Experience Guided Tours at the Historic Arcadia Round Barn on Route 66
January 21, 2025Last Updated: January 22, 2025
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How many times have you driven by the Arcadia Round Barn and thought, “I should stop in and look around?” How many times have you driven by it and didn’t even notice it? No worries. It’s there, and it’s waiting for you. Some day, you’ll take a house guest there to show off the local sites, or maybe one day you’ll shirk the focused commute and pop in for a quick look around. Chances are, you will wonder why you didn’t do it sooner, especially if it’s on a day with live music in the loft or a concert under the old elm tree.
While you can stop in any day of the week from 10 am to 5 pm (except when hours are adjusted for extreme hot or cold weather and a couple of holidays), the barn is now offering official tours on Saturday afternoons at one o’clock.
Tour guides are trained in the history of the iconic landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They’ll tell you how, in 1898, Mr. Odor used native bur oak boards soaked while green in the nearby Deep Fork River and forced them into the curves for the walls and rafters. Your imagination will conjure the scene of how he had to install the first tall rafter himself because his helpers were too chicken to get up that high.
This was all about the time of the land runs when both Black and white farmers named the area “Arcadia,” borrowed from the Greek who described its Arcadia as a “masterpiece of nature.” Eventually, the new State of Oklahoma obtained the right of way between the barn and the railroad. The dirt road, State Highway 7, eventually became Route 66. If Mr. Odor thought his round barn design would protect it from Oklahoma tornadoes (he did), maybe he did not consider the ramifications of the greater good notion of progress that cut a road right through his farm. Eventually, after a heroic effort to restore the barn almost a century later, tourism and its economic lure replaced the barn’s farm purpose of hay storage for the animals, and community dances on Saturday nights (those still happen occasionally!).
We could carry this line of thought one step further and mention that the glory days of Route 66 were eventually choked out for the greater good of efficient interstates and toll roads, but again, nostalgia tourism and movies have given it another chance. “Cars didn’t drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time,” Sally Carrera, Cars (2006).
“Cars didn’t drive on (66) to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time.”
Sally Carrera, Cars
The Arcadia Round Barn has earned its spot on the Route 66 pilgrimage. Even Google mentions it when you search “famous sites on Route 66,” along with the pop bottle down the road. The state tourism department uses round barn images every time it markets Oklahoma’s part of Route 66, the publicity a coveted boon for any attraction or business trying to thrive along Route 66.
While sometimes we drive past the barn without giving it a thought, thousands of visitors seek it out. They come from every state and many nations – actively choosing to get off of the interstates and toll roads to see America between Chicago and Santa Monica, CA, looking for the nostalgia of Main Streets, open roads, neon, and oddities.
Arcadia Round Barn Tour photo by Shellee Graham. Pictured: Andrea Moon, Round Barn Events
Coordinator, with visitors
from Vermont and Ohio.
The Saturday afternoon tours will take it up a notch from the self-guided visit, with colorful stories and probably some laughs. Most everyone who works at the barn is a volunteer. They offer their time because they love to soak up the history of the iconic landmark and chat with visitors from far away and near.
The tours start at 1 pm on Saturdays. Come a little early and expect a 30-minute tour. The tours are free, but you can pitch in some cash at the donation box for the barn’s upkeep and bills. You should also save a little time to shop the gift and thrift shop, where you can buy books, pins, postcards, magnets, and t-shirts for Route 66 and the barn. You can also ask about renting the facility for a meeting, reunion, or wedding.
Let Andrea Moon know if you are coming for a tour at 405-822-6156.
