new expression?”
The single-truss pony bridge stood from 1930 until it was decommissioned about 20 years ago. A local family volunteered to store the bridge on their property because they didn't want to lose that history to the scrap heap.
The Hub City Gateway uses an original 1926 stretch of Route 66 as a walking path. The Hydro bridge continues its service by becoming a lookout. The single-truss pony bridge stood from 1930 until it was decommissioned about 20 years ago. A local family volunteered to store the old bridge on their property because they didn’t want to lose that history to the scrap heap. Then the town of Hydro reached out, wanting to reuse the old bridge as part of the centennial. “The bridge has so many bumps and bruises and blemishes and imperfections that tell the story of times people wrecked into it,” Stone said, and that’s something both locals and non-locals appreciate.
Andrew Stone at the groundbreaking for the Hydro bridge project, flanked by his parents, David and Cristina Stone. Photo courtesy Old Pal Advertising from a profile of Stone at External Linkhttps://www.cowtownokc.com/andrew-stone.
The lesson Stone would love to teach small towns about economic development is that repurposing artifacts is about “clawing back our identity,” he said. “Things that may seem like burdens or anchors can be flipped back into assets by looking at them through a different lens, rather than tearing them down.”
New technology, too, may give new life to ghosted buildings — those that still have a physical presence — as well as buildings that have been lost. “Tourists want to be enchanted,” Stone said. New tools, like augmented reality, mean that just because the building is gone doesn’t mean the memory isn’t there or that the story can’t be told. The story can span the physical space and a digital one.
The Hydro bridge settles into its new location. Photo courtesy of Andrew Stone.
“I’m interested in Route 66 because it’s a life I’ll never have”
Stone’s work in Clinton and on Route 66 is part of his life-long commitment to small towns. “Rural towns are not synonymous with the past,” he said. “They deserve to be understood in a contemporary light. Their quality of life is just as precious as any other place, and visitors play a role.”
Stone said the mayor and others in Clinton were surprised by how younger people are engaged in Route 66. The older residents thought of Route 66 as nostalgia. “To them, Route 66 is synonymous with the past, and they didn’t think about Route 66 as being a torch that can be passed” to younger generations. “How does the younger community learn from the older community and not make it a rogue pursuit?” Stone asked. “This is an opportunity to pass the torch in a very responsible and respectful way.”
Berrong said he used to be stunned that younger people cared about Route 66, but no longer. “It’s not that they’ll ever experience the real Route 66,” Berrong said. “They won’t have lived on it. But there is a romanticism. One girl put it this way. She said, ‘I’m interested in it because it’s a life I’ll never have, but I want to travel and see the way it was.’”
Advice for people making change
Smith said that the effectiveness of West OK Co-op in Clinton boils down to two things: consistency and vulnerability.
Consistency means the work is regular and ongoing. The West OK Co-op board and others meet nearly every Tuesday to keep the ball rolling. And they keep in touch with state and local leaders. “We’re popping in on meetings, or emailing to ask if there’s anything coming up,” Smith said. “Being plugged in does matter, but not in a political sellout way. It’s just being involved.” That consistency led to the state asking West OK Co-op to host one of its Route 66 Centennial kick-off meetings.
West OK Co-op hosts a meeting to discuss the future of the historic downtown.
Vulnerability, Smith said, keeps ideas flowing. The group invites people from outside the co-op to their brainstorming sessions, for example. “A lot of the things you’re saying during brainstorming are stupid,” Smith said, “but it’s those stupid things that get you to that good thing.”
A lack of vulnerability can make a community stale. While Clinton is supportive overall, people sometimes look at a new idea with laser beams, picking it apart. Hanging string lights downtown can be great, he said, “but then you get, ‘What’s going to happen in two years when the bulbs go out?’ and ‘What happens when you move away and nobody’s here to fix it?’ And sometimes they’re right.” It takes vulnerability to be willing to share ideas anyway, Smith said.
The centennial update: Clinton, July 2026
The State of Oklahoma, Berrong said, has turned the centennial into a real business moment for Route 66 communities. “The awareness factor has gone through the roof with people who weren’t watching tourism as a business.” The result, Berrong said, is as promised. “The tours are getting bigger. The motorcycle groups are more frequent. They said we could almost double the number of guests in Clinton this year, and we’re seeing it. We’re seeing an upsurge.”
At the groundbreaking for the Hub City Gateway, community members gathered inside a former church the Smiths bought and turned into an event venue. (Left to right) Rhys Martin, Oklahoma Route 66 Association president and Preserve Route 66 manager for the National Trust for Historic Preservation; Thomas Tillerson, chairman of the Oklahoma Route 66 Commission; and David Berrong, mayor of Clinton, Oklahoma.
While the Hub City Gateway moves forward, Clinton has secured another major Route 66 Revitalization Grant, and the West OK Co-op continues to bring art to life.
The Hub City Gateway moves forward, step by step
After receiving the Hub City Gateway grant, West OK Co-op devoted many months to approvals and design reviews and formalizing a lease agreement between the city of Clinton and the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, which owns the property. “It is a lot of steps,” Stone said.
The big push now is sourcing steel. The size needed is more in line with a high-rise urban building than what is normally shipped to western Oklahoma. While Stone is reaching out to factories in Chicago and Pittsburgh, once the steel is in Clinton he intends to handle fabrication with local contractors.
It helps that a friend of the co-op, a local bank president, bought the old cottonseed oil mill just across the street from the site. He is letting West OK Co-op store, paint and weld the steel there for free. The price of steel has shot up since the original budget was created, and free space nearby will help keep costs down.
The team is eager to start construction. “I don’t think people realize what a big deal this thing is going to be,” Smith said. “When it’s done, the community will understand why it took a while.”
Firehouse 66 will anchor downtown redevelopment
Clinton scored another major Route 66 Revitalization Grant in May 2026. The $656,928 grant will help restore the city-owned WPA-era firehouse into a visitor center, interpretive hub and community living room.
The University of Oklahoma’s Urban Design Fellowship led a visioning event in 2025 with Clinton leaders and community organizations. The fellowship team identified three key projects — Firehouse 66, a wayfinding program and downtown activations — that could demonstrate how architecture can energize Clinton’s downtown and empower community organizations.
After the fellowship, Stone convened a broader steering committee composed of civic groups and city leadership to vet the Firehouse 66 idea. “By September, we said, you know what, we do think this is a good project,” Stone said. The city of Clinton submitted the proposal and also agreed to provide a 10% match. Stone serves as project designer.
A new Oklahoma Route 66 Revitalization Grant will help restore the city-owned WPA-era firehouse into a visitor center and community living room.
The proposal includes partnerships with an array of local groups. The partnerships reflect the fact that Clinton is the most diverse micropolitan community on Route 66 in Oklahoma, according to the Firehouse 66 grant proposal. Among the partners are Fuerza Latina Clinton, Future Leaders of Western Oklahoma, Southwest Playhouse, Unity for the Community and West OK Co-op. Inspira Consulting Group LLC, with expertise in heritage tourism, helps assure the project is visible within the Route 66 Centennial framework.
Stone sees the Firehouse 66 renovation using Route 66 to stimulate civic engagement. “What I think is great about the firehouse, and this is what the Route 66 Commission saw, is this could be a great way we start thinking about true revitalization now,” Stone said, “restoring old public assets and making them not only visitor-engaged places but also community hubs.” The University of Oklahoma recently offered Stone a contract to bring his skill set to rural communities in Western Oklahoma.
The map of Clinton shows Firehouse 66 in relation to historic Route 66, the Hub City Gateway, the Route 66 Museum, and other local landmarks.
West OK Co-op creates the place they want to live
When architects talk about “activating” a space, it means they are taking an underused area and turning it into a vibrant, engaging space. The University of Oklahoma’s Urban Design Fellowship suggested these kinds of activations could be catalysts to downtown renewal. West OK Co-op members are currently activating a downtown alley with murals and a light art project.
Co-op members donate their time for this and other West OK Co-op projects, including the massive Hub City Gateway. They do this, Smith said, “to create the place we want to live.” When West OK Co-op needed to raise money to cover hard costs for the alley activation, they got creative. Their fundraiser, the Art Drop, offers a new poster by a different co-op artist every month.
The latest prints in the Art Drop series are "Prairie Punks" by Jason and Opal Smith, and "Rudolpho 66" by Cash Wheeler.
Don’t expect one big ribbon-cutting moment
Both Smith and Berrong talk in terms of dominos, as in, Clinton is getting theirs lined up. “I see a lot of work we’ve done in the last several years coming to fruition,” Berrong said. “The domino effect, I believe, is going to happen in Clinton if we keep pushing in the right direction.”
Smith recognizes that progress is incremental and cumulative. He views progress from his experience as an avid mountain climber, where you must trust you’ll find your next handhold. “I think it’s the same way with rural development,” he said. “Sometimes you just have to stand up and assume the next thing’s going to be there. You’re diligent, you do the work, and then, man, it seems like at least nine out of 10 times, there’s something just beyond what you can see that was there all the time.”
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City or the Federal Reserve System.
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