Seeking the location of Les Paul’s 1948 automobile accident
A recent surgery reminded of the Les Paul story so I went looking for information on his crash site. This thread on the Gibson Forum has more detail than I've come across before and I was pretty stoked to learn that I had lived not terribly far from where the accident location was when I lived in Chandler, Oklahoma. The problem is, I don't think it's correct. The story says that the accident occurred just west of Davenport, Oklahoma. so let’s start there.
In 1948, Route 66 came into Davenport from the north and then took a 90-degree right turn on 6th St. to continue west about 1000 feet before crossing over the Newkirk-Shawnee branch of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad. The vehicle would not likely been traveling very fast at that point and the road is dead-straight. There is no watercourse there either, so I would disagree strongly that Davenport is the actual crash location.
The next Hwy 66 railroad intersection - also a highway overpass - is at the north end of Chandler, Oklahoma. Again, no watercourse so that location can be excluded.
The next Hwy 66 railroad intersection is at Warwick, Oklahoma about 14 miles west of Davenport. There, Hwy 66 goes through an underpass - vice overpass of the story. That section of road is very straight coming westbound from Chandler before entering the section of road at Warwick that s-curves under the railroad before crossing over the Deep Fork river. That is a slippery road in winter and with the low visibility of a snow storm it would be easy to enter the first left-hand portion of the s-curve and then have problems with the immediate right curve and leaving the road and then crash into the river. In terms of proximity to Davenport, that might be the location of the Les Paul accident site.
But… there is one more possibility 25 miles to the west of Davenport where Hwy 66 once again crosses the railroad at Luther, Oklahoma - on an overpass just as the story description goes - before crossing the river. Just after that overpass, old Hwy 66 used to swing to the north in a curve to cross over another railroad line before swinging south again and heading straight west. That curve has long since been bypassed by a re-alignment of Hwy 66 but it is easily visible on Google Earth/Maps, Bing or whatever aerial viewing method is available. In a storm, low visibility and a tired driver it could easily lead to a vehicle not following the curve adequately and sliding off the road into the river.
Davenport site: 35°42'35.41”N, 96°46'6.56"W
Warwick site: 35°40'50.51”N, 97° 0'31.52"W
Luther site: 35°40'0.98”N, 97°12'3.68"W
So which is it? Warwick or Luther? The drop to the river at either Warwick or Luther is about twenty feet. That follows the story description well enough leaving only the type of rail intersection as either overpass (Luther) or underpass (Warwick). For an accident victim sitting in the river for eight hours, the details might be somewhat murky. If the accident was correctly remembered as an overpass, then the location is probably at Luther. If the railroad intersection was actually an underpass, then the accident was probably at Warwick. The Luther location is quite a bit further to the west from Davenport making the Warwick location somewhat more probable in reference to the Davenport location. With no remaining persons that would have had first-hand knowledge of where the crash site actually was there is no way achieving a definite answer. It’s unlikely that there is still paperwork archived somewhere from the telephone or telegraph firms, that could reveal the truth. It’s been 71 years.
The only thing that all three crash site possibilities have in common is that they lie to the east of the Oklahoma City area where repair crews for the downed telephone and telegraph lines would have been dispatched. To the repair crew on winter roads, it might have seemed as far as Davenport.
So… where do I come into all of this? I had an accident in 2005 that damaged both hands during the process of retiring and moving to a location a few miles west of Chandler, Oklahoma. I’ve been up and down Hwy 66 in both directions with Warwick on one side and Davenport on the other side an through Luther many, many times. Every time we traveled that road we unknowingly passed by the crash site - wherever it really is. In 2019, my hand injury finally caught up with me at surgery number seven. I had my right wrist fused in December 2019 and because I play guitar and whatnot, I asked that the wrist be set at an angle allowing me to continue playing - just like when Les Paul asked that his elbow be re-built at an angle that would let him continue playing. That is what got me into seeking an answer to a question that probably cannot actually be answered.
Up to this month, I've never owned a Gibson guitar but I did finally buy a nice used blue Gibson ES-137. I should have bought a Gibson years ago...
