{{Use American English|date=July 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Infobox NRHP | embed = | name = Provine Service Station | image = Provine Service Station aka Lucille's Place.jpg | caption = | coordinates = {{coord|35.53718|N|98.58823|W|display=inline,title}} | locmapin = Oklahoma#USA | location = 1/2 mile west of Highway 58 | nearest_city = Hydro, Oklahoma | area = U.S. Route 66 in Oklahoma | built = 1929 | architect = Carl Ditmore | architecture = Bungalow/Craftsman | added = July 17, 1997 | visitation_num = | visitation_year = | refnum = 97000803<ref>{{OKSHPOref|97000803}}</ref> | mpsub = Route 66 and associated historic resources in Oklahoma MPD }} {{Commons category|Provine Service Station}} The '''Provine Service Station''' (later the '''Hamons Court''', '''Hamons' Service Station''' or simply '''Lucille's Place''') is a historic filling station on U.S. Route 66 in Oklahoma. Located a half-mile south of Hydro, Oklahoma and operated by Lucille Hamons from 1941 until her death on August 18, 2000, the site was added to the US National Register of Historic Places in 1997.
'''Lucille Hamons'''' generous assistance to motorists on U.S. Route 66 during hard economic times at the end of the Great Depression would make her a US Route 66 legend, earning the nickname "Mother of the Mother Road."
== History == Opened by Carl Ditmore in 1929, this is one of the few remaining examples of a two-story fuel station with the owner's residence situated above the pumps on an upper floor. W.O. and Ida Waldroup changed the name to Provine Service Station after buying the station in 1934<ref name="nps">{{cite web |author= Staff |url= http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/route66/provine_service_station_hydro.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100519171925/http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/route66/provine_service_station_hydro.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= May 19, 2010 |title= Provine Service Station |work= Route 66: A Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary |publisher= National Park Service |date= August 18, 2000 |accessdate= May 2, 2012}}</ref> and would later add tourist cabins to provide five motel rooms on-site.
Lucille and Carl Hamons acquired the Provine Station in 1941, a few months before the US entry into World War II. Mobilisation for war brought wartime rationing of fuel and tires, causing civilian traffic on the highway to decline.<ref name="owoman">{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=KAE8HXzPZ24C&pg=PA103 |title= O Woman: The Stories of Ordinary Women Who Have Achieved a Measure of Success in their Lives |first= Bea |last= Fogelman |pages=103–12 |year= 2001 |accessdate= May 2, 2012 |isbn= 9780595208227}}</ref> Carl Hamons worked as an independent trucker, leaving Lucille to operate the station and the motel.<ref name="legendary66">{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Oq80iaT38k4C&pg=PA146 |title= Legendary Route 66: A Journey Through Time Along America's Mother Road |first1= Michael Karl |last1= Witzel |first2= Gyvel |last2= Young-Witzel |page= 146 |year= 2007 |accessdate= May 2, 2012 |isbn= 9780760329788}}</ref> Traffic on US 66 would then increase substantially during the 1950s and 1960s, only to vanish with the completion of Interstate 40 in the area in 1971.<ref name="travelok">{{cite web |author= Staff |url= https://www.travelok.com/listings/view.profile/id.14568 |title= Lucille's Service Station |work= TravelOK |publisher= Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department |date= August 18, 2000 |accessdate= May 2, 2012}}</ref>
{{quote|"After Carl got a truck to earn more money, I was alone here to run this place. During this time, people from Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and eastern Oklahoma were travelling the road to the West Coast to find jobs. ... Many times I would have people stop that were completely broke, and I would feed them and give them gas in exchange for some appliance or other articles of value they might have. Sometimes I would just buy their old broke-down cars, and then they would catch the bus and head on west looking for work."|Lucille Hamons<ref name="smithsonian">{{cite web |author= Staff |url= http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/exhibition/exhibition_10_4.html |work= America on the Move |title= Lucille Hamons: "I was alone here to run this place." |publisher= National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution |date= October 24, 2008 |accessdate= May 2, 2012}}</ref>}}
After the highway was bypassed, the motel closed<ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=tsdb1jDU8aQC&pg=PA76 |title= Route 66, Lost & Found: Ruins and Relics Revisited |first1= Russell A. |last1= Olsen |first2= Dennis |last2= Pernu |page= 76 |year= 2004 |accessdate= May 2, 2012 |isbn= 9780760318546}}</ref> and Carl and Lucille would divorce<ref name="owoman"/> but Lucille's would continue to serve a largely local clientele. The station became known for vending very cold beer from its old cooler at a time when nearby Weatherford, Oklahoma (home of Southwestern Oklahoma State University) was officially a dry town.<ref name="nps"/> The last fuel was dispensed in 1986 and the station ultimately became a souvenir shop,<ref>{{cite web |title=Lucille's on Route 66 |author=Bob Hall |format=TV news interview with Lucille Hamons |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gr8KrSRYn4 |year=1988 |publisher=KFOR-TV, Oklahoma City}}</ref> with demand in the 1990s driven largely by nostalgia surrounding a road which by then had become not merely a decommissioned highway but a powerful symbol of a bygone era.<ref name="legendary66"/>
The original "Hamons Court" motel sign was donated by the Hamons family in 2003 to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, where it is now displayed as part of an exhibition on "America on the Move".<ref name="smithsonian"/>
== References == {{reflist}}
{{NRHP in Caddo County, Oklahoma}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Provine Service Station}} Category:Buildings and structures in Caddo County, Oklahoma Category:Buildings and structures on U.S. Route 66 Category:Gas stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Oklahoma Category:Retail buildings in Oklahoma Category:U.S. Route 66 in Oklahoma Category:National Register of Historic Places in Caddo County, Oklahoma