Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near Erick Historic District Erick, OK

Erick is a city in Beckham County, Oklahoma, 15 miles west of Sayre, the county seat, and just six miles east of the Texas state line — the second-closest Oklahoma settlement to Texas on U.S. Route 66 or Interstate 40, after tiny Texola.

Erick's post office was established on November 8, 1900 under the name Dennis, and on November 16, 1901 it was renamed for Beeks Erick, the townsite developer and president of the Choctaw Townsite and Improvement Company; the town incorporated the same year.

Erick developed along the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad (later the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway), built through in 1902, and began as an agricultural community with 686 residents at statehood in 1907.

A brief oil boom pushed Erick to a peak population of 2,231 in 1930, but the population fell to 1,591 by 1940 as the oil proved less plentiful than hoped.

Erick stood on the National Old Trails Road, a predecessor route whose segments became U.S. Route 66, and the town prospered in the post-war heyday of the Mother Road with motor courts and roadside businesses.

The four-lane Route 66 segment from Sayre to Erick was the last section of the highway in Oklahoma to be bypassed by Interstate 40, in 1975.

Erick is the boyhood hometown of country music star Roger Miller, and of 'Purple People Eater' singer Sheb Wooley, who was related to Miller by marriage; the town has an intersection of Sheb Wooley Boulevard and Roger Miller Road.

Erick's 100th Meridian Museum, at Sheb Wooley Avenue and Roger Miller Boulevard, interprets the long-disputed surveys and boundary fights along the 100th meridian, the line separating Oklahoma from Texas.

John Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath was poorly received in Erick, a Dust Bowl-era farming town on the edge of the region the book depicted.

Erick's population was 1,000 in the 2020 census, down slightly from 1,052 in 2010, and the city covers about 1.0 square mile.