Scarlet tanagers and goldfinches add amazing flashes of color to the spring landscape. It is stocked with trout in the winter months and attracts anglers from nearby New Mexico. It wraps around the shore of Lake Carl Etling, the largest body of water in this part of Oklahoma and perhaps the only place in the state where you can ice-fish in winter. Not far from Black Mesa is Black Mesa State Park. Near the base of Black Mesa is a creek bed with footprints of dinosaurs preserved in stone. The hike is not for the fainthearted, but on top, you can leave your mark in the box provided and prove to adventurers who follow that you belong to a select and hardy club.īlack Mesa is owned and preserved by The Nature Conservancy. You can use that thrill to sustain you on the hike back down. The four-mile hike to the top will test you then thrill you with a vista that stretches from Kansas to Colorado and New Mexico. You quickly see that these native grasses are stronger than they appear, and you get a sense of the powerful natural forces that shaped this part of Oklahoma. The day I visited Black Mesa, the wind was howling, tossing the prairie grass and threatening to break their seemingly fragile stems. At 4,973 feet above sea level, it's the highest point in Oklahoma. Griggs and the other residents of Kenton live in the long shadow of Black Mesa. We close about 6 or 7, occasionally about 4 or 5 in the winter, but sometimes as late as 9 or 11 in the summer." There is more, but you surely get the idea by now. The sign in the window says, "Open everyday except Christmas about 9 or 10, sometimes as early as 7 in the summer, but some days as late as 11 or 12 in the winter. Griggs' operating hours are nearly as interesting as the place and the man. "We bought property here, and knew we wanted to live here someday. "My late wife and I used to drive over here on long weekends from St. Griggs visited Kenton many times before he settled here. But that, as they say, is part of his charm. Mean cheeseburger and lists highway robbery on his business card before ice, gasoline and groceries. Fittingly, its current owner is Allan Griggs, who spins fascinating yarns, cooks a Barnum, the man who believed there is a sucker born every minute. Legend says the first owner of The Merc was a nephew of showman P.T. Part cafe, part general store and part museum, you can spend hours there looking at dinosaur exhibits, knickknacks and souvenirs. The Merc is short for Kenton Mercantile, a memorable, eclectic stop in the road that can amaze, amuse and educate you. On the highway that is Kenton's main street, you will find three major buildings a church, a small but interesting museum of local history and The Merc. Kenton is the only town in Oklahoma on Mountain Time.
It is like entering another world, another time and, in fact, another time zone. You will not see them, but you will know in your heart that they have been here. It makes the drive into Kenton, population 35, a mystical experience.Įach curve brings a breathtaking view, and you easily believe that the next turn will include wagon trains, herds of bison and nomadic bands of American Indians. The flat land disappears almost in an instant and makes way for landscape seen in old Westerns.
THE mesas of the far northwestern part of the Oklahoma Panhandle rise almost magically just a few miles northwest of Boise City on State Highway 325.
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