Erick

Erick is a city of a thousand people (2019) in the Great Plains Country of Oklahoma, near the Texas border on the former US Route 66.

Understand
Established in 1901 as an agricultural community on the National Old Trails Road, Erick was perched (or parched?) at what was the edge of the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. There was brief pre-war natural gas exploration. By the 1940s Erick began to attract motor courts and roadside businesses catering to motorists, which prospered in the post-war era. The last Oklahoma section of Route 66 was bypassed, Sayre to Erick, in 1975.

Erick is known as the former home of country musicians Sheb Wooley ("one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater") and Roger Miller ("King of the Road," "Dang Me," "You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd"). It's the second-westernmost settlement (beside tiny Texola OK) in the state.

Get in
From I-40 take State Route 30 South.

Get around
The main roads in Erick are Roger Miller Memorial Highway (Broadway) and Sheb Wooley Blvd. (Main Street or State Route 30). East-west roads are numbered 1st-12th.

Go next

 * Elk City is about 30 minutes to the northeast.
 * Oklahoma City is about two hours to the east.
 * Amarillo is about two hours to the west.