One word describes the drive behind preserving the Threatt Filling Station, in Luther, Oklahoma— legacy. Today, the family, led by co-founders of Threatt Filling Legacy, LLC and the Threatt Filling Station Foundation Charles David Threatt (David), Edward Threatt, and Linda Fisher, is dedicated to seeing that the historic service station founded in 1915 by their grandfather, Allen Threatt, Sr., stands for generations to come.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1995, the service station has been in the family for over 90 years. Over those years, the Threatt family has made history through the filling station and in their personal lives. This includes Elizabeth Hilton Threatt, the aunt of David and Edward, and Linda integrating and graduating from a university in Oklahoma, and the family stories that described the Threatt Filling Station’s involvement in helping survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921.

Focused on ensuring their safety, African Americans used The Negro Motorist Green Book to find businesses, such as hotels, restaurants, and gas stations, that they could patronize during road trips. While the Threatt Filling Station was not listed in the guidebook, the site still served as a place of refuge.

“The station is physically located between two sundown towns, what were sundown towns at the time,” said David. “So people of color traveling Route 66 couldn't stay in the hotels in those cities. They couldn't go into the restaurants and so forth. People would come to the station, they'd pull around behind the station because they knew they could be safe there and actually spend the night in their vehicle and then be able to get up the next morning, use the facilities, [and] get some gas.”

After Allen Threatt, Sr. passed in 1950, his son Ulysses Grant Threatt took over the filling station until his passing in 1956. His wife, Elizabeth, spearheaded the business until 1974. The back of the building served as a residence from 1958 until 2009, when she died.

Elizabeth, an ambitious woman and pillar in her local community, went to Langston University, a Historically Black University in Langston, Oklahoma, and would later receive a graduate degree from Central State College in Edmond, Oklahoma (now the University of Central Oklahoma), where she was one of only five Black students to integrate the institution. The Elizabeth Threatt Luther Library in Luther is also named in her honor.

Elizabeth, who Edward refers to as Ms. Threatt, was more than just his aunt, she was also his teacher.

“She carried herself in such a way that you couldn’t help but respect her,” said Edward. “And when we started school, at least I did, in a segregated school. Ms. Threatt taught so many Black students. But then, when segregation ended, and we went to the white school, she was one of the few teachers that was able to transition from a segregated school into the white school. And that degree of respect that she received there, it just kept right on going. And she taught everybody the same way [and] treated everyone the same. It was just a degree of respect that people today that she taught still speak of her with a great deal of respect.”

Serving as a place for the Black community to gather for holidays, there were Easter egg hunts, celebrations on the 4th of July, and weekend dances held on the 150 acres of land around the Threatt Filling Station. Reflecting on the time spent on the property as a child, Edward shares how it was also a safe space for the Threatt family.

“Because of where the station was located on [Route 66], we owned a building right next door to it, which at the time it was a bar my dad [Edmond Threatt] had [and] it was [called] the Brown Bomber in recognition of the boxer, Joe Louis,” said Edward. “We also had a full-size baseball diamond [where they had the Negro League baseball games]. We had a Black baseball team.

And the only time that you ever heard that N-Word was when you left home. There was such a comfort in being surrounded by Black people as a kid. Growing up in the country and being surrounded on the weekends by Black people coming home from school, being surrounded by Black people, there’s a certain degree of comfort in that that you don't necessarily get outside of the community.”

While the original plan called for restoring one side of the filling station, the team spent two weeks in Luther to give space to preserve the entire site. One surprise discovery? A cornerstone with the date March 22, 1933 indicated that this wasn’t the original station built in 1915, something the Threatts could confirm through family conversations. The first structure on this site burned in a fire and was rebuilt in the 1930s.