{"id":518576,"date":"2026-06-25T23:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T23:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/518576\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T23:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T23:54:10","slug":"oklahoma-city-looks-mighty-pretty-with-new-route-66-sculpture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/518576\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty’ with new Route 66 sculpture"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY –<\/p>\n

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Historic Route 66, a giant boot was unveiled at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City Thursday. <\/p>\n

The sculpture, titled \u201cKicks 66,\u201d makes reference to the iconic song \u201cRoute 66.\u201d The song famously includes the lyric, \u201cOklahoma City looks mighty pretty,\u201d which is displayed on the side of the boot statue. <\/p>\n

Mayor David Holt spoke at the ribbon cutting event, the second MAPS 4 project to be unveiled in as many days.<\/p>\n

RELATED: https:\/\/www.news9.com\/route66\/oklahoma-city-council-approves-66-kicks-art-installation<\/a><\/p>\n

The sculpture benefited from the 1% for Art ordinance, which \u201crequires 1% of the construction budget for City of OKC buildings, parks and trails to be set aside for public art,\u201d according to the city\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just a handful of things that any city has that that could be, that they could claim is known around the world, right? And our list is, you know, the Thunder and, Native American culture and cowboys, and Route 66,\u201d Holt said during the ceremony.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I said to Randy Marks and everybody was, I\u2019d really like to have something to do with Route 66. Some sort of beautification piece tied to Route 66. I\u2019d really like it to associate with the song. And in this day and age, it\u2019s got to be Instagrammable, you know, you gotta want to pose with it. And it\u2019s got to have that lyric that we own in the song and there\u2019s some debate, like there\u2019s different versions, you know, but the exact words we went are with looks mighty pretty,\u201d Holt said as he described the process behind the statue.<\/p>\n

The statue was designed by Oklahoma artist Cameron Eagle in collaboration with Jim Gleason. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut one of the coolest things about this whole project is, I\u2019m from here in Oklahoma City, born and raised, here and in western Oklahoma as well. Everybody that worked on this is an Okie. This is an Oklahoma project,\u201d Eagle said. <\/p>\n

Eagle\u2019s grandfather worked on Route 66 when it was being created. His grandfather worked on the 8.5 miles between Weatherford and Hydro. Weatherford is the home of another Historic Route 66 icon, Lucille\u2019s Roadhouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is been part of my DNA, the Route 66 story, for a long, long time. So, when this opportunity came up, I really, I felt so drawn to it,\u201d Eagle said. <\/p>\n

Eagle was the winner of an international competition to design a sculpture for Oklahoma City\u2019s celebration of Route 66.<\/p>\n

The boot itself stands 35 feet tall in rosso corsa (Italian for \u201cracing red\u201d), in celebration of the 1966 Ford-Ferrari race. To attain the perfect shade of green for the prickly pear cactus, Eagle photographed a series of prickly pear cacti around Oklahoma City. <\/p>\n

RELATED: https:\/\/www.news9.com\/route66\/route-66-art-installation-boot-construction<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a big, big set of boots down in San Antonio. And they\u2019re called the world\u2019s largest boots. Well, when Jim and I sat around, we were talking about, how are we going to do this?\u201d said Eagle.<\/p>\n

Eagle spoke of the world\u2019s largest cowboy boots, which were installed in San Antonio, Texas, in 1980. The boots stand 35 feet, 3 inches tall.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we thought, okay, biggest boots in Texas, what are we going to do about it? You know what we\u2019re going to do about it. They\u2019re not the biggest anymore,\u201d said Eagle. \u201cSo, now we could have made a really, really bigger, but that would have been bragging, and that\u2019s not the Oklahoma way. So what did we do? I made them one inch bigger. So, sorry, San Antonio. If you guys come back and play basketball, come get your picture taken with the biggest boots.\u201d <\/p>\n

A clear tongue-in-cheek reference to the 2026 Western Conference Finals, in which the Oklahoma City Thunder was defeated by the San Antonio Spurs in a 4-3 series. Eagle is planning to submit \u201cKicks 66″ to Guinness World Records for the world\u2019s tallest boot.<\/p>\n

Entertainment was provided by country musician Mallory Eagle, who was backed by Tulsa vocalist and guitarist Jared Tyler and lead guitarist Joe Settlemires. Eagle\u2019s set highlighted Oklahoma\u2019s musical heritage, featuring Bob Wills\u2019 \u201cSugar Moon,\u201d Merle Haggard\u2019s \u201cSilver Wings,\u201d and her original track \u201cCarole with an E,\u201d co-written with Brennen Leigh. The trio also performed \u201cBless the Roses of Oklahoma,\u201d a piece co-written by Eagle and Tyler, before closing the performance with the Bobby Troup classic, \u201cRoute 66.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKicks 66″ can be found outside the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum at 1700 NE 63rd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY – In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Historic Route 66, a giant boot was unveiled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-518576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}