The Blue Whale of Catoosa: A Route 66 Treasure

When traveling Route 66, there are more must-sees than most people have time to see. Even though we gave ourselves three entire weeks to make it from Chicago to Santa Monica, we had to skip many attractions for logistical reasons.

So we didn’t get to the Barbed Wire Museum (closed on Sundays), didn’t stay at the Munger Moss Motel (Lebanon was halfway between Cuba and Carthage, MO), and didn’t eat at Delgadillo’s Sno-Cap (wasn’t open for breakfast).

But if there’s one thing I strongly, emphatically recommend, to the point of DEMANDING THAT YOU NOT SKIP IT — it’s the Blue Whale of Catoosa, Oklahoma.

all photos copyright Casey Barber – please be respectful and don’t use without permission!

Yes, what you’re seeing in my photos is exactly what it is. A big blue cement whale in a small pond. It wears a ballcap. It has a friendly smile. It is perfect.

The brief backstory of the Blue Whale goes like this:

Retired zoologist and wild animal lover Hugh Davis built the whale as a gift for his wife Zelta in one of the gator ponds of their former animal park Nature’s Acres. Completed in 1972, the whale was intended as a private play area for their grandchildren, complete with water slides near its mouth and a diving platform off its tail.

But the public absolutely could not resist the sight of a friendly blue whale, and the Davis family opened the area as a free-of-charge attraction until 1988.

However, though it’s been lovingly restored by volunteers in the decades since the Davis family abandoned it, and open to anyone who wants to walk into the whale or picnic at the shoreline, you can no longer swim in the pond or dive off / slide from the whale.

When we visited in 2019, the small gift shop on-site was closed (another caveat of traveling Route 66 in November, when everything’s shutting down for the off-season) and a few kids’ toys strewn about on the sandy shoreline remained as the only evidence of human enjoyment at the whale.

But that’s about to change.

The city of Catoosa, which bought the property in 2020 after our visit, has big plans to give the Blue Whale a park it very richly deserves — and just in time for Route 66’s centennial in 2026.

Construction on a brand-new, gorgeously retro-inspired visitor center and whale pod playground, along with updated picnic areas with a firepit and a new gift shop/concession stand— and event space for up to 200 people, what! — is underway.

I find it amazing that this iconic cetacean is still a) not only intact, but getting a new lease on life and b) not yet as famous as other programmatic architecture animals like the Big Duck on Long Island and Lucy the Elephant in New Jersey. After all, it’s inspired by the largest animal on the planet — it should have a reputation just as big!

Catoosa is fewer than 20 miles east of Tulsa, so a detour to the Blue Whale doesn’t take long for visitors who aren’t necessarily traveling the Mother Road. And this humble whale is easy to love, so there’s no excuse not to go and befriend it.

You can also pick up Blue Whale-centric souvenirs from local artists at Buck Atom’s, a stellar spot for “cosmic curios” in Tulsa — another absolute must-stop when you’re there.