NW 39th Expressway is not a quiet stretch of old Route 66 you have to squint to imagine. In Bethany, it is still a working road, still lined with businesses, schools, churches, and a children’s hospital that has been part of the community longer than the highway itself.
That made Bethany’s Route 66 Centennial Celebration on November 7, 2026, feel a little different from a standard nostalgia event.
I headed out to Bethany expecting classic cars, food trucks, vendors, and plenty of Route 66 signs. All of that was there. But the better story was how spread out the day was. This was not one parking lot trying to carry a whole centennial. Downtown Bethany, Southern Nazarene University, Bethany First Church of the Nazarene, and Bethany Children’s Health Center all had a piece of it.
That fits Bethany pretty well.
Bethany was established in 1909, almost two decades before U.S. Route 66 was assigned its famous number in 1926. The city grew around Nazarene institutions, including what became Southern Nazarene University and the Oklahoma Orphanage. When Route 66 came through along what is now NW 39th Expressway, it gave Bethany a direct place on one of the country’s defining roads.
A century later, that old highway still runs right through the middle of things.
A Route 66 Party Spread Across Bethany
The downtown part of the celebration gave people a reason to walk around instead of just drive through. There were local vendors, food trucks, kids’ activities, music, and a Children’s Entrepreneur Market, which is one of those event ideas that immediately makes sense once you see it. Let the kids sell something. Let them learn the awkward joy of making change and explaining their product to strangers. Very Oklahoma. Very practical.
Classic cars brought the expected Route 66 energy, and they looked right at home along the corridor. Route 66 can get overly polished in anniversary language, but at its core, it is still a car road. Seeing old metal lined up near a busy modern expressway felt more honest than pretending the road is frozen in 1952.
Southern Nazarene University added homecoming activity into the mix, while Bethany First Church of the Nazarene held a Christmas market earlier in the day. That overlap gave the whole thing a citywide rhythm instead of a single-event feel.
What stood out to me was that Bethany used the centennial to point people toward what is already there. The shops downtown. The university. The church. The hospital. The families using the road every day.
Route 66 history is easy to talk about in past tense. Bethany did not have to.
The Hospital Story Is Older Than the Highway
The most interesting stop, for me, was Bethany Children’s Health Center.
Bethany Children’s traces its history back to 1898, when Mattie Mallory began serving children through what became the Oklahoma Orphanage. In 1909, the orphanage moved to land northwest of Oklahoma City, right as Bethany was being established.
At the time, the road out there was not the Mother Road. It was just a dirt road leading to a new community.
Seventeen years later, that corridor became part of Route 66.
That timeline matters. Bethany Children’s was not added to the Route 66 story later for a photo op. The institution was already serving Oklahoma children before the highway existed, and it grew alongside the city as the road became one of the most recognizable routes in America.
For the centennial, the hospital hosted family-friendly activities, food trucks, a petting zoo, and a look at its Landmark of Hope project. The expansion includes a new Outpatient Center of Excellence and a colorful caterpillar landmark named Kal, meant to symbolize growth and transformation.
A giant caterpillar along Route 66 sounds odd until you remember this is exactly how roadside landmarks work. They are supposed to make you slow down, point, ask questions, and remember where you were.
Bethany Children’s also unveiled a Route 66 Centennial Monument on October 29, 2026, tying the hospital’s long history to the highway’s 100th anniversary. That felt like the right kind of marker, not just a sign saying “history happened here,” but a reminder that history is still being built on the same stretch of road.
By the end of the day, Bethany’s celebration felt less like a birthday party for pavement and more like a check-in with a city that Route 66 helped shape.
The interstate system changed the way Americans travel. I-40 eventually pulled much of the long-distance traffic south of Bethany. But NW 39th Expressway did not stop mattering. It became something else, a busy local road carrying a century of memory underneath the errands, commutes, school traffic, and lunch runs.
That is probably the most useful way to understand Route 66 in Bethany.
It is historic, yes. But it is not sealed behind glass. It is still a main street.
Details
- Event: Bethany Route 66 Centennial Celebration
- Location: Downtown Bethany along NW 39th Expressway / Historic Route 66, with activities at Southern Nazarene University, Bethany First Church of the Nazarene, and Bethany Children’s Health Center
- Date: Saturday, November 7, 2026
- Website: https://www.bethanychildrens.org/bethany-route-66-centennial-celebration/
