Afton: Where the Buffalo Came Back to Route Sixty-Six

Afton was founded in eighteen seventy-one in what was then Cherokee Nation territory, named after a Scottish river in a Robert Burns poem by a railroad surveyor said to be of Scottish descent. The town sat on the Frisco line and grew steadily as a trading center for the surrounding farm country.

Route Sixty-Six passed straight through, and Afton made its mark on the highway era with the Buffalo Ranch, a roadside attraction that once drew travelers with live bison, exotic animals, and a trading post selling blankets and curios. The ranch is long gone, but Afton Station, a restored nineteen thirties D-X filling station that later carried Packard service signs, was turned into a Route Sixty-Six visitors center and small Packard museum, where people worked to keep the memory of the road alive one conversation at a time.