Interstate section in Guthrie dedicated to longtime resident couple

Honoring the tireless work of Guthrie resident Clarence Branch from back in the 1950’s, a section of Interstate 35 through the city was formally dedicated to he and his wife, Ethel, Sunday morning at the First Southern Baptist Church Family Life Center.

Some 40 attendees, mostly descendants of the longtime Guthrie residents, were on hand for the ceremony, which was presided over by Brent Stockwell, their grandson. State Sen. Chuck Hall presented Stockwell with an official declaration from the state, naming that stretch of highway the “Clarence and Ethel Branch Memorial Highway.” The recognition resulted from Mr. Branch’s work in farming and laying the sod that ran along the entire stretch of Interstate 35 during its construction in the late ‘50’s after the Eisenhower Administration passed the Federal Highway Act in 1956 authorizing the creation of the interstate highway system.

Branch saw a tremendous opportunity and put together a proposal to plant grass along the new interstate. He was ultimately awarded not only the contract for the entire stretch of the I-35 run through Logan County, but also the entire run of the interstate from the Kansas border all the way to the Red River.

To accomplish this ambitious effort, the Branch family purchased three large farms between Guthrie and Crescent, and converted them all to sod farms. His efforts to streamline the process in order to meet his contracts with the greatest speed and lowest cost made him an early pioneer in growing, cutting and rolling sod for transplanting over large expanses.

To this day, for the sections of the highway that have not been widened or expanded, much of the grass is the original Logan County sod laid through Mr. Branch’s efforts.

Earlier this year, at the request of the Branch couple’s descendants, Sen. Hall and State Rep. Garry Mize led an effort in the Oklahoma Legislature to have the aforementioned section of the highway dedicated as the “Clarence and Ethel Branch Memorial Highway.”

Sen. Hall introduced Senate Bill 1824 for this designation and presented it to the Senate Transportation Committee. The bill successfully emerged from Committee on Feb. 22, 2022 and was passed by the Legislature in late September. By the bill’s language, the designation went into effect on Nov. 1.