Sayre Rock Island Depot

Sayre, Oklahoma took its name from Robert Sayre, a stockholder in the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad that reached here in nineteen oh one and put the town on the map. The depot you see today is a later station, built to signal confidence in the town. The railroad was competing directly with Route Sixty-Six, which had been designated just the year before.

The new depot helped, but not enough. Passenger service eventually ended and the building passed to the town. Today it houses the Shortgrass Country Museum, a small collection that covers the high-plains history of western Oklahoma, from the cattle drives through the Dust Bowl to the oil patch years.