Oklahoma State Parks See Thousands Visit To View Solar Eclipse

Oklahoma state parks were a popular place on Monday to catch totality. Businesses in McCurtain County made the most of the rare event.

The Oklahoma Tourism Department estimates that the eclipse brings in about $7.4 million a day to the local economy.

Many people said it was their first time in the Broken Bow, Hochatown and Idabel area.

They shopped, ate and slept in hotels and cabins here.

Many of them had a great experience seeing the eclipse, making memories and they hope to come back.

Kathy and Larry Sakas, who live outside of Honolulu, came from Hawaii to see the eclipse in SE Oklahoma after experiencing the 2017 eclipse in Wyoming.

On Tuesday, they are visiting family in Tulsa, which is where Kathy is from, and then continuing on with the vacation.

"We were the first to get a reservation here, so we knew about it. We knew where the centerline was, we knew the duration of totality. The weather is always very difficult to judge, but it opened up perfectly here and a lot of people got to see totality, which is great," Larry said.

The Oklahoma Tourism Department has also been selling special eclipse t-shirts and an exclusive beer at Beavers Bend called Bonding with Bigfoot.