Braum Milk Bottle
000 Oklahoma City
Braum Milk Bottle • Oklahoma City, OK • Day Four
The building was constructed in 1930. From 1940-1948 it was home to the Triangle Grocery, named because of its triangular shape. After the milk bottle statue was added in 1948, the name was changed to the Milk Bottle Grocery. The milk bottle has been repainted a number of times, most recently with flex-coat paint to withstand the Oklahoma Heat. The building and milk bottle statue were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.
This was our end point for Day Four in Oklahoma City. We got there just in time to photograph the Braum Milk Bottle and grab dinner, checking our seedy hotel and grab a decent dinner.
Since we were traveling The Road from west to east, OKC was our first Route 66 stop in the big city, and it was culture shock. We arrived with the light fading fast, so we were scrambling to find a place to park. Across the street from the Bottle building was what appeared to be an office building, its parking lot almost empty. We pulled in, drove around the building and looked for a spot that would maximize the chances that the car would be out of the frame (we were still unsure how to photograph it, and from which angle).
We were about to pull into a spot towards the back of the building when one of the guys noticed a local, homeless addict lying next to her car (which doubled as her home, we presumed). She was in the throes of her latest drug-induced adventure. It was a disturbing site. Winslow Arizona this wasn’t.
Not knowing if our friend was expecting guests, we decided it would be in our best interest to keep the car within our line of vision after all. Oh, and lock it. Definitely lock it.
Even without that encounter, I was not initially enamored with this location, or the subject. It was in a congested area, lots of traffic, the light was fading. It seemed like a “check the box” spot. But then something clicked (no pun intended). I remembered that my OM System OM-3 camera (as well as my EM-1) has some really cool computational modes, one of them a built in neutral density (ND) filter. The cars screaming past the Braum building in the golden light seemed like the perfect conditions to create some motion blur. I grabbed about a half dozen frames at a half second exposure.
It turned out to be one of my favorite images of the day.
000 About This Series
From April 12 through April 20, 2025, I was on a Route 66 Photography Adventure (The Trip) with three good friends and like minded photographers. This series is recap of The Trip in stories and images.
All of the images were shot on that historic road or within a couple of miles of it. Neither the images nor stories are necessarily presented in chronological order.
Enjoying the series? Drop a comment.