Wisdom, Montana from 1942
Here is a long expoure photo from July 1940 of Route 66 looking southwest through downtown Chandler, Oklahoma. This is a beautiful-looking town considering the U.S. is still in the Great Depression at this point. The resolution of the photo is very good. You can copy and download this and enlarge it to see good detail. West 9th is to the right. We rarely see motorcycles in old photos. There is one at this corner that appears to be a policeman's with the policeman standing and talking to some people.
Chandler is known for a couple of things. It is the pecan capital of the world. It is the town whose sheriff was shot in the last Old West gunfight in Oklahoma. Marshall William Matthew "Bill" Tilghman was shot dead in nearby Cromwell, OK by a corrupt prohibition agent in 1924, just two years before Route 66 was established. He was living in Chandler at the time and is buried in Chandler, where a city park is named after him. In 1960, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
The photo is courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
