☰Okemah

Anyone heading to Okemah should read Bound for Glory by Woody Guthrie — his lightly fictionalised autobiography, opening in Okemah during the boomtown oil years and following him through the Dust Bowl to California. It is the single best primer on the town and the man.

Ramblin' Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie by Ed Cray is the standard biography: thorough, balanced, and unsentimental. It fills in the parts Woody left out and traces his complicated political life through the 1940s and 50s.

For the Oklahoma context, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck takes the same Dust Bowl migration Guthrie wrote songs about and turns it into one of the great American novels. The Joad family leave from just up the road in Sallisaw.

Henryetta, about 15 miles east on I-40, is a slightly larger town with more services and a small museum focused on its own history as a coal-mining centre. It is the nearest place to find a hardware store or a chain supermarket.

Eufaula, about 50 miles southeast, sits on the edge of Lake Eufaula — the largest lake in Oklahoma and one of the biggest man-made lakes in the United States. The lake offers fishing, boating, and camping, and is a popular weekend destination for central Oklahomans.

Oklahoma City is about 70 miles west on I-40 and makes a reasonable base for exploring the region if Okemah's limited accommodation is full during WoodyFest. The National Memorial and Museum there — built on the site of the 1995 bombing — is one of the more affecting historical sites in the state.

Okemah is a small town with a handful of diners, BBQ joints, and chains along the I-40 frontage road. Most travellers eat at one of the cafes downtown or drive five minutes north to the gas-station fast-food cluster. During the folk festival the town fills up and lines form everywhere; bring patience.

Okemah is small enough to walk across in fifteen minutes. The main street, Broadway, and the courthouse square are the centre of town; the Crystal Theatre, Guthrie statue, and most of the cafes are all within easy walking distance of each other.

Outside of downtown you will need a car. Highland Cemetery is a short drive east, and Lake Okemah is a few miles outside of town. There is no local bus service or taxi. Rideshare apps are unreliable this far from a city — bring your own vehicle.

Okemah sits right on Interstate 40, about 70 miles east of Oklahoma City and 90 miles west of the Arkansas border. From either direction it is a straightforward drive; exit at US-62 and you are downtown in two minutes.

There is no commercial airport or passenger train in the area. The nearest major airport is Oklahoma City (OKC), and Tulsa (TUL) is about 75 miles north. Greyhound runs intercity buses along I-40 but does not stop in Okemah itself — the nearest stops are in Henryetta and Shawnee.

Most of what there is to see in Okemah is tied in some way to Woody Guthrie — his birthplace, his statue, the Crystal Theatre that hosts the festival every July. Beyond Guthrie, the town is a quiet stop with a half-empty main street and a small but interesting cemetery on the east side.

There is one obvious time to come to Okemah: the four days of the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in mid-July, around Guthrie's birthday on 14 July. The town's population doubles, the Crystal Theatre is packed, and there is music in the streets till the small hours. Outside of WoodyFest, Okemah is very quiet.

Oklahoma summers are hot — daytime highs regularly clear 35 degrees Celsius — so festival-goers come prepared with hats, sunscreen, and water. Spring and autumn are pleasanter but the town has little to offer outside the festival. Winter is cold and grey; skip it unless you are passing through.