The King of Commerce

By Jimmy Pack Jr. Photographs by Marshall Hawkins

THE KING OF COMMERCE

It is a hot and dusty summer day and the air feels sticky. Still. Route 66 through Kansas is peaceful, packed with little treasures that are unexpected but welcome. The road sign indicates that you’ve entered into

Oklahoma. The first town on this side of the stateline is

Quapaw. It is small and easy to miss entirely. The next town is Commerce. The road is wide and empty, quiet. This section of Mother Road is somehow more remote in its feel, more lonely. There is an echo to more prosperous days. The drive west is surreal, the tranquil road through town is home to old buildings on both sides of the street. At the end of the road there is a structure. It looks like an old gas station, but it has obviously been transformed into something else, a restaurant maybe. The sun scorched pavement is void of people and traffic. The eatery stands out with its design and cheery red and white colors. A giant ice cream cone decorates the front center of the roof. As you exit the vehicle, the heat of the day–outside of the safety of the vehicle’s air conditioning– slaps you in the face and makes you dizzy. Oklahoma heat is no joke. You wander across the road–there are no passing cars–and into the building and it feels like stepping back in time. You’ve reached one of Route 66’s most iconic landmarks: The Dairy King.

In the Beginning

Like many small towns, Commerce, Oklahoma, has a backstory. It started out humbly as a base mining camp, named Hattonville, after Amos Hatton, the developer of the Emma Gordon Lead and Zinc mine, in 1906. Between the years 1913 and 1914, the first post office in the area was built and named North Miami. Hattonville eventually

merged with Tar River, another mining camp, and by June 1914, the post office designated the area as Commerce, named for the Commerce Mining and Royalty Company, which had bought the entire mining camp. The mining town thrived, the economy and population boomed enjoying two newspapers, theatres, banks, and plenty of business to go around.

When Route 66 was commissioned in 1926, it went right through Commerce. It was an exciting time. Zinc mining was a steady job for locals, with chat (the waste from mined zinc) piles slowly growing north of the town like midwestern pyramids to the mining gods. In his famous A Guidebook to Highway 66, Jack Rittenhouse described Commerce in 1946 as “a town composed chiefly of homes of miners, whose cottages and shacks are mingled among the many chat heaps. In the town where US 66 makes a sharp turn, is a large mineral specimen shop…”

That mineral specimen shop, which was also a filling station, started out in 1927 as a Marathon Gas Station. Jesse Broyles and his wife Grace opened the station at 101 North Main Street in Commerce, right at the perpendicular meeting of Commerce’s Main Street and US 66. By 1930, Loren Broyles, a relative of Jesse’s, took over ownership of the station, and Jesse moved into truck driving for an oil company. The Marathon Gas Station stayed in the Broyles family well into the 1950s (It is believed that Grace Broyles owned the property until she sold it, but there is evidence to suggest Minerva, wife of Loren, owned the Dairy King after he passed away in 1938). The station changed its corporate affiliation in the 1950s to a Tydol Flying A gas station. Sometime between the 1940s and 1950s, a family member of the Broyles decided to start selling ice cream along with the tires, tubes, Veedol oil, and batteries, eventually adding the Dairy King name to the front-right window of the building.

Meet the Smiths

By 1962, the Dairy King was focused solely on serving ice cream and food to the local Commerce community and Route 66ers, and that’s when Merl E. “Smiley” Smith Sr. and his wife Lois, purchased the popular spot. “I remember when mom and dad talked to Mrs. Broyles, who owned the Dairy King before we had it. I had to be in junior high, and my brother, sister, and I thought that it was going to be the neatest thing in the world,” said Lois Jean Breedlove, daughter of Merl Sr. and Lois, who now lives in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

Merl Smith Sr. worked at Goodrich. Lois Smith thought that she would like a little income of her own, so the Dairy King was considered her place. But all of the Smith children worked there together, mostly taking care of the front and taking orders, fixing ice cream. Merl Jr., or Buddy, as they called him, was the youngest of the bunch, so he spent his early years napping and playing in the kitchen and pantry area of the Dairy King. “My grandmother was one of the cooks, as was a woman named Harriet, and they would share duties along with another neighbor and friend, Mrs. Larkin, whose boys went to school with me,” said Breedlove. “People would come in all the time, going down the strip, (Route 66/ Commerce Ave), or driving down Main Street. Of course, there were a lot more active businesses back then.”

“I was about in third grade when my parents bought the Dairy King, so I don’t know how much of a help I was, but I do remember getting straws and filling Cokes. I definitely learned the steps to running the place early,” said Breedlove’s sister, Mary Jane Wyatt.

During Vacation Bible School at the church the Smiths attended, Lois Smith made sure that ice cream cones were always provided at the end of the week for every person who attended the school. The Dairy King always advertised in all the local publications—newspapers, magazines, even the yearbook, and had a constant parade of Route 66ers, as well as the locals who constantly went to grab one of the most affordable meals in town. When the family first ran the restaurant, hamburgers sold six for one dollar; eventually, with inflation, the price went to five burgers for four dollars. “You can’t get that anywhere now,” said Breedlove.

From the 1960s to the 1970s, when the main street of Commerce still had a bustling downtown, young people ‘dragged’ down Main in their cars, and always ended right at the Dairy King. “When my dad would get off work, he’d come by and check things out, and he’d see all the kids parked out front at the Dairy King. People would just gather there and sit and talk and eat. And of course, when there was a parade for anything, it would also end right there in front of us.”

Lois Jean, Mary Jane, and their younger brother, Merl (Buddy) Jr. were lucky to enjoy some of the hey-day of 66, but by the time the current owners purchased the Dairy King in 1980, Commerce had been bypassed by Interstate 44 for a few years, and the Smiths were looking to sell.

A Big Gamble

Even before Kenneth and Treva Duboise purchased it, the Dairy King struggled to grab customers who were traveling through Commerce. “Back in the early 1950s, they bypassed our town on the south end, where we had one stoplight. And most people, when they come to the stoplight, instead of coming straight into our small downtown area, they just go around the curve and follow the road [Route 69]. It was my husband’s idea to buy the Dairy King. I don’t think, at that time, we believed that there would be that much time involved running a small restaurant business, but we were wrong, and we were there every day,” says Treva Duboise, who now runs the eatery with her son, Charles.

Kenneth Duboise was born in Commerce, Oklahoma, and worked for Fenix-Scisson, which did contract work for companies like DuPont, that took the Duboise family all over the country. “We were in New Jersey when Charles was born, and then we moved to Wapakoneta, Ohio, where

Treva and Charles Duboise standing outside the eatery.

Neil Armstrong was born. We moved there, I think, two weeks after Armstrong landed on the moon. But wherever we moved, my husband had always talked about owning his own business someday,” said Treva, who never complained about moving all over the country with her husband and their six children.

The Duboises ended up moving outside of Chicago, then to New Orleans, then found themselves back east in Pennsylvania, before eventually relocating back to Commerce in 1975. Back in Oklahoma, Kenneth Duboise’s urge to run his own business only grew, and in 1980, when the Smiths put the Dairy King up for sale, Kenneth and his wife jumped at the opportunity, despite the reality that Route 66’s traffic had reduced to a trickle.

Undeterred by the inconsistent flow of potential traveling patrons, the Dairy King spent decades thriving because of local support. And when people all along Route 66 began fighting to designate The Mother Road as a historic route, the Dairy King earned a whole new set of customers. With preservation efforts stretching outside of the U.S. shores, and Route 66 associations popping up in other countries, the restaurant began to gain in its international notoriety.

“Whenever local people come in, we know most of them by their first names. And many of them we’ve known for years and years. No one here is a stranger, but it’s always a lot of fun when we get folks off of Route 66. I can remember many of them, but there are some who just stick in your head more,” said Charles.

Oprah Wants to See His Shoes

Charles Duboise is not your average person. In many ways, he represents what a large number of Route 66 travelers are specifically hoping to find when they drive the highway. He is friendly, chatty, and represents the somewhat unconventional. On December 1, 1991–at age 24, concerned with his weight of 320 pounds–Charles threw on a pair of Nike sneakers, and, like Forrest Gump, started to run around his hometown of Commerce. And he ran. He ran in the same pair of sneakers for 13 years, putting 29,000 miles on his kicks. And he wanted to share his accomplishment with America. “So, Oprah had on her website a list of ideas for shows, so potential guests could sign-up for one of these shows,” said Charles, who had previously spent a few years looking for topics to get him on the show. “And so, there was this one topic listed that said, ‘How often do you….?’ There were examples after that like, ‘How often do you change your toothbrush,’ and other stuff. Well, the only thing I could think of that I used for a long time was my running shoes. So, I emailed them about January 2004. At the time I had estimated that I ran about 28,000 miles. I hadn’t figured it down to the mile, but it was somewhere in that vicinity.”

In Charles’ initial email he only drafted about 20 words, but he mentioned that he had been wearing the same pair of Nike sneakers for every daily run. Nike, at the time, happened to be one of the sponsors of the Oprah show, and Charles surmised that the mere mention of Nike might get his email pushed to the front of the line. About two weeks after he sent the email, a producer from the Oprah Winfrey show called, and two weeks later, he was a guest on the show. That’s how fast it happened. Before he knew it, Charles was off to the Windy City to make his national appearance. Little Commerce must have buzzed with excitement. Oprah’s team put him up at the Omni Hotel in a three-room suite overlooking the busy Michigan Ave. traffic of Chicago. It was the first time Charles had ever flown before. The show was a success and before they knew it, Charles was back behind the counter at his tiny peaceful eatery.

Kenneth Duboise passed away in February 2008, after briefly serving as the town’s mayor. Treva and Charles have continued to nurture and hold stewardship over the beloved venue, ensuring that it will always be a part of Route 66. “When we bought The Dairy King,” said Treva, “We didn’t think anything of what the end of 66 would do to us. Back then it was just another street, another road. But now we are certainly grateful that it’s had a revival. We love to welcome everybody.”

The Dairy King, like Route 66 herself, is a staple of Oklahoma life, and it continues to serve locals and the daily Route 66 wanderer looking for a bite at an authentic ‘joint’ where the same food and ice cream has been served to generations of people since President Truman held office. The Dairy King’s foundation is secured into the red-clay dirt of the Sooner State, and if the Duboise family have their way, it will continue to faithfully serve patrons in the many years to come.

OUR BIG 5 LESSER-KNOWN AMERICANA STOPS

America is home to a wide variety of weird and wonderful roadside attractions. It is a country that was founded on adventure and out-of-the-box thinking. In today’s hyper crowded world, where everything can be “experienced” online, America still has a few special places, on and off of Route 66, that are best enjoyed in person.

The Donut Hole

Doughnuts and drivethroughs are things that many Americans can’t live without, and in La Puente, California, you can experience both at the same time, in style. The Donut Hole is a drive-through shaped like two doughnuts and was once part of a larger chain. Today, there are few remaining, though, at this spot, they are still serving fresh-baked Americana.

Cabazon Dinosaurs

Even before Jurassic Park, Americans had been fascinated with dinosaurs, and in Cabazon, California, the road tripper can encounter giant dinosaur statues in the vein of Route 66 attractions. Originally, just a T-Rex and a long-necked dinosaur existed, but even more dinos were added as company for the vintage ones. This is a fun family destination.

Museum of the Weird

In Austin, Texas, the vintage roadside attraction or carnival freak show is still alive and well at the Museum of the Weird, where you can see shrunken heads and other classic oddities in the vein of P. T. Barnum, which keeps the spirit of the American “dime museum” around.

Rainbow Rock Shop Dinosaurs

Finding a unique way to advertise is good for a business, and in Holbrook, Arizona, the Rainbow Rock Shop uses some colorful concrete reptiles to do just that. The shop, which sells fossils and other rocks, has quite a few dinosaurs made over 20 years to help draw attention to its offerings.

Mothman Statue and Museum

Bigfoot is the king cryptid, but the Mothman in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, isn’t far behind. The Mothman made his appearances in the late 1960s, and along with the movie of the same name, Point Pleasant has never been the same. Now, a museum and statue welcomes those who come to investigate the local legend.