Commerce, Oklahoma: Where the Commerce Comet Learned to Hit

Commerce began as a lead and zinc mining camp called Hattonville after a mine developer named Amos Hatton opened the Emma Gordon Mine in nineteen oh six. The mines made the town. Route sixty-six came through in nineteen twenty-six, making Commerce the first stop in Oklahoma after crossing the Kansas state line heading west.

What made Commerce famous was a boy named Mickey Mantle. Born in Spavinaw in nineteen thirty-one, Mantle moved here as a small child when his father Mutt took a job in the zinc mines. Every evening Mutt pitched to Mickey beside an old tin barn until the kid's switch-hitting stroke became one of the most powerful in the history of baseball.

The Commerce Comet went on to play eighteen seasons for the New York Yankees, win three Most Valuable Player awards, and hit five hundred thirty-six home runs. The old Route sixty-six alignment through town is now named Mickey Mantle Boulevard.