Sayre: The Route Sixty-Six County Seat

Sayre was incorporated in September of nineteen oh one, named for Robert H. Sayre, a stockholder in the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad that had just pushed tracks through western Oklahoma. The railroad's townsite company platted the streets, and settlers who had come through the earlier Cheyenne-Arapaho land opening were among the first residents.

When Oklahoma achieved statehood in nineteen oh seven, a new county was carved from parts of Roger Mills and Greer Counties, and Sayre won a close election over the rival town of Erick to become the Beckham County seat. Route Sixty-Six came through in the early years of the highway, bringing tourist traffic, truck stops, and a brief prosperity to the western Oklahoma plains. The Mother Road was replaced by Interstate Forty in nineteen seventy-five, and Sayre's role as a traveler's crossroads shifted rather than ended.

The Beckham County Courthouse, a nineteen eleven sandstone landmark, still anchors the town square.