after heading southeast through the Tulsa area. After crossing the Muskogee Turnpike again and bridging the Verdigris River the highway soon enters Wagoner, where it junctions with US-69. Returning once again to a 2-lane road, Highway 51 crosses Ft. Gibson Lake and the town of Hulbert. later, it passes through Tahlequah, where it has a brief concurrency with US-62/SH-10. After spitting with these highways, it heads southeast toward Stilwell, Oklahoma, running concurrent with US-59 for a mile on the way. After leaving Stilwell it provides access to Adair State Park, and then crosses the Arkansas line becoming Arkansas Highway 244, which quickly connects to Arkansas Highway 59. History SH-51 was originally commissioned on June 1, 1927 as a connector from Stilwell to Eldon at SH-27 (present-day US-62). By 1928, it had been extended to Tulsa. On June 15, 1933, it was extended to the east to the Arkansas state line, where it became AR-45. ODOT extended SH-51 west to Stillwater and Perry (via a segment of roadway currently serving as US-177). On March 18, 1935, the section from Stillwater to Perry was rescinded and SH-51 was extended to SH-8 at Okeene. It was then extended to Seiling on October 18, 1938. On March 23, 1943, it was extended to the Texas state line by a concurrency with US-60. The Broken Arrow Expressway was built in the early 1960s and opened in 1964. It was not, however, officially named the Broken Arrow Expressway until July 6, 1999 by H.B. 1455. The steel truss bridge carrying SH-51 across Stillwater Creek west of Stillwater, once considered the gateway into the city, was removed on March 25, 2008. In a first for the state of Oklahoma, the bridge, originally built in 1936, was sold to Payne County for $200,000 and transferred to a county road east of Stillwater, where it was installed over Council Creek. Major intersections Spurs Like many in the Oklahoma state highway system, SH-51 has short spurs branching from it that bear the "51" number with a lettered suffix: SH-51A () runs from SH-58 northeast of Canton to SH-8 near Roman Nose State Park. It is the longest suffixed highway in the system. SH-51B () connects Coweta to US-69 north of Muskogee. It goes through the towns of Porter and Tullahassee. SH-51C (decommissioned) () connected SH-51 west of Stillwater to Carl Blackwell Lake until it was decommissioned in 2005. SH-51D (decommissioned)