Threate Filling Station
The Threate Filling Station appears in Peace fire: further US-Iran strikes as a restored Black-owned filling station on Route 66 in Luther, Oklahoma. Edward Threate describes it as a safe haven for Black travellers during Jim Crow, offering fuel, food, rest, and camping when many businesses would not serve them.
The episode says Alan Threate Sr. finished the sandstone building in 1939, operated it until his death in 1950, and that his children ran it until 1956. The site closed in 1974, was recognized as historic in 1995, and restoration began in 2019 despite COVID-19 and material-cost disruptions.
The station matters because it shifts Route 66 memory from generic freedom toward Black Travel Infrastructure. The source says it was not in the The Green Book, but was the only Black-owned and operated filling station on Route 66.
Connections
- Route 66 and Route 66 Nostalgia Tourism - road-memory frame the station complicates.
- Black Travel Infrastructure - concept the station grounds.
- The Green Book - adjacent guidebook infrastructure for Black travellers.
- Edward Threate and John Fasman - interview subject and reporter.
- Luther, Oklahoma and United States - place and country context.