OKLAHOMA CITY –

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.

The sculpture, titled “Kicks 66,” makes reference to the iconic song “Route 66.” The song famously includes the lyric, “Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty,” which is displayed on the side of the boot statue.

Mayor David Holt spoke at the ribbon cutting event, the second MAPS 4 project to be unveiled in as many days.

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The sculpture benefited from the 1% for Art ordinance, which “requires 1% of the construction budget for City of OKC buildings, parks and trails to be set aside for public art,” according to the city’s website.

“There’s 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,” Holt said during the ceremony.

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

The statue was designed by Oklahoma artist Cameron Eagle in collaboration with Jim Gleason.

“But one of the coolest things about this whole project is, I’m 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,” Eagle said.

Eagle’s 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’s Roadhouse.

“This 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,” Eagle said.

Eagle was the winner of an international competition to design a sculpture for Oklahoma City’s celebration of Route 66.

The boot itself stands 35 feet tall in rosso corsa (Italian for “racing red”), 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.

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“There’s a big, big set of boots down in San Antonio. And they’re called the world’s largest boots. Well, when Jim and I sat around, we were talking about, how are we going to do this?” said Eagle.

Eagle spoke of the world’s largest cowboy boots, which were installed in San Antonio, Texas, in 1980. The boots stand 35 feet, 3 inches tall.

“So, we thought, okay, biggest boots in Texas, what are we going to do about it? You know what we’re going to do about it. They’re not the biggest anymore,” said Eagle. “So, now we could have made a really, really bigger, but that would have been bragging, and that’s 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.”

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 “Kicks 66″ to Guinness World Records for the world’s tallest boot.

Entertainment was provided by country musician Mallory Eagle, who was backed by Tulsa vocalist and guitarist Jared Tyler and lead guitarist Joe Settlemires. Eagle’s set highlighted Oklahoma’s musical heritage, featuring Bob Wills’ “Sugar Moon,” Merle Haggard’s “Silver Wings,” and her original track “Carole with an E,” co-written with Brennen Leigh. The trio also performed “Bless the Roses of Oklahoma,” a piece co-written by Eagle and Tyler, before closing the performance with the Bobby Troup classic, “Route 66.”

“Kicks 66″ can be found outside the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum at 1700 NE 63rd.