Watch: Clean Up Begins At Sapulpa's Christmas Chute

After a successful first holiday season, crews just began the process of taking down Sapulpa's Christmas Chute.

Tuesday, January 3rd 2023, 3:06 pm

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SAPULPA, Okla. -

After a successful first holiday season, crews are taking down Sapulpa's Christmas Chute.

A familiar look is returning to Sapulpa’s downtown as volunteers carefully take down the chute.

Dewey Avenue has been closed for a few months, but it was worth it to some stores that had their best seasons yet.

Volunteer Tami Fleak said the chute brought in around 10,000 visitors each day.

"We were blown away by the fact that we had more people than we could have ever anticipated,” Fleak said.

Six-hundred volunteers worked day and night to make it possible, and it paid off gaining national attention.

Now, close to 200 people are working each day to clear the chute.

Each panel will be taken down one by one and put into storage, and then several decorations on each one will be taken down by hand.

Ten themed walkways are complete with 334 total panels above covered in lights, garland, and full of decorations.

"Then our decorating teams will come in as soon as our panels are lowered, and they'll start taking off the decor. Anything over eight inches has to be taken off and packed away,” Fleak said.

Fleak said the panels will head to a storage facility to be placed in racks and decorations in boxes.

This weekend, Bennett Steel will take down the metal frames.

"And it all has to be marked and labeled and color-coded by theme and then we've got a lot that we can store it on covered, so we can save it for next year. It will be ready to go,” Fleak said.

The road will re-open in a couple of weeks and the chute will be back next Christmas.