Sayre Map
Sayre is a city in and the county seat of Beckham County, in Western Oklahoma, the United States. It is half-way between Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Amarillo, Texas on Interstate 40 and the former U.S. Route 66. The population was 4,375 at the 2010 census.
After the Civil War in the United States, Congress wanted to stimulate the economy and aid the growth of the nation. The biggest way that they achieved this was to promote the building of the western railroads. Upon completion of the Union Pacific-Central Pacific joining together in 1869 with the Golden Spike, other railroads trying to capitalize on commerce and trade also began crossing the western country. This included the Great Northern and Burlington in the far north, the Southern Pacific on the extreme southern border.
Eventually this would lead to rails crossing Indian Territory, present day Oklahoma, around the turn of the century from the 1800s to the 1900s. A new rail line was extended from Weatherford, Oklahoma, to Texola, Oklahoma, by McCabe & Steen Contractors, in July 1901. Entrepreneurs would buy land near were the new tracks where being laid, and also near a source of water. The Choctaw Town site and Improvement Company did this, and when the railroad crossed the North Fork of the Red River in Western Indian Territory an instant town sprang up, on 14 September 1901.
Nearby cities include Erick, Elk City, Sweetwater, Willow, Carter.