More than 200 pen-and-ink and watercolor sketches of Route 66 landmarks — from Tulsa's Golden Driller to Edmond's own Blue Hippo — now line the walls of the Edmond History Museum, part of a traveling exhibit assembled by artists from seven states as the Mother Road approaches its 100th birthday. The free show gathers work from Urban Sketchers chapters spanning Chicago, St. Louis, Springfield, Missouri, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Albuquerque/Santa Fe, and Los Angeles.
The exhibit, organized by region, has already made stops in Springfield, Tulsa, and Norman before arriving in Edmond, according to The Journal Record. Behind the scenes, the Tulsa chapter of Urban Sketchers, co-founded by Connie McFarland, spearheaded the multi-state project, with Dr. Pam Hodges curating the artwork to coordinate pieces across all seven chartered chapters along the highway, according to TulsaPeople.
Oklahoma scenes make up a large share of the collection, including the Yukon flour mill, the Arcadia Round Barn, and the Blue Whale of Catoosa alongside the Golden Driller and the Blue Hippo, per the same Journal Record report. The Arcadia Round Barn, located six miles east of Edmond, was built in 1898 and restored in 1992, and it stands as the only round barn on the entire 2,400-mile highway, according to TravelOK. Edmond's hippo icon is a Route 66 attraction, as reported by News 9.
A Global Sketching Movement Rooted in Direct Observation
The artists behind the exhibit all belong to Urban Sketchers, a worldwide organization whose members draw their surroundings at indoor and outdoor locations using various art mediums, under a mission to “show the world, one drawing at a time,” the Journal Record reports. The movement was founded in 2007 by Seattle-based journalist Gabriel Campanario and operates under an eight-point manifesto that requires members to draw directly on location from direct observation rather than from photos or memory, according to Urban Sketchers. Most of the artwork in the exhibit was drawn on location, turning the exhibit into both an artistic showcase and a kind of visual field record.
The exhibit's next stop is Chicago, the Journal Record notes, where it will head to the Cornelia Arts Building in October 2026 and expand to feature more than 300 sketches in a joint celebration of the building's 40th anniversary and Route 66's 100th anniversary, per AllEvents.
Housed in a 1936 WPA Armory
The Edmond History Museum itself carries its own layer of local history: it operates inside a 1936 native sandstone armory built by the Works Progress Administration for the Oklahoma National Guard, a building placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991, according to the Edmond History Museum. Admission to the sketch exhibit is free, with the museum open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturdays, per the Journal Record.
Why Oklahoma Is Leaning Into the Centennial
The timing taps into a much larger statewide push. Oklahoma contains more than 400 drivable miles of original Route 66, giving the state more lane miles of the historic highway than any of the other seven states along the 2,448-mile route from Chicago to Los Angeles, according to the City of Oklahoma City. That outsized stake traces back to Cyrus Avery, the Tulsa oilman and state highway commissioner widely recognized as the “Father of Route 66,” whose advocacy helped establish the highway on November 11, 1926.
State officials have backed that identity with money and policy. Oklahoma created a state-funded Route 66 Commission in 2022 and launched the Project 66 grant program in late 2023, providing grants to municipalities and nonprofits to revitalize historic landmarks and restore neon signage along the highway, according to the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. The investment appears to be paying off: an estimated one million travelers visited Oklahoma's stretch of Route 66 during the first six months of 2026, generating a 6.4 percent increase in state tourism ahead of the official November centennial, per KGOU.
The Edmond exhibit joins a string of centennial commemorations across the metro this year. Hoodline previously reported on a new centennial marker in Oklahoma City, drone shows and shuttle buses at Yukon's Rock the Route festival, and a balloon festival held near the Arcadia Round Barn itself. Together, the events frame Edmond's sketch show less as an isolated gallery opening than as one more stop in a yearlong statewide celebration of the Mother Road's hundredth birthday.
