66 on 66

(Post contributed by The Campbell Hotel.)Tulsa is home to a pair of old Phillips 66 stations that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Both stations are on or near historic alignments of Route 66 and bear the distinctive cottage-style architecture favored by the Oklahoma-based petroleum company during the early 1930s.The Vickery Phillips 66 Station, 602 S. Elgin Ave., was built around 1932 in what was then a residential area, according to the Tulsa Preservation Commission’s website. Virgil Vickery, who lived in a nearby apartment, leased the station in 1946 and ran it as the Vickery Phillips 66. A separate garage to the west of the station was used to provide repair and maintenance services to vehicles.The Vickery station, located just off the 1926-1932 Second Street alignment of Route 66, received a matching grant from the National Park Service’s Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program in 2006 to help offset the cost of rehabbing the building and repurposing it for use as an Avis car-rental office. Its colorful tile roof, arched front door, and chimney adorned with a circular ornamentation (originally used to display a Phillips 66 logo) are typical of 1930s Phillips stations.To the northeast, just off the same alignment of Route 66 at 2224 E. Admiral Blvd. in the Kendall-Whittier neighborhood, Phillips 66 Station #473 features similar architecture, except a 1941 expansion brought an attached garage linked to the original 1929 building by an enclosed work area, according to the Tulsa Preservation Commission.Both buildings originally would have been painted emerald green, with multicolored roof shingles and orange signs featuring the Phillips 66 logo. Vivid color scheme aside, these little cottage-style stations were designed to blend into residential neighborhoods.Phillips 66 Station #473 and the Vickery station were both listed on the National Register in 2004. They are among more than 50 properties in Tulsa that are on the National Register of Historic Places.