Shortgrass Country Museum

2000 Millennium Update

The Shortgrass Country Museum is located in Sayre's old Rock Island Depot, 106 E. Poplar Street. 
The depot is perhaps Sayre's most important historical landmark; were it not for the train, Sayre 
might never have been born.

The need for the railroads was brought forcibly to the attention of the federal government
during the Civil War, when difficulties arose in transporting soldiers and supplies.  After the
war, Congress undertook a plan to stimulate the building of the railroads across Indian Territory. 
Soon the glinting ribbons of steel would stretch from one coast to the other.

In July of 1901, McCabe and Steen Contractors graded the road into Indian Territory, extending
the line from Weatherford to Texola.  The train was coming!

The arrival of the railroad meant prosperity to those enterprising pioneers who had already
camped along the banks of the nearby river and numerous creeks.  The town sprang up--shortly
before the railroad's arrival - on September 14, 1901, by the completion of a town lot sale held
by the Choctaw Town site and Improvement Company.  Immediately a building boom was started.  
Storeowners in nearby towns moved their businesses to Sayre almost overnight.  (Reports say the 
population of Sayre was as high as 1,000 within one year!)

The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway Company (called CRI&P) leased the line and finished
the building of the railroad west to Tucumcari, NM. This completion in the center of the country 
completed the line - linking the east coast to the west!

The town was named after a railroad man, Robert Heysham Sayre, of Pennsylvania.  He was a chief 
engineer and a stockholder in the railroad constructed through Sayre.

The first depot was located in the area on the west end of Main Street, locally known as
"Railroad Hill".  Next to the early day depot was the Round House and the fancy Harvey Eating
House.

Around 1930, the depot was moved to its present day location in the center of downtown.  A
1932 newspaper hailed the opening of the new depot with great fanfare.

September 26, 1979, marked the official demise of the Rock Island line - the end of the era of
the train.  Gone are the days when the steam engine's smoke plume billowed high in the quiet
summer sky as a majestic symbol of a nation bound on might landfarings.

A decade later, the Historical Society was established, and restoration of the depot began. 
The depot would house the Shortgrass Country Museum, dedicated to the preservation of the
history of Western Oklahoma.  The grand opening was April 11, 1992, coinciding with the
Centennial Celebration of the April 1892 land run which opened this area, the Cheyenne and
Arapaho lands, to white settlement.  The museum features changing displays on all aspects of
early-day life in Shortgrass Country.

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