Lucille's Roadhouse

In the middle of Oklahoma is a tiny town named Hydro with fewer than a thousand residents. One of them built a two-story filling station (business on the ground floor, living quarters upstairs) in 1929, when Route 66 came through town. Five motel rooms had been added by the time Carl and Lucille Hamons bought the place. Wartime rationing cut into their profits, so Carl drove a truck to make ends meet. Lucille was left to manage the station on her own. She owned it outright after their divorce. Many of her customers were victims of the Great Depression heading to the west coast in search of jobs. She soon gained a reputation for giving food, lodging, gasoline or bus tickets to the hard luck cases that came her way. Her generosity earned her the nickname, “The Mother of the Mother Road.”