Sayre, OK

Sayre is Beckham County's seat in western Oklahoma, sitting halfway between Oklahoma City and Amarillo where Interstate 40, old Route 66, and the North Fork of the Red River meet. The 2020 census counted 4,809 residents. The railroad arrived in 1901, and the town grew as an agricultural, oil, and gas center. The courthouse even had a cameo in the 1940 film The Grapes of Wrath, which is a pretty good bit of local trivia for a courthouse town. The red clay hills show up in the light at the edge of town.

Main Street and Historic Route 66 run through the heart of Sayre, while the city's Historic Park keeps a 1940 WPA swimming pool, red-rock rotunda, and red-rock wall in use. Shortgrass Country Museum carries the railroad and ranching story, and SWOSU@Sayre gives western Oklahoma a junior-college campus. Sayre's local scoop is an Oklahoma county seat where road-trip nostalgia, oil-country history, and working-town routines share the same main street.