The last remnant of Oklahoma City’s Hub Cap Alley was cleared this past week, ending decades of the stretch of Robinson Avenue standing out as an eyesore in the shadow of the downtown skyline.
The corridor between the Oklahoma River and the Union Pacific railroad was home to dozens of garages, salvage yards and auto parts businesses for as long as anyone could remember. From my own research, the stretch likely got started during the earliest days of Henry Ford introducing cars to the masses.
Robinson Avenue was a logical spot for such businesses; it was a U.S. highway and located between downtown and the working-class Capitol Hill community. It was also no secret that bootleg liquor could be found in some of the ramshackle houses hidden behind the scrapyards…