Nestled in Missouri’s Ozark Highlands, St. James Winery has been crafting award-winning wines since 1970. Founded by the Hofherr family, the winery blends Old World tradition with Missouri’s unique terroir, producing standout Norton and fruit wines. Missouri’s limestone-rich soil and climate create bold, complex flavors you won’t find anywhere else. Still family-owned, St. James continues to celebrate Missouri’s rich winemaking heritage with every bottle poured.
44 In the Heartland
By Mitchell Brown
The Ariston Cafe, established in 1924 by Greek immigrant Pete Adam in Carlinville, Illinois, relocated to Litchfield in 1930 following a Route 66 realignment. In 1935, it settled into its current location at 413 Old Route 66 North and has been hopping ever since. Recognized as one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants on the Mother Road, the Ariston was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006, and its story and neon continue to shine.
50 A Conversation with Hans Zimmer
By Brennen Matthews
Step into the mind of legendary composer Hans Zimmer in this exclusive magazine feature. From Inception to The Lion King, Zimmer shares insights into his creative process, groundbreaking techniques, and the emotional depth behind his iconic scores. Discover how he crafts unforgettable cinematic experiences, collaborates with visionary filmmakers, and continues to redefine film music. A must-read for music lovers and film enthusiasts alike!
60 An Elephant of a Story
By Jake Baur
Perched in Margate, New Jersey, Lucy the Elephant stands as a whimsical monument to both architecture and dreams. Built in 1881 by James V. Lafferty, she was originally a real estate gimmick but grew to symbolize the quirky charm of the Jersey Shore. With her giant, weathered frame gazing out over the sea, Lucy evokes a timeless sense of wonder—a steadfast guardian of the past, standing proudly through the years.
84 A Brand New Face
By Cheryl Eichar Jett
Once a Ford Model T assembly plant in 1916, the Fordson Hotel in Oklahoma City has been reinvented while keeping its industrial soul intact. This historic landmark became the stylish 21c Museum Hotel in 2016, blending contemporary art with boutique luxury. Now rebranded as the Fordson, it offers loftstyle rooms, bold design, and Mary Eddy’s Dining Room—where history, creativity, and culinary excellence collide in a space like no other in town.
ON THE COVER
Tee Pee Curios, Tucumcari, NM. Photograph by Efren Lopez/ Route66Images.
EXPLORE GRANTS!
There is plenty for everyone to see and do in Grants, NM. Cruise, Camp, Hike, Sightsee, Stargaze, Eat, Enjoy, Shop and Stay a while. Experiences here are authentic, from our diverse cultures and distinctive landscapes found nowhere else, to the people who are warmhearted and sincere.
Salvation Mountain. Niland, California.
Spring is finally here, bringing that undeniable itch to hit the open road. The days are stretching longer, the air is warming up, and the call of adventure is impossible to ignore. After months of winter’s chill, there’s nothing better than rolling down the windows, feeling the breeze, and setting off to rediscover the beauty that makes this country so special.
In this issue, we celebrate the perfect season for road trips and uncover some of the most fascinating stops along the way—places that embody history, hospitality, and the unique spirit of the open road.
One such stop is the Ariston Cafe in Litchfield, Illinois. Established in 1924, this charming eatery is more than just a place to grab a bite—it’s a reflection of the smalltown heartland that keeps America’s roads vibrant. Whether you’re fueling up for a long drive or simply soaking in the local culture, the Ariston Cafe is a reminder that the best meals are often found in the most unexpected places, and this homey spot is one that has a story worth knowing.
And what’s a great journey without great wine? Ask most people and they envision the vineyards of sunny California, not the lush, forested regions of the Show Me State, but Missouri’s St. James Winery has been producing delicious wines since it opened its doors in 1970, offering travelers the perfect sip to end a long day on the road. With a dedication to craftsmanship and a deep appreciation for the region’s agricultural bounty, family-owned St. James Winery showcases the best of Missouri’s wine country.
As you journey westward, Oklahoma City beckons with its own gem —the Fordson Hotel. Originally built in 1918 as a Ford Motor Company assembly and distribution center, the building later evolved into the Fred Jones Manufacturing Plant before it was reimagined as the boutique hotel, 21c Museum Hotel. Now inspired by its past, the property has gone back to its motoring roots and undergone a meticulous rebranding, transforming once again into the luxurious Fordson Hotel. Steeped in automotive heritage, complete with a fully restored 1920s Model T as its centerpiece, the Fordson Hotel is a destination in itself, proving that the road to adventure doesn’t always mean sacrificing comfort. As a matter of fact, I would argue that a trip down today’s modern version of the Mother Road is one that demands even greater diversity than ever before. Mixing and matching historical experiences with a little bit of luxury is always a memorable way to create an unforgettable journey.
Route 66 is lined with countless iconic landmarks, but few are as stirring as the Mojave Cross in Goffs, California. First erected in 1934, this solemn and beautiful symbol has stood as a tribute to fallen soldiers for nearly a century. Surrounded by the stark beauty of the desert, the cross serves as a poignant reminder of sacrifice and remembrance. It has always been a place that encourages reflection, a moment of pause amid the miles traveled, and a connection to something greater than oneself. Today, the historic Goffs Schoolhouse and Museum showcase a replica of the famous cross, yet another reason to make sure to venture into the California desert and spend some time reflecting and pondering on all of the sacrifices that so many have given for each of us and our great nation.
This issue is a tribute to the timeless joy of road-tripping. It’s a celebration of the stories, places, and people that make the journey just as memorable as the destination. And of course, make sure to take as many copies of ROUTE Magazine as your vehicle can hold! They’ll come in handy as you travel. Knowing the real stories and people behind classic Americana and roadside stops always enhances the experience. If you’ve not yet picked up a copy of my book, Miles to Go: An African Family in Search of America Along Route 66, I’d be delighted to share the story with you. There are a hundred ways to experience the thrills of the Great American road trip, especially down an iconic road like Route 66, and this is the story of our very first adventure. It is an introduction to both the Mother Road and a way of life that once was and is still found in some places, and it happened at one of the most uncertain, insecure times in our lives. Most of all, it is the story of my family and I as we interact with a host of wonderful people, places, and personal history and stories. Grab yourself a copy and share in the journey with us. Amazing stories are meant to be shared. Be blessed this season and stay safe on the road.
Blessings,
Brennen Matthews
Editor
ROUTE
PUBLISHER
Thin Tread Media
EDITOR
Brennen Matthews
DEPUTY EDITOR
Kate Wambui
EDITOR-AT-LARGE
Nick Gerlich
LEAD EDITORIAL
PHOTOGRAPHER
David J. Schwartz
LAYOUT AND DESIGN
Tom Heffron
DIGITAL
Yasir Ahmed
ILLUSTRATOR
Jennifer Mallon
EDITORIAL INTERNS
Emma Steinmetz
Jake Baur
CONTRIBUTORS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS
Aaron Garza
Agnes Holland
Carol M. Highsmith
Chandler O’Leary
Cheryl Eichar Jett
Ethan Elmes
Efren Lopez
Jim Luning
Lee Kirby
Liz Lara-Collado
Mitchell Brown
Stephen Plummer
Editorial submissions should be sent to brennen@routemagazine.us.
To subscribe or purchase available back issues visit us at www.routemagazine.us.
Advertising inquiries should be sent to advertising@routemagazine.us.
ROUTE is published six times per year by Thin Tread Media. No part of this publication may be copied or reprinted without the written consent of the Publisher. The views expressed by the contributors are not necessarily those of the Publisher, Editor, or service contractors. Every effort has been made to maintain the accuracy of the information presented in this publication. No responsibility is assumed for errors, changes or omissions. The Publisher does not take any responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photography.
Behind Bars: Carlinville’s Cannonball Jail
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Located in Macoupin County, along historic Route 66 in Illinois, is the quaint midwestern town of Carlinville. With a history steeped in coal mining, Carlinville is a town where community thrives. At the center of the historic downtown district lies the brick-paved Carlinville Historic Square, a community hub surrounded by historic buildings, antique stores, and cafes. A large cedar gazebo at the center stands on the site of a courthouse where Abraham Lincoln once practiced law. But Carlinville’s architectural heritage extends beyond its town square. One of Carlinville’s most famous landmarks, right across from the prominent Million Dollar Courthouse, is the Cannonball Jail, an architectural marvel for the time. Following a few unfortunate turn of events with past jails for the large county, it was decided a new construction method was needed. “Previous jails were too small, and one or more burned down. That’s why this one was made of stone,” said Mary Tinder, Member of the Macoupin County Cannonball Jail Ambassador Team. “Macoupin is a large county, and we needed more space for prisoners. 864 square miles is a lot for one sheriff to handle.”
to cook and do the prisoners’ laundry. While Carlinville was a modestly populated community — the number was estimated to be between two and three thousand people — it’s always been a predominately farming and coal mining town, so these weren’t exactly hardened criminals taking up the space. “There were drifters, hobos from trains…. Some were jailed for drunkenness, stealing chickens, mostly theft and rowdy behavior,” said Andrea Duncan, fellow Ambassador Team Member. “Because of bootlegging, it probably kept law enforcement on their toes during the times of Prohibition.”
The jail earned its nickname for having surplus Civil Warera cannonballs embedded between 20 inches of solid stone walls, intended to prevent prisoners from escaping. The thought was that nobody could chip their way out through a cannonball, and in the jail’s history, only one group ever did. Five men managed to escape by loosening the bars of their cell but were quickly caught on the town’s main street. Its secure design helped it remain operational for over a century.
Designed by Elijah E. Myers — a prominent 19th Century architect who designed capitol buildings in three U.S. states (Michigan, Texas, and Colorado) as well as Carlinville’s controversial Macoupin County Courthouse — the threestory structure features a striking Gothic Revival design, resembling a medieval castle more than a small town jail. Meyers tended to draw inspiration from Victorian Classic and Neo-Classical styles, evident in the jail’s iron railings and ornamental details. Inside, the ceilings are low, and cells narrow. The contract price for the jail was $14,000 ($300,000 today, when adjusted for inflation). By 1869, the jail was available for the county’s use. It was built with the intended capacity to hold seventeen prisoners, but at times it would hold twice that number, which could lead to cramped conditions and non-existent privacy for the inmates. It operated as a jail and apartment complex, with the sheriff living on the second and third floors with his family. It was also often customary for the sheriff’s wife
In 1988, after 119 years of service, the jail locked the doors and threw away the proverbial key. Its visual aesthetic made it a popular tourist attraction, but it eventually became closed to the public due to old age and environmental issues, making it a potential hazard. That didn’t stop visitors from regularly stopping by and getting pictures of the jail’s exterior, so after several decades, the ball was set in motion to restore the building. Funded through a grant received in 2022 by the Great Rivers & Routes Tourism Bureau, the jail officially became the Macoupin County Visitors Center and opened its doors again in August 2023.
The restoration effort did the trick to catch the eye of Route 66 fanatics, because in 2023 the Ambassador Team recorded visitors coming in from at least 38 states and 19 countries, with Tinder proclaiming, “The old girl was retired, but we are so glad we have her back and open for show. Not prisoners. Just looking at this beautiful old building humbles me, knowing I have the privilege of unlocking its door for visitors every day.”
Photograph by David J. Schwartz –Pics On Route 66.
NEW GIRL IN TOWN
Photograph by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66
Muffler Man giants are no strangers to America’s quieter two-lane highways. They’ve been around since the 1960s. As a matter of fact, they once dominated the landscape, an impossible to miss calling card for businesses trying to lure motorists off of the busy highway. However, for many modern travelers, the legacy of mid-century advertising, even of the huge fiberglass variety, has been largely lost. Thankfully, individuals across the land, especially along America’s most famous highway, are working hard to keep this quirky culture alive and relevant. Down in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there is one smaller lady and one giant one that are making a BIG impression.
When Mary Beth Babcock opened Buck Atom’s Cosmic Curios in April 2018, in a former 1950’s PEMCO gas station, she wanted to add something that would really make her shop stand out and bring attention to Route 66 and Tulsa. A serendipitous encounter with American Giants owner Joel Baker in August 2018, who locates and restores old Muffler Men to their former glory, set Babcock’s creative wheels churning. Baker then introduced Babcock to Mark Cline of Enchanted Castle Studios, an artist in Virginia who specializes in fiberglass structures, and Babcock’s dream of owning her own unique Muffler Man giant quickly took shape. In May 2019, Buck Atom, a 20-foot space cowboy, landed on Route 66 as the newest Muffler Man on the Mother Road. Buck instantly stole the hearts of locals and travelers alike and the trendy gift shop, located only a stone’s throw away from the famous neon Meadow Gold sign, became an “overnight” sensation. Fast forward five years and now, this beloved giant has inspired a helpmate: a 19-foot tall, space cowgirl — of the Uniroyal variety — named Stella.
The first Uniroyal Gal was designed in the 1960s by International Fiberglass specifically for the Uniroyal Tire Company, which wanted a female counterpart to the popular male Muffler Men statues that had become prevalent across the country. Miss Uniroyal sported a blouse and a skirt, with her right hand on her hip and the left hand raised to hold whatever she was promoting. It’s not clear how many of these female giants were produced, but there are not very many female fiberglass figures still in existence today, let alone on the Mother Road, so the addition of a new one is notable.
The inspiration for Stella came to Babcock one day as she was gazing at the stars atop Black Mesa, the highest point of Oklahoma. “I thought, why not add something new, you’ve got all of these muffler men — over 200 of them — and [only] 19 of the Uniroyal gals still around. That is a major difference, so I thought, how cool to make a girl!” Then, after a conversation with Mark Cline in November 2022 about Stella’s construction, the process truly commenced. “I just thought, let me ask Mark if he has time — because we already had a relationship established from Buck — to make a space cowgirl. He was like, ‘Oh, would I!’” Stella dons a Stetson cowboy hat, tilted to the side over dark black hair, and she has brown eyes, paired with
silver eyeshadow to reinforce a cosmic look. Stella’s outfit, inspired by vintage cowgirl clothing, is a blue ascot and red cowgirl dress with a Route 66 belt buckle, of course. She has an upcycled ray gun in her left hand, and a jetpack, both made by Josh Waddell of 3 Bulls Upcycling. The ray gun and jetpack are made to emphasize the space cowgirl look, and the jetpack has the City of Tulsa flag painted on it. In her right hand, she has a lasso and a hand stamped, silver, turquoise cuff customized by Beverly Wissen of Genuine Oklahoma Souvenirs. Lastly, Stella’s boots are designed by Babcock herself: yellow butterflies, inspired by Babcock’s late mother, with silver arrows, and Oklahoma’s state flower, the vibrant red and yellow Indian Blanket wildflower. She makes quite the impression to say the least!
The creation of Stella Atom had enormous support, but it is not a cheap process to create a personalized fiberglass giant. “At the end of the day, I paid around $45,000 for Stella, including accessories, transportation, installation, concrete base, and permits,” said Babcock. “We created sponsorship levels: we sold sculptures from Scott [Farmer], we had a sponsor list with donations anywhere from $5001,000, and a big plaque installed in the concrete next to her listing these sponsors. We even had Visit Tulsa jump on board. The Oklahoma and Missouri Route 66 associations also supported her creation. How cool that another state wants to help!”
In many ways, the addition of a new giant is always an energized, strongly supported effort. Since Route 66’s full decommission in 1985, far too many historic landmarks and destinations have disappeared, and over the last few years, there seems to be more and more vanishing. Forever. So, when enthusiastic businessowners endeavor to bring a new creation that is more of a flash from the past, there is tremendous support. Stella has joined a large and committed Route 66 family. “What Stella means to me will evolve over time. I just want her to stand strong and show that you can be a strong woman, you can shoot for the stars and dream big. I have always been passionate about retail and purchasing my 1950’s PEMCO gas station on Route 66 was an absolute dream. As long as I’m alive and I can make a living by bringing my colorful dreams to life, I will continue adding attractions and hope to inspire others,” shared Babcock.
After Cline’s construction of Stella was completed, she was transported by Michael Younkin, of (Re) Giant, from Virginia to Illinois, to construct her internal structure. Then, with approval from the City of Tulsa, Stella was on her way to Oklahoma, installed by Younkin’s team on the West side of the Cosmic Curios compound in June 2024. Stella represents meaningful elements woven together, as a homage to her character and symbol of the women on Route 66. The support of Tulsa, other states, and lovers of the Mother Road have brought Babcock’s wild imagination of Stella to life. This space cowgirl preserves a staple of 1960s advertising and Americana culture along Oklahoma’s stretch of Route 66 that is right in line with the culture that America’s Main Street has always promoted.
THE MOJAVE CROSS
by Brennen Matthews
Photograph
Perched atop boulders, amid arid shrubs, cacti, and grainy sand, a six-foot-tall white cross stands sentinel over the desert landscape. Known as the Mojave Cross, it holds a storied and complex history, rooted in both its role as a war memorial, while also stirring discussion as a representation of Christianity. After years of uncertainty marked by court rulings, appeals, and even a mysterious disappearance, the Mojave Cross has at last found a permanent and secure home at the Goffs Schoolhouse Museum in San Bernardino County.
The story of the Mojave Cross begins in 1934, when John Riley Bembry, an army combat veteran, along with fellow World War I veterans and homesteaders, decided to erect a simple wooden cross on a granite rock near Cima Road, eight miles east of Barstow. Sponsored by the now-defunct Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) of Death Valley, the plain and unadorned cross was a quiet tribute to their fellow comrades who fought and died in battle. While not much is widely known about Bembry’s personal history, he was the last caretaker of the cross while living in the Mojave Desert. When he fell ill in the 1970s, he asked his friend Henry Sandoz to take over its care. After Bembry’s death in 1983, Sandoz replaced the then deteriorating wooden cross with one made of steel pipes. And so, this quiet symbol of sacrifice continued to stand in solitude atop Sunrise Rock without much attention. However, its obscurity abruptly ended when the cross became the center of a national controversy. In 1994, the Mojave National Preserve was congressionally designated as wilderness under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service (NPS), including the area encompassing Sunrise Rock and the site of the Mojave Cross. This triggered a legal battle when a former park employee, with support from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), filed a lawsuit to have the cross removed arguing that a religious symbol should not be allowed on federal land. Supporters of the cross maintained that it was a war memorial and not an endorsement of religion. In 2001, as the legal battle continued, a federal court ordered the cross to be covered, and it remained shrouded in a plywood box for years, awaiting its fate. The case eventually escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court, who, in 2010, ruled in favor of the cross remaining, recognizing its secular significance as a war memorial. After a decade-long legal battle, the future of the cross seemed secure—or so it was believed. Less than two weeks after the Supreme Court decision, the cross vanished.
“I was leading a field trip the day before it was stolen. Our group was there around 4 PM. The cross was stolen at night, and a Park Service employee drove by the next morning and reported it missing,” explained Debbie Miller, a member and field trip coordinator at Goffs for 26 years.
The disappearance of the cross was a blow to those who had fought for its preservation. Search efforts proved fruitless. Despite the significant costs and stress that the cross brought to the Sandozes over the years, they remained committed to their promise to Bembry and sought to install a replica.
Then, in 2012, two years after the Mojave Cross vanished, it mysteriously reappeared, abandoned near Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco. “We don’t know the name of the person who found the cross, but it was discovered on I-35, about three miles south of I-92, by the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department,” said Miller. “The Sheriff’s department contacted the National Park Service, and the NPS picked it up.”
A note was attached to the cross. Dated November 4, 2012, the note was addressed, “Dear America.” The writer explained his reasons for taking the cross and apologized to the Sandozes, stating that the cross had earned its place on Sunrise Rock.
“It’s an important side of the story to be told,” said Miller, “The U.S. is about free speech. Whoever stole the cross didn’t do it to be malicious, they did it as a demonstration.” The cross was returned to the Sandozes for safe keeping.
Fast forward to 2022: The Mojave Cross remained at the forefront of Miller’s thoughts, and she envisioned it once again serving as a memorial at Goffs. To make this vision a reality, she reached out to Wanda Sandoz, the widow of Henry Sandoz, who had passed away in 2015. As the last custodian of the original cross, Wanda had kept it concealed in her brother’s barn for twelve years, fearing theft if it were publicly displayed. On March 16th, 2022, Wanda transferred the ownership rights of the cross to Goffs.
“Four members of the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association, including myself, traveled to Mountain Pass to pick up the cross. Since it’s only six feet tall, it fit into the bed of the truck,” explained Miller.
The Goffs Schoolhouse Museum was established in 1934 by Dennis Casebier, who was passionate about preserving Mojave artifacts and culture. What began as a restored schoolhouse, piece by piece, soon evolved into a museum.
“It’s more of a teaching facility, really. As archeologists say, once artifacts are removed from their original location, they lose their meaning. The museum is a growing archive. We believe that artifacts deserve to be displayed and appreciated,” continued Miller. “When we made the Mojave cross exhibit, we really wanted it to have the look and feel of the original.”
On Veterans Day in 2012, a new replica, 7-foot metal replacement cross was installed on Sunrise Rock near Teutonia Peak, restoring the memorial to its original intent. The cross on display at Goffs is the original one made by Sandoz, which was stolen. “To honor all veterans, we’ve included a feature in the exhibit where people can purchase engraved bricks with veterans’ names. These bricks are then placed around the cross. They can be dedicated to any veteran, whether living or deceased,” said Miller.
After years of legal and emotional battles, the Mojave Cross was finally relocated to its new home at the Goffs Schoolhouse Museum in San Bernardino County, away from the land disputes, but not far from its original location. Here, the simple cross continues to serve as a tribute to veterans, a memorial that once sparked national debates but now stands quietly, amidst the desert’s enduring silence.
MORE GRAPES, LESS WRATH
By
Jim Luning
Photographs by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66
Walk into any wine bar in Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles, and you are not likely going to see a section of “Missouri Wines” on their wine list. Nor are you likely to overhear someone leaning across the bar to ask the bartender if they have that Missouri Pinot they have been hearing about. Stateside, wines tend to be from the more prominent areas like California and Oregon, with most menus showcasing offerings from countries like Spain, France, and Italy. These ancient European nations are all famous for their spectacular vineyards, but perhaps not so much Missouri. So, you may be surprised to discover that, at one time, Missouri had the third-largest winery in the world and that today, just off of Historic Route 66 in St. James, Missouri, is the state’s largest and most awarded winery; a story that goes back well over 100 years and was birthed by Italian immigrants.
Old World Clippings
Missouri became a state in 1821. The years that closely followed were filled with growth of both infrastructure and population. Railroads had put out the word that they were looking for any and all able-bodied men to come and help with construction. Land and resources were abundant, and this was a calling card to the large influx of immigrants from Germany and Italy.
A German author by the name of Gottfried Duden did his part to promote the Missouri experience, as well. Believing that the new state could be the answer to the thenoverpopulation and poverty of Germany as a whole, Duden set out to explore this new region with hopes of reporting his findings back to Germany. Upon arriving in St. Louis in 1824, he managed to find and hire Nathan Boone, son of the famous Daniel Boone, as a guide. The younger Boone was working as a government land surveyor and knew the Missouri River Valley well. Duden quickly fell in love with and bought a tract of land near what is now known as the town of Dutzow.
Wasting little time, he built a cabin near a lake on the land and, for the next three years, kept detailed notes of the climate, the growing conditions, and his daily doings. This journal was published as a book called “Report on a Journey to the Western States of North America: and a Stay of Several Years Along the Missouri,” which became a bestseller in Germany. The book was not just an almanac for living in Missouri, but it was also a hugely successful promotion for immigration to the state. Duden’s near love letter waxing about his newfound home resonated with his countrymen, helping to solidify the decision for many to upend their lives and head to this new frontier in America.
As the German and Italian immigrant population grew, so did the artifacts they brought with them — including clippings from grape vines from their homeland.
The Germans planted vineyards in the town of Hermann, which became the epicenter for grapevine growth and, eventually, wine production in Missouri.
The first vine clippings from the Old World were planted in the early 1840s. By 1848, they were producing 10,000 gallons of wine and 1,855,500 acres were under cultivation. This boost in production can be attributed to German immigrant George Husmann, a self-taught scientist who began researching soil types. He is cited as discovering the crossing of European vines with the very robust native American vines to help the plants resist the harsh weather patterns of the midwestern state. 1855 was also the year that Husmann is said to have introduced the Concord grape to Missouri, the beginning of that grape’s long and storied history in the region.
By the 1880s, the Missouri wine industry was flourishing, with the state producing almost as much wine as California, with an overall production reaching 2,000,000 gallons a year. Between 1873 and 1904, Stone Hill Winery in Hermann was the third-largest winery in the world and second in the United States. By 1906, Hermann boasted 60 wineries — and then Prohibition arrived.
Prohibition Put a Cork in It
In 1920, the United States went dry. The result of an act of Congress immediately and completely shut down wine and all alcohol production across the country. In Missouri, things were taken a step further, with vines getting yanked out of the ground and wine production equipment getting tossed down wells. Vineyards were destroyed, and wineries were transformed into other acceptable business endeavors. The only winery — in all of Missouri — to stay intact was the St. Stanislaus Novitiate in St. Louis, which was run by Jesuit priests. It was saved as they produced wine for sacramental purposes only.
In the years following Prohibition and the Depression, wine production had basically vanished from the Missouri landscape. The keepers of the old ways of winemaking from Europe passed or moved on; there was no market for grapes other than a slim market in juice. Decades would pass before glimmers of a resurgence would begin, and a thriving winery, inspired by Italian immigrants, would be established right on the Mother Road.
Little Italy of the Ozarks
Situated in the heart of the Ozarks, about an hour and a half west of St. Louis, along Route 66, is the quiet town of St. James. The town got its start in 1859 with the discovery of iron ore along the Meramec River. For a short time, it was called Scioto until 1860, when it was renamed St. James after Thomas James, who founded the Meramec Iron Works — the first commercially viable iron facility in the U.S., west of the Mississippi.
Among the early pioneers to establish roots in the area were German immigrants who had served on the Union side of the Civil War. Later in the 1870s, with a shift to lumber and agriculture, Italian immigrants fleeing sharecropper work in Arkansas’ cotton fields settled in the Ozark Highlands. This area included modern-day Rosati, St. James, and Rolla. While German immigrants had established the first wineries in Missouri in the town of Hermann, the Italians,
drawn to the rolling hills and fertile valleys of the region, established their own vineyards and wineries, planting grape varieties such as Concord, Catawba, and Norton, laying the foundation for what would become one of Missouri’s premier wine-producing regions.
Despite the legal restrictions and significant challenges brought by Prohibition, the vineyard farmers in St. James found ways to adapt and survive. Instead of destroying their vineyards like others in Missouri, they formed a fruit growers association and diversified their operations by producing non-alcoholic products like grape juice. By the 1930s, over 1,000 acres of grapes dotted the landscape, earning the area the moniker “Little Italy of the Ozarks.”
Their ingenuity and resilience paid off when Welch Grape Co. — awarded the contract to supply grape juice, jams, and jelly for the armed services during World War II — came calling for their quality Concord grapes. And, as part of the agreement, the farmers could set up grape stands along Route 66 and sell to locals and road travelers. This agreement not only saved some of the St. James vineyards but was also the catalyst for a thriving local grape industry.
In 1943, the State of Missouri granted licenses for domestic winemaking, but it would not be until the 1960s that largescale commercial winemaking returned to the region.
New Era, New Opportunities
The 1960s found James “Jim” Richard Hofherr putting his master’s degree in fermentation from Oklahoma State University to work as a quality control specialist at the Falstaff Brewing Corporation in St. Louis. Then, an opportunity to
set up a winery for Bardenheier Wine Cellars in St. Louis, using local grapes, presented itself. Jim enrolled at the University of California-Davis to revamp his fermentation skills for winemaking. This new opportunity also put him in contact with Jim Held of the legendary Stone Hill Winery in Hermann. As small-time farmers, Jim and Betty Held had taken a huge gamble in buying the old Stone Hill Winery with the goal of reestablishing Missouri’s wine industry. Inspired to follow the Held’s example, Jim and his wife Patricia, both originally from Muncie, Indiana — and now armed with a deep appreciation for wine culture — decided to pursue their dream of establishing their own business: exactly where was yet to be discovered. But a drive down Route 66 would ultimately provide that answer. As Jim drove into the town of St. James, he was immediately attracted to the landscape and the European flavor that the Italian immigrants had added to the local culture. This place spoke to him — as did the for-sale sign on a vineyard on the north side of town.
“It was an old Concord grape vineyard,” said Brandon Hofherr, third-generation owner, and current marketing director for the St. James Winery. “He started clearcutting other areas. He spent the first year building the tasting room. Then he moved my grandmother and my dad and uncles down, as well. He actually lived in the realtor’s garage while he built the tasting room.”
The journey was not without its challenges. Prohibition had done no favors to the wine industry of Missouri which, at this time, was only barely making a comeback. However, Hofherr and his family were on the cusp of its resurgence. There were about 440 wineries in the entire country and
Current chairman and CEO, Peter Hofherr, right, and head of marketing department, Brandon Hofherr at left.
even fewer in Missouri. Undeterred and laser-focused on producing quality wines, Jim, his wife Patricia, and their children, Andrew, John, Peter, and Leslie, would spend significant time in the Finger Lake region of New York learning from families who were producing wine there. Everyone was relearning how to make wine and sharing their knowledge.
In 1970, Jim and Pat officially opened their St. James Winery with an initial capacity of 8,000 gallons, producing wines from the existing Concord grapes, including their Velvet Red and Velvet White, wines that would become their hallmark. With a vision of crafting exceptional wines that showcased the unique terroir of Missouri, the Hofherr’s also experimented with grape varieties that thrived in the region’s climate and soil.
“Starting out, my grandfather planted 70 different types of grapes, and grapes take a while to grow,” continued Hofherr.
“You don’t get your first crop from them for about three years. So, it’s a very forward-invested crop. He basically threw a bunch of things in the ground and was like, ‘Okay, let’s see what can grow well.’”
A True Family Business
For the next 20 years, Jim, along with his sons, Andrew and John — who had both earned degrees in viticulture and winemaking, respectively — worked the winery, perfecting the process through research and development with one focus: producing delicious wine. Sadly, Jim passed away on December 24, 1994, after a lengthy illness, passing his legacy onto the next generation. In 1995, Peter Hofherr, Patricia and Jim’s middle son, joined the family business, taking over as general manager and eventually, CEO.
Throughout his life, Jim had been a driving force for the company, but it was Patricia’s genuine passion and belief in the brand that she and her late husband had built together that would take the business from a small-town local winery to the national stratosphere. Her motivation was to get the word out. And so, she embarked on a vigorous promotion campaign, traveling the state and doing tastings of the St. James wines. “I think that if my grandfather had his way, we would’ve
made 2,000 cases of wine a year, and just continued as kind of like a roadside attraction. But my grandmother was really the one that started to push and be, ‘Okay, we make great wine. We should give this to the world for people to enjoy, and have a fully operating wholesale operation going, not just the store.’”
And word did get out. And with it, demand grew, production increased, and the accolades followed. Over the next couple of years, the winery continued to evolve, and so did its reputation as a leader in the Missouri wine industry.
The winery expanded its production facilities, introduced new grape varietals, and embraced sustainable farming practices that honored the land and the environment.
“For water conservation, we have root sensors on all of the grates, so that they can sense how much moisture is right at the root. Weather stations on each of the vineyards are run by solar panels, so we can monitor the specific conditions in each vineyard,” said Hofherr. “We have it all connected by AI technology. A lot of it, we’ve kind of DIYed ourselves. We always bring grapes in at night so that the grapes are colder, we don’t have to spend a lot of energy cooling them down before they go into fermentation. We take all of those sediments from fermentation, and we compost them so that we’re maintaining soil health as well.”
Sadly, Patricia passed away on February 27, 2023, at age 90, but not before she saw their humble dream of making quality, delicious wine that showcases the unique characteristics of Missouri grapes come to fruition. The little dream has become the largest and most awarded winery in Missouri. From dry to sweet, red to white, and several nongrapefruit-based wines, St. James Winery sells wholesale to 21 states for retail in grocery and liquor stores, distributes directly to 40 states, and has a very popular tasting room right along Route 66.
The Legacy Lives On
Right from the very beginning, the Hofherr family has always rolled up their sleeves and gotten to work in an allhands-on-deck unit. Even third-generation Brandon and her brother, David, share in the duties of cleaning tanks, pruning, waking up at 4AM to help harvest by hand — before the current mechanical harvest — and even working at the tasting room register or hauling cases from point to point. The plan is to preserve the business as a family-run enterprise for another 50 years or more.
From its humble beginnings as a small-town winery steeped in history and tradition to national acclaim, St. James Winery embodies the spirit of resilience and passion that defines the American dream. It is a story of ordinary people achieving extraordinary things through hard work, dedication, and a love for the land. With its award-winning wines, scenic vineyards, and commitment to quality, it remains a beloved destination for wine enthusiasts seeking to experience the beauty and bounty of Missouri wine country. And it is right on Route 66.
Inside of the St. James Winery.
THE LAST MURAL
Photograph by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66
America’s most famous highway is home to a number of memorable characters, individuals who represent the spirit of the nation, people who have defined their own path and future. But perhaps none is as beloved and well-remembered as the wandering artist and environmentalist, Bob Waldmire. Traveling up and down the 2,448 miles of road coursing through America, Waldmire embodied the free and friendly nature of Old Route 66, certainly making an impression with his bright orange 1972 Volkswagen Microbus, towed by a school bus that he had converted into his home on wheels. He was quite the sight, but people loved it.
“Everybody loved to see him coming,” remembered Buz, Bob’s brother. “He’d be traveling on the highway, and people would see his van go down the road, and they’d make a U-turn and try to catch up to him.”
Born in 1945, Waldmire exhibited an interest in art from childhood, constantly sketching and creating posters, filling in any blank spaces with details and information — a style that would become recognizable throughout his career. This passion for drawing followed him throughout high school and into his time as a student at Southern Illinois University. There he began drawing birds-eye-view posters of towns across the state. One day, while stopping back home in Springfield, Illinois, for a visit, his father, Ed, who owned and operated the historic Cozy Dog Drive-In, inspired Bob to embark on his own Route 66 journey.
“My dad asked, ‘Why are you doing a poster of one town in the whole state? Increase your customer base.’ My dad was a capitalist. Bob was not. But he did four state posters, starting in Missouri, and then he got the idea to do a map of all Route 66,” continued Buz.
Waldmire would go on to live much of his life on the Mother Road, making a living from selling hand-drawn postcards of businesses — sometimes being paid via food and lodging in place of cash — and forming friendships that would grow as he drove up and down America’s Main Street. Later in life, he bought and settled on a piece of land in Arizona.
“He bought some property in the Chiricahua Mountain range in southeastern Arizona, and moved down there,” noted Buz. “A lot of friends helped him move. And then he was pretty much off the grid. He had a generator system, he had a windmill system, he had somebody bring water once in a while, and he had befriended all the natives.”
By 2008, the City of Pontiac, Illinois, was coordinating with community artists and Diaz Sign Art, a local company that had experience with large-scale artwork in the area, to plan the Walldogs Exhibit for the upcoming year, an event that would culminate in a festival surrounding the painting of 18 iconic advertisement murals that celebrate American aesthetics. Hearing that they wanted to commission his work, Waldmire came back to Illinois and took a couple of weeks to design a mural of Route 66, intending to paint and mount it. However, numerous engagements and his own declining health hindered this effort and it was soon clear that he could not complete
the mural. As such, he gave the design to Buz for the City of Pontiac to complete another time. On December 16, 2009, he passed away from cancer. He was only 64.
With Waldmire’s design, bus, and van in tow, his brother went back to Pontiac.
“The city of Pontiac rolled out the red carpet. I wasn’t sure what to do with his van and his bus, but they wanted it up there. So, we made a deal: I would rent them the bus and the van on indefinite loan, and they agreed to store the van inside a museum and put the bus outside the museum,” said Buz.
Having Waldmire’s design already prepared, the City of Pontiac once again enlisted the help of Diaz Sign Art to put it up in all its glory. To augment the already picturesque design, they added a panel of Waldmire’s smiling face, ready to create in his dad’s old pink-and-white striped painting shirt — a suitable addition to Waldmire’s well-thought-out vision.
Sixty-six feet long, the mural depicts all of Route 66, littered along the way with detailed vintage postcards that are unmistakably Bob. Red dots mark stops along the way from Santa Monica to Chicago, with a blue arrow pointing to Pontiac. The background is marked by soft greens, pinks, and blues to reflect the different regions and environments that the highway ribbons through.
Waldmire’s mural was mounted on the wall of the Rathbun Building, a historic anchor of the downtown area that was constructed in the late 1800s. The building is adjacent to the Route 66 Association Hall of Fame & Museum — a simple but packed museum located in an old firehouse and within the city’s former City Hall building — where Waldmire’s beloved vehicles are also housed as part of the Bob Waldmire Experience.
In May 2011, more than 500 visitors flocked to the Red Carpet Corridor Festival, an annual celebration honoring towns along Route 66’s first 100 miles, spanning from Joliet to Bloomington, Illinois. With an eye-popping turnout, the Diaz’s set metal panels at ground level with the design outlined via projector and guided people as they came up to paint it in — many leaving their handprints in the paint, making the community part of the mural itself. The painting was completed at the end of the festival and was mounted with brackets onto the brick wall facing Route 66.
“It was more memorializing him, but there was still a lot of happiness, a lot of fun, so it was a little bit of both, and having his family here was really important,” said Ellie Alexander, former Pontiac tourism director. “I think that every one of them came up to us and thanked us for what was happening. They were happy to see so many people there. Most of these people had some kind of connection or knew Bob, so it was a beautiful, sunny day.”
Now, Bob Waldmire’s smiling face and expansive mural stand — along with 25 other murals — in the city of Pontiac; a poetic ending for the man who lived his life creating and sharing his art along its many curves, himself delighted with each and every new discovery and meeting with longtime friends.
CRUISE INTO REAL TE XAS
JUNE 5-14
JUNE 5-14 2025
Time travel doesn’t require a machine—just a good stretch of road and a reason to ride. Amarillo’s Route 66 Festival is a step back into all the dazzle and dust of times gone by; where classic Americana and Wild West grit collide like nowhere else. Stroll through Amarillo’s Route 66 District while vintage cars—gleaming under Texas skies—roll down the Mother Road. Feel the hum of live music and hear the sizzle of something delicious on the grill. Step off the pavement and into the action as rodeo riders carry on a tradition that’s never faded.
Fulfill your cowgirl and cowboy dreams, relive that midcentury nostalgia, and experience true horsepower when you cruise into real Texas at Amarillo’s Route 66 Festival June 5-14th.
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SAN FELIPE DE NERI
Photograph by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66
The noonday sun shines brightly over the city of Albuquerque. More than that, it shines down on a cruciform shape that sits across the street from Old Town Plaza — considered by many to be both the square and birthplace of the city. What makes this cross different from the many that stand tall and are silhouetted against the sun atop many buildings and cathedrals is that it’s an actual cathedral itself. It graces the square in the form of an adobe building that has been around since Albuquerque had an additional “r” in its name, and New Mexico was a Spanish territory. That building is the historic church of San Felipe de Neri.
The place of worship that stands today was not the first in a material sense. The original church was established in 1706 — the same year that Albuquerque was founded. King Philip IV of Spain granted a group of colonists the right to develop a villa, aka settlement, on the banks of the Rio Grande. The title of a villa was something of a misnomer, unbeknownst to the Spanish King, due to a villa requiring fifty families, and the colonists only consisted of about thirty. So, the settlers tweaked a record to obtain the title and privileges of a villa. Being a religious people, the settlers, of course, made a point of action to build a church for their new community. While the church was established in 1706, a proper structure wouldn’t be constructed until 1718 due to the time constraints of the Franciscan pastor, Fray Manuel Moreno.
“Although Friar Manuel was assigned as its first pastor, he was also one of the head honchos of the Franciscans, and they were spread throughout the corners of New Mexico at the time,” said Edgar Romero-Ramos, director of Religious Education, communications director, and museum curator. “So, he was running around to get the other Franciscans in order, while also being assigned as the pastor.”
However, by 1719, the first church was completed. It had a simpler structure than what stands today, but it had all the makings of a Medieval monastery, just in a more condensed space (a sacristy, living quarters, courtyard, and greenery for the priest). The original title of the church was dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier (or, Javier, in the Spanish translation) but was eventually changed by the Duke of Alburquerque to San Felipe in honor of both the King and the saint who was his namesake.
The now revered structure stood as the villa’s house of worship for some time, but back then, the church’s simple building received some ire from the community. The churches in nearby communities, such as the parish in Santa Fe, had received new buildings that took a cruciform shape, both for the symbolic meaning and the practicality of fitting more people inside. It was a practice that was standard in Europe at the time, with the rise of gothic architecture, and reserved for communities of prestige. However, the governor, at the time, refused to invest in the reconstruction. So, the community forced his hand by not maintaining or re-mudding the church after the monsoon seasons that occur in the summer. Their patience eventually paid off after a particularly rainy day in 1792. “Over a twenty-year span of intentional negligence, it caused the church to finally
collapse,” said Romero-Ramos. “That’s when they were able to justify building a new church, and by then, Albuquerque had become a significant trading post on the way from Mexico to Santa Fe.”
Franciscan clergy managed the administration of the church until 1821, when Mexico gained its independence from Spain. By then, the Mexican government wanted to gain its identity as a young country by expelling any aspects of the Spanish crown, which, in this case, included the Spanishborn clergy members of San Felipe. They were replaced then by Diocesan clergy — a Diocese being the clergy that works within the district of a bishop — who staffed the church until the end of the Mexican-American War, when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848, and Mexico ceded Upper California and New Mexico. “That’s when the Diocese of New Mexico was founded. When we got our first bishop, Jean-Baptiste Lamy,” continued Romero-Ramos. “He comes in, sees the clergy that he inherited, and brings in his own people that he trusted. That’s when he invited Jesuits [missionaries that are sent where the church believes they’re needed] from Naples who were exiled from Italy because of the revolutions there.”
One of Lamy’s immediately recognizable contributions to the church was the construction of the two towers erected in 1861 and 1862, respectively. The bishop wanted the cathedrals to have a more European aesthetic, something in line with the church of Notre Dame. San Felipe was an early example of what Romero-Ramos calls “Folk Gothic Architecture,” which other parishes in the area would eventually replicate.
By 1965, the Jesuits left San Felipe after 98 years of service. The reasoning was that upon an agreement between the Jesuits and the Diocese, if they were to be of service for one hundred years, the church would become a Jesuit parish and essentially become a ward of the Jesuit society. Since the Jesuits didn’t want to assume complete control over the parish, they left gracefully after nearly a century of service.
A near-quarter of a millennium since it was built, the parish still celebrates daily Mass, maintains a full Sunday service schedule, and has a Catholic school that has been running for over 140 years, making it one of the oldest scholastic programs in the state. Aside from a few renovations, restorations, and additions, San Felipe de Neri has stood as the same structure that it was back in the late 16th Century, when it stood in the heart of downtown. And its iconography isn’t lost on what it means to the city. “To this day, San Felipe is still an icon to what it means to be Albuquerque. The towers are shown on city buses, and you’ll typically see the church in magazines promoting tourism,” said Romero-Ramos. “Even though the church may not be the end-all-be-all for Burqueños [people of Albuquerque], it’s still a part of the cultural identity of the city.”
Today, Albuquerque is a busy, bustling, thriving urban center, but a simple trip to San Felipe de Neri offers a beautiful reminder that some of the city's history and culture still very much remain..
Words by Mitchell Brown.
IN THE HEARTLAND
By Mitchell Brown
Photographs by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66
As the sun sets on another day in the quiet city of Litchfield, Illinois, the gentle hum of a neon sign becomes slightly audible. This is accompanied by the bright glow of green and red lights splashing across the brick wall of a century-old establishment. It’s a neon sign that announces to the people of Litchfield and hungry travelers who are merely passing through — whether they be Illinois locals or Route 66 enthusiasts — that this is the Ariston Cafe, and they’re welcome inside. Located across from the Litchfield Museum & Route 66 Welcome Center, the Ariston sits at a focal point of Route 66 in Illinois and has been feeding the citizens of Litchfield since 1930. However, that’s not where its story begins.
The business began officially about twenty miles away in the neighboring town of Carlinville, where a man named Pete Adam opened up shop. Born in Greece in 1890 with the birthname of Panos Adam, Pete arrived in the states when he was twelve years old and changed his name upon arriving at Ellis Island with his family. He would eventually return to his home country to fight in the Balkan Wars, which took place between 1912 and 1913 —he would’ve been around 22 at the time — fighting for the Greek army. He eventually returned to the U.S. before the first World War broke out and made his home in Roswell, New Mexico, where he found work as a coal miner. Eventually, Pete decided to head to the Midwest and settled in his new home in Carlinville, Illinois. The decision was predicated on the fact that he had friends and family in the area. This would alter his route in life and put into motion the business that would become his livelihood.
Taking the First Steps
In 1924, Pete opened the Ariston Cafe. However, at the time of its opening, it wasn’t a restaurant. It was a store that made and sold candy. A local doctor planted the seed to expand, stating that the town needed a restaurant. The original location was built in 1854 and was located on Route 4, the spiritual predecessor to Route 66. The operative word here is “original” because this isn’t where it would stay for long. The winds soon began to change for the country’s highway system because the highway re-aligned into what would soon become Route 66. This resulted in the highway bypassing Carlinville altogether and instead it traveled through Litchfield.
“Pete knew that Route 66 was coming through the area and knew that he had to be a part of it,” said Will Law, current co-owner of the Ariston. “Transportation was huge [business] as Litchfield was founded due to many trains converging here, sparking its importance to the area. That meant lots of people.”
By 1929, the café was relocated to Litchfield, at the intersection of West Kirkham Street and Route 66, in a
building that Pete leased, which today is the Litchfield Museum & Route 66 Welcome Center. The current location was built from the ground up by Henry A. Vasel for $3,625.36 — roughly $85,000 when adjusted for inflation — just across the intersection, and the café officially moved in on July 5th , 1935. The timing of the café’s relocation was simultaneously not ideal, but also prosperous. “Not ideal” in the sense that the Great Depression had hit the country, but prosperous because a café was considered an inexpensive business decision (all things considered), and people still needed to eat and socialize. The location was also prime real estate since, by 1936, the Illinois stretch of Route 66 was getting the heaviest load of traffic in the state, connecting Chicago — the country’s second-largest city at that point — to St. Louis.
That’s not to say that times were easy for the restaurant; they faced difficulties like anyone else at the time, but they still managed to get through the Depression. Pressure helps create diamonds, and adversity helps build integrity. Hoping to attract more travelers, Pete installed a pair of gas pumps in front of the building — a common trend for restaurants on the Mother Road — and eventually installed slot machines. By 1937, Pete would marry his wife, Emily (whom he met after the war), and have three kids, Elaine, Marika, and Nick. The latter would eventually take over the café from his father in 1966, but by the time he was a teenager, he was already part of the family business. “I started working there when I was 12 or 13 years old,” said Nick Adam, former owner of the Ariston Cafe. “I played football throughout high school, but I still worked every Saturday and Sunday as a waiter and sometimes in the kitchen.”
A Little Ingenuity
By 1940, the café hit a hurdle. Following the end of the Great Depression, heavy traffic steadily became a prominent problem. The two-lane blacktop of Route 66 couldn’t handle the influx of cars, so a four-lane bypass was created to help streamline and decongest traffic. This created a single but no less prominent issue for the café: the bypass ran on the opposite side of the building.
A building can’t be physically rotated 180 degrees, and Pete knew that. Rather than wait out the storm and hope that the customers would eventually return, he devised a simple but effective tactic: install neon signs on the other side of the building to capture the attention of travelers on the bypass, indicating the café’s presence. Two signs were installed that said “Ariston” and “Better Place to Eat.”
Not only did the plan work, but it also had a long-term effect on other businesses, “It was built to help draw attention to the building and helped state congressmen to justify putting in lanes for people to pull off and utilize services off the road, which the café didn’t have when the new stretch was built,” said Law. “Those signs in the rear are still there and function daily.”
In 1966, at the age of 75, Pete Adam passed away. Shortly before his passing, Nick and his wife, Demi—who had married that January—had taken over the restaurant. “I figured my father was 75 and too old to be running the restaurant, so I talked to my wife — her parents were in the restaurant business in Chicago, so we discussed it and she agreed,” said Nick. “We decided to quit our jobs we had waiting for us in Pittsburgh and planned to take over the
restaurant for two or three years and then just sell it. The next year, we had our first child and ended up having three, which changed the idea. So, we kept the restaurant.”
By the time the couple arrived, the location had undergone some changes. They got rid of the slot machines sometime around Prohibition, and the gas pumps were long gone due to gasoline being rationed by the government during WWII. The concrete island and light pole would eventually be disposed of, and the added space would lead to more room for parking.
The transition of ownership to Nick led to very few changes in the overall day-to-day of the restaurant.
Even the decommissioning of Route 66 in 1985 didn’t drastically affect business, seeing as the café is just a few blocks away from the downtown area. Nick’s most substantial change, and the most visible, was the addition of a banquet wing on the north side of the building and new front doors and awnings, which were all installed sometime in the 70s. This proved to be a smart investment, as the banquet wing would quickly be used for wedding receptions, funeral dinners, and parties. Nick and Demi would go on to run the café for 52 years—by 2004, their eldest son Paul and his wife, Joy, briefly joined the family business. Around 2014, there were plans to potentially sell the restaurant, and a few offers were even put into place, but were quickly shot down. The timing just wasn’t right, yet. But in 2018, Marty and Kara Steffens and Will and Michele Law entered the scene.
The Proper Credentials
The two couples were no strangers to customer service or the challenge of running a business. Before they set their eyes on the Ariston, Marty and Kara operated (and continue to operate) Maverick Steaks & Spirits, just around the corner from the café. Starting his career in 1985, Marty worked at the then-Maverick Steakhouse until 1998, when he bought the location from the previous owner, Russ Hruby, who was ready to retire and began selling each of his locations — about eight in total — to the working general managers. Kara started working at Maverick in 1991 as a cashier and worked her way up to assistant general manager before they bought the location. Kara now runs the location after Marty took an early retirement around 2004. Will and Michele came aboard to Maverick in 1995, having previously worked at the Hilton Hotel in Springfield, Illinois. The pair had experience running the goings-on of a restaurant. Will had managed the Hilton’s Garden Terrace Café and room service concierge lounge, while Michele came aboard as his assistant and worked at the Hilton’s more formal restaurant, City Lights, on 30. They began to work at the Maverick, Will as the manager and Michele as a “Jill of All Trades” who would tackle whichever role was needed of her, whether it be serving, cashiering, or just overall holding down the fort.
Will stayed on as the manager for a long time, but eventually, the workload and stress of the job took its toll
Will Law and Kara Steffens.
on him, and he left in 2017. “I was extremely burnt out…. I worked a lot. Always came in early and always stayed late. Striving to be the best is more than a full-time job,” explained Law, who would step down to work at the assisted living facility of Hillsboro Area Hospital, but found the office setting of clerical work wasn’t what he was built for. “It was intriguing, but I found out real quick that it wasn’t for me. I walk and talk and require something to do all the time. I need those ten small fires a day. I love organized chaos; that’s where I do my best work.”
By the eleventh month mark, Will had his fill of the hospital but had no intentions of leaving yet. That was until the information that was trickling through the acquaintances he had at the hospital gave him some burgeoning ideas. Among his fellow employees were friends of Nick and Demi, and word came to Will’s ears that they wanted to sell the Ariston, and that Nick was thinking out loud that if the right offer were to come along, he just might take it. “We were fortunate enough to entertain many folks from over 50 countries traveling 66,” said Nick. “But by that time, I was 80 years old, and we didn’t get a lot of vacations when we were running the business. I thought it was about time to relax for a while.” This piqued Will’s interest, and he knew of a few other people who might also be interested to hear this information.
Handing Over the Keys
In July 2018, the ink was dry, cash was exchanged, and hands were shaken, and after more than 90 years of being run by one family, the Steffens and Laws were now the official new owners of the Ariston Cafe. The four of them were all familiar with the restaurant, having all been Illinois natives and growing up around the area, so it didn’t take much convincing to get everyone on board. The deal ended up with the Steffens having a majority investment in the restaurant, while the Laws both invested in it and provided all the sweat equity needed to run the business on a day-today basis. Michele works full-time at Expedia as a market
manager, so her time is spent mainly there, but she still has a hands-on approach to assisting with the Ariston and coming in, when needed, to help host, wait on tables, bus them, and do what she can to help the restaurant run smoothly. Even their kids come to help out, so no one gets spread too thin.
A part of the charm of a family business is the “family” aspect, and just because humans are known to be adaptable doesn’t mean that they enjoy the concept of change. So, when the Ariston came under new management, there was some minor pushback from the regulars early on. This would eventually recede when it became clear that there wouldn’t be any toes to be stepped on and no changes to be made—from the booths, counter seating, white linen cloth covered tables, down to the menu that’s stayed relatively the same since Nick took over so long ago. Beyond the local regulars, the sheer volume of foreign Route 66 visitors is a demographic all unto itself. Between being in such close proximity to the Litchfield Museum, Jubelt’s Bakery, and the Skyview Drive-In, Law estimates that they get somewhere around 12,000 to 15,000 European travelers every season, with many visitors making multiple trips a year.
As with most historic establishments, time has done its work on the café’s building. Architectural and general maintenance needed to be done to keep the restaurant open and up to code so as not to get shut down. Converting old water and sewer lines to be up to date, fixing the floors, and tending to interior walls with extensive water damage were all factors that needed to be accommodated. Fortunately, they were able to acquire a grant to help work on renovations and even update the interior, while also keeping the classic feel of the place. “We’d like to replace lighting throughout the dining room to the era of the restaurant and try to match lighting in booths that are original to the building and replace artwork to represent historic Litchfield and honor Route 66,” said Law. “So, new look, but same old charm. Maybe better?”
In 2024, the Ariston hosted a ribbon cutting for its 100 th anniversary celebration party, with the Adam family and members of the community in attendance. It was a true celebration. You only have to read the café’s guest book, which is filled with stories of childhood memories and heartfelt reviews, to appreciate the café’s deep-rooted place in the town’s history. It’s a mainstay for both the community of Litchfield and diehard Route 66 journeymen alike. Middle America is dotted with historic restaurants that offer a longtime family touch, but down in the heartland of Litchfield, this one’s neon signs shine a little extra bright.
Ariston Cafe interior.
A CONVERSATION WITH
Hans Zimmer
By Brennen Matthews
Photographs courtesy of Lee Kirby
From the soaring notes of The Lion King to the thunderous intensity of Inception , Hans Zimmer has shaped the sound of modern cinema like few others.
With an Oscar-winning career spanning over four decades, his compositions have transported audiences across galaxies, through dreamscapes, and into the heart of history. Whether it’s the pulse-pounding drums of The Dark Knight or the haunting beauty of Interstellar, Zimmer’s music doesn’t just accompany a film—it becomes a character of its own. But what goes on inside the mind of a musical genius? How does he craft the melodies that define our favorite cinematic moments? And does he ever get tired of making us cry with just a few perfectly placed piano notes?
In this exclusive conversation, we dive into Zimmer’s creative process, his inspirations, and what it’s like to redefine the sound of Hollywood again and again. Whether you’re a film buff, a music lover, or just someone who can’t hear Time without getting emotional, this is one interview you won’t want to miss.
So, sit back and join me as I step into the world of one of the greatest composers of our time.
Growing up you were surrounded by music because your mom was a classically trained pianist. Did that have a big impact on your interest in pursuing music as a career?
Well, there’s two sides. Well, actually, there’s three sides to this. One was: my mom loved music, but she never got to fulfill her ambition of becoming a proper musician, because the war got in the way, and she became a refugee. But at home, you know, the radio was always on, the record player was always on–sometimes at the same time–which made for interesting, sort of, harmonies. (Laughs) I went to my first opera when I was two and a half. We would religiously go to concerts once a week. So, my listening to classical music was pretty extreme at a young age. My dad, on the other hand, was a scientist who played awful jazz clarinet. He would sit me down on Sundays in his office, on the floor with ashtrays and buckets and stuff like this, and I’d be drumming away while he had his feet up on his desk and played. And I suddenly realized that music—it was joy. Music was fun. Music was… there was so much more to the fun part than the serious part that my mom so adored. And to this day, I love classical music. I’m truly influenced by them. But what I’m more influenced by, I suppose, is my dad’s playfulness, my dad’s joy. My dad doing his proto-punk clarinet playing. And that really got me into loving the anarchy of it all.
When you were a teenager, you ended up moving from Germany over to London. What made you choose London rather than…?
(Laughs) Hang on a second. I didn’t choose London. I ran out of schools on the continent. I mean, I was, should we say, willful.
I had a thing about German authority at a very early age, which I think really came from my parents, who were as
anti-authoritarian as you could possibly get. I got kicked out of eight schools, and finally the ninth school, which was the English school––that was great, because the headmaster just got me. I mean, he said, ‘What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I just want to play music.’ And he said, ‘Okay,’ because he realized that a deal had to be made. The deal that had to be made was: my mother had to be satisfied that I was going to go to school, you know, some sort of institute of higher learning. But I really wanted to go and thrash around on a piano and a guitar. And at the same time, of course, I took what I thought was going to be the easiest course in England. I decided I was going to go and take German A-levels. And on day one, the English teacher who taught German basically wiped the floor with me, because, of course, I knew German, instinctively, from speaking it all my life, but I didn’t know German as an intellectual subject, and how you took it apart, and the literature and everything. So, this remarkable man who taught Russian, German, French, economics, history, and music—he could combine it all. When you spoke about Kafka, he would whip around on his piano stool and start playing Mala on his piano, you know? Everything was contextualized. So, everything somehow ended up like a movie without the images. But it still was an amazing story he would tell.
So you finished boarding school, and then you were what, like 17, in the UK?
I was 18 on the dot! I went back to Germany and the first letter I opened was a notice that I was getting drafted into the German army, which was not my idea of a fun time. And had I gone, it would not have been their idea of a fun time, I could guarantee you that. (Laughs) So I weaseled out of that, went back to England, joined a band that tried to be really good, and I mean look—we played every workingman’s club, every pub, every, you know, every pit there was in England. And it was the late seventies. The eighties were just coming, but it was Margaret Thatcher fighting the unions, so these were highly charged political times. And as soon as you left London and went up north, you realized that this country was just suffering from an unbelievable poverty, and unbelievable neglect by its politicians.
So, was that band the iconic Buggles?
No, the Buggles… Let me just get this clear: the Buggles is Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes. But they needed a synth player, and I was a synth nerd. I became the guy who would twiddle knobs and push buttons, but it was very much their band. What happened, of course, was we were the first video on MTV — Video Killed the Radio Star — and we, therefore, changed a whole generation in a peculiar way. We didn’t really know what we were doing, but we knew we’re doing something that nobody else had really done before.
When you joined the Buggles, were you looking to join a new band?
No, not really. I was doing commercials for a company that belonged to George Martin and Stanley Myers… Stanley Myers is the composer that wrote The Deer Hunter, and George Martin had a company that did jingles for advertising—and I was sort of discovered by this company.
So, working with George and Stanley… for a musician to be able to pay their rent is really sort of a phenomenal thing, you know. I mean, forget about stardom. Forget about fame. Just being able to pay your rent is a major achievement. So, that was sort of a really cool thing. And learning from both Stanley and George was tremendous, and I went from being truly broke to having a different job every day. ‘What are we doing today?’ ‘Selling avocados!’ ‘Great, bring it on.’
‘What’s the sound of an avocado?’ That is actually one of the things that I was asked. ‘This doesn’t sound enough like an avocado.’ People were taking very unimportant things very seriously. (Laughs)
I love the idea of a young group, a young Hans Zimmer, hearing Video Killed the Radio Star on the radio, or maybe seeing it on this brand new MTV thing. What was that experience like?
You know, we had worked on it for so long, and with very little sleep and very little money–which is how you end up with very little sleep–because you only get studio time from 10 o’clock at night until 9 o’clock in the morning, and by 10 o’clock you gotta go and do your session that actually earns you some money. So you just never sleep.
So I remember, it was just before my 21st birthday, walking along the road and hearing the song, and thinking, ‘I’m hallucinating.’ You know, now we’ve done it, now I’m hallucinating the song. But I wasn’t hallucinating the song; a car had its window down and they were playing it on the radio. So that was the big moment in a funny, soft way.
How did your mom respond to the sudden success?
Not much. Like all wise parents, she was desperately waiting for me to get a proper job. She probably would still be waiting for me to get a proper job, now, you know. It was all a bit of a mystery to her, this pub music thing.
For her, it didn’t really feel like something you could rely on, which is absolutely true, because, you know, we had a number one hit, and then we had absolutely nothing for the longest time.
I very quickly got bored with that idea, anyway, and started veering more towards film and television and those sorts of things, just because it was a more interesting conversation to be had.
How long had you been in the U.S. by 1988, when you did the Rain Man soundtrack?
I hadn’t.
Oh!
I came to the U.S. to do Rain Man . So I set foot on, you know, sacred soil of Hollywood to go and do Rain Man , and I didn’t know anybody. I brought my engineer from the East End of London with me, and we moved into Barry Levinson’s office, and we did the whole thing in his office. Barry loved it, because we could actually work together. He would cut film; I would write music. We established a way of working that was really, really good.
How did you even get that job?
There’s a tale! Barry was in London promoting Good Morning, Vietnam , and his wife, Diana, had gone to the cinema to see a small independent film called A World Apart , which I had done the music for. Rather than just saying to him, ‘Hey, I saw a film, and I liked the music,’ she actually went and bought him the CD. And he thought it was really interesting. He thought it was really right for Rain Man And so what happened was, at 11 o’clock at night, I was in my little city studio in Fulham, down a dark alley. You didn’t really want to walk down that alley at 11 o’clock at night, but then somebody’s knocking on the door, and I open the door and a man is standing there. He says, ‘Hi, my name is Barry Levinson.’ I’m going, ‘Yeah?’ He goes, ‘I’m a Hollywood director.’ I said, ‘You and my mom both.’ And he said, ‘No, no, really!’ And I looked behind him where not one, but two of those enormous Daimler limousines were wedged down our little alley. I thought, maybe he is telling the truth, and I said, ‘Come on in,’ and we started talking. He was telling me the story he was trying to make, and I was sort of showing him how my synthesizers worked, etc. And he thought, ‘Oh, that was really interesting,’ and I most certainly thought that the story was really interesting. And
he asked, ‘Would I consider coming to Los Angeles?’ and I said, ‘Of course.’
Oh, wow! That’s crazy. And did you realize at that point— because it’s Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise… that film got you an Academy Award nomination. Did you have a sense at that time how much it was going to impact your career?
No, no, no. In fact, we did the typical touristy thing. We went to Sunset Boulevard and had our picture taken in front of the big [poster]— Rain Man , Coming Soon—because we thought, ‘That’s it. We’ll do this film, it’ll die, and off we’ll go back into BBC land.’ Afterwards, I flew back to London. I got nominated and came out for the week before the Oscars, and they have these lunches. And it’s funny, everybody wanted to meet me. All these directors that I loved really wanted to meet me. So, I basically filled my diary up for the next two years with the Ridley Scotts and the Tony Scotts, and the… you name it. It went really, really well.
You don’t strike me as someone who gets necessarily starstruck, but were you overwhelmed at all during that period?
Yeah, I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed writing Rain Man, definitely, because there were so many things I didn’t know, and America seemed really alien to me. The hotel with its beige colors, and just living in a hotel. I found it very overwhelming. I mean, we couldn’t find our way around a big city like Los Angeles. We were told, ‘Oh, you turn left, and you turn right, and you go up that street, and there’s Barry’s house.’ You turn left on Sunset, but, of course, we turned right on Sunset, and after 75 miles we realized that maybe we were going the wrong way. We didn’t realize that streets could be that long.
What, exactly, interested you so much about Africa, and especially African music, that you scored two films: The Power of One (1992) and A World Apart ?
I had a lot of fun when I did A World Apart . Chris Menges, who directed A World Apart , bought me a book on South African music. And the first sentence in the first chapter went: there are no indigenous instruments to South African music because there are warrior tribes, and warrior tribes don’t carry pianos with them. So, it’s a tradition of singing. And I loved the idea of writing something in a very European style, taking it down there with my friend Lebo M., and just putting it out there in front of the singers and in front of the musicians and saying, ‘Okay, here, I’ve written it. So now, make it your own. Go and play with it.’ And their sense of tuning is very different from our Western sense, for instance. So I, on purpose, would write notes which didn’t really exist in their language, in their musical language, but would become really interesting because they didn’t exist.
And I suppose the finish line of that is The Lion King, which is a children’s movie. I didn’t really want to do an animated movie, but I had a six year old daughter, and it seemed important to go and take her to a premiere. You know, if you dig behind the reason why people do things, they’re not always for great art and for great missions.
I felt I was on a perfectly great mission that I could take my six year old to meet Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson), which was the big thing. She got to meet Mr. Bean at the London premiere.
Just years later, in 1994.
I originally approached it as a joke. But then I found out that it was a movie that really got under my skin, because the father dies really early on, like mine, and I started dealing with this for the first time in my life, because I had to. And so the music is maybe unnecessarily heavy, but it seemed to have worked.
I have a question about that. So I lost my dad when I was 17 and you know, I’m turning 51 this year, and it’s still—
It’ll never leave you.
It really doesn’t. But at 67 now, is it something that still impacts your life?
No, not vastly. It impacts my life and so forth, that when I play with my kids, or when I try to teach my kids something, or when I try to do something with my kids, I suddenly come to a hole in my knowledge because nobody taught me. You know, I never had a dad teach me how to shave well. Just dumb things like this, little trivial things that people with fathers take for granted. You know, I’m terrible at family dinners, because we never had family dinners. So yeah, I mean, I just make it up as I go along, thinking that’s what a dad’s supposed to do.
Do you feel like, even without his presence, that you sought to have a life that would have impressed him?
No, he would have been appalled by what I do, because he would have wanted me to join the factory, the family business. On the one hand, he would have been thrilled that I’m doing the thing that he could never do: play music and actually be successful at it. I mean, the dilemma for musicians is that there are so many musicians who cannot have a career, who can’t eke out a livelihood.
After winning the Oscar for The Lion King , did you get a sense that, ‘I’ve made it?’
Oh, no! I’ll tell you exactly what happened after. I got drunk that night, had a really great party. I just remember dimly flirting with Claudia Schiffer in German, because nobody else could understand me, and then going for a 10 o’clock meeting with Tony Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer, and playing them a piece of music and them going, ‘No, that’s crap. That’ll never work.’ So, I was back to reality within the flash of, you know—within seconds. I don’t think that they even mentioned the Oscar.
Yeah, that’s humbling.
And the second one, I decided that I was going to ignore it. I was in Amsterdam touring, and I decided I was going to ignore the evening completely. I said to my girlfriend, ‘Okay, we’re going to go to bed. I’ve got a show tomorrow. I can’t
stay up and watch this crap. I gotta go to bed.’ So she and I, we went to bed. Then the phone rings. My PR lady is going, ‘Your category…’ I said, ‘Look, I told you, don’t disturb me. Don’t ring me. Just go away.’ I hung up. And two minutes later the phone rings again and I’m going, ‘I asked you not to ring,’ and she goes, ‘But you won! You won.’ And the door bursts open, which, of course, has been cleverly instigated by my girlfriend and my two daughters, who come in and jump onto the bed. Downstairs there’s a big party going on and the whole band is there. They didn’t care if I won an Oscar or not, they just liked a big party. And that was the best way to get an Oscar, you know? Not being there, not having to make the speech. That’s going to be clawing and awful. The best speech is to just go, ‘Thank you. Good night. Can I get out of here?’
Are there any movies, Hans—because you’ve done so many—that you struggled with more than others to actually find the sound for?
They’re all a struggle. And the problem is, it’s like surgery. You forget how much it hurt at the time, so you finish it and go, ‘Oh, let’s do another one.’ Thin Red Line was really hard to find. I don’t know.
The Nolan movies were really easy. Sometimes, you know, like Interstellar, there’s a piece which appears quite a lot. When I was writing it and Chris came in, I said, ‘I have no idea where this goes in the film, but I know it’s right for this picture.’ And he was listening to it, and he said, ‘Yeah, I know what you mean. I don’t know where it goes, either, but it’s right for this film.’ So we just gave it to our editor, Lee Smith, who just sort of took it like, chopped the end off, and bowed it down over the opening scene, and just played it, and everything hit everything and everything was perfect. Once you’re in the mode of a film, once you’ve really got the film under your fingers, which takes a while, you have to become the film. There comes a point where it becomes really difficult to do the wrong thing. Where you figure out what the tone is, what everything is. You know what you’re supposed to bring to it.
As a composer, do you ever struggle with getting lost in trying too hard to make people feel or be involved in a scene?
No, no, I’ll tell you why I don’t. I have a rule which I really got from Ridley Scott, who once said to me, ‘Sentimentality is unearned emotion.’ I thought that was really clever. And then I was thinking about leading the audience in an emotional way, which I thought was sort of fascistic, and, you know, the wrong thing to do. So, I thought, I just want to work a couple of doors that open and say to the audience, ‘Hey, come on, come in. And if you come in, I give you the choice: you can feel something or not feel something, but the possibilities of feeling something will exist, and I will help you along with that.’ Do no more and do no less. I’m not telling them what to feel, just creating the possibility of having the experience of feeling something.
What about Thelma & Louise , because we love a great American road trip.
Rain Man is a great American road trip.
Yes, definitely. Both films are deeply connected to the spirit of the American road trip. Do you take pleasure with the films that embody this sense of adventure and Americana?
Oh, yeah, oh, absolutely. I mean, Rain Man , one of the reasons Barry liked me was because I wasn’t gonna use jangly guitars and a sweeping orchestra, which was the normal vocabulary for American road trips. Well, in Thelma & Louise… I wanted to work with this guitarist, Pete Haycock, all my life, I was just this huge fan of his. And he lived in Birmingham, England, not Birmingham, Alabama, but he was a great Blues guitarist. I said, ‘Ridley, I think we could make a really great score with this guy.’ So I phoned him up, and he asked, ‘Do you want me to play on the whole movie?’ I said, ‘Yeah, the whole movie.’ And I said to him, ‘How much would it cost us?’ And he said, ‘Whole movie, how about 2,500 pounds? But you have to send me a train ticket. I don’t drive.’ I went to Ridley and said, ‘He wants 2,500 pounds and a train ticket,’ and Ridley said, ‘We can’t do that. We have to pay him proper money.’ (Laughs) So Pete came and we had the best time. I still love that score from Thelma & Louise , and I don’t think anybody else can play it other than him. He died a few years back, and I miss him. I miss the storytelling in his playing.
It is still a fabulous film.
It’s a fantastic film. It’s a fantastic film that Ridley didn’t want to do. And then, you know, maybe because he didn’t want to do [it], it feels like it has a lightness about it which I really, really like.
What is your process? Do you get the whole film without any music to it?
Depends on who you’re working with. Yes, sometimes… with Chris Nolan I got Interstellar… I got a letter with a fable in it, and it had nothing to do with the movie, but it sort of had something to do with how the movie could feel. I mean, with Dark Knight , I was fighting Chris on a scene that he wanted to be super actiony and super fast, so I made it the slowest thing I’d ever written. And he went, ‘Hmm! That works too.’ But it goes the other way around, too. I’ll do something which I think is really great, and he’ll point out the flaws in my thinking.
A lot of leading actors that I know hate watching themselves on film or television. When you are watching a movie, let’s say Interstellar or Inception comes on TV, or whatever… You know that music, you wrote the music. You know it inside out. You know the story behind the struggle to get that music. Does that detract from enjoying the movie the way a normal audience would if they’re sitting down at home and watching it for you?
I’m sure it does! I’m sure it does, but I quite enjoy it. I mean, the first time I saw Thelma & Louise was on television with my kids and I thought, ‘What’s going on? Oh, it’s not so bad. Oh, that’s quite nice. Oh, look at that.’ So there are many movies I haven’t seen.
Yours?
Really?
Yeah.
I recently watched the new documentary, Hans Zimmer and Friends: Diamond in the Desert .
Oh, you saw it!
Oh, yeah, it is a beautiful documentary. In it, Jerry Bruckheimer praised you, saying he thought that you might be the most talented composer, maybe in history.
He’s very wrong.
Given the high regard in which you're held by figures like Jerry Bruckheimer and the many respected directors who want to work with you, how do you balance that recognition with staying grounded?
Well, I’ll put it this way. If you buy into it, you’re dead, because you can never live up to that, in yourself. Right? I mean, just do the Bs: Beethoven, Brahms, Bartók, Bellis, Beatles, B.B. King. We can find lots more Bs in composers and musicians, etc. And you go, these guys, they were also amazing. I mean, Bernstein, you know. I can’t even… I’ll carry their suitcases.
Tell me about the journey to Diamond in the Desert . I really enjoyed getting a behind-the-scenes look at the stories you were sharing with your collaborators— whether they were actors, musicians, or directors. Was this something you came up with, or were you approached to be part of it?
No, no, no. The BBC had made a documentary on me, which is floating around somewhere out there. And then I thought the band was in a place where, musically, they were so good at that moment, that I sort of wanted to capture it. I worked well with most of those artists. You know, Johnny Ma is the one who got me to be on tour. So Johnny and Pharrell Williams, they couldn’t say no to be in it, because they were the culprits who made me go on tour. I had just worked with Billie Eilish and Finneas, so that made sense. Zendaya and Timmy [Chalamet]… I mean, we’re not yet finished with Dune . I think it was just an opportunity to do it.
Hmm! It was beautifully shot and the Gladiator music and the whole set…
It wasn’t a set! That really was a Bedouin camp.
Really, so that was actually shot in a Bedouin camp?
Yeah!
Like with real sand in the desert?
And I said, ‘Where are the goats?’ And somebody found two goats. (Laughs)
The score on Gladiator, that final section of music, must have come from somewhere inside of you, to write something that emotional, that painful. Even Black Hawk Down , it’s really mournful.
Yeah, you know, it took time. Oh, yeah, Black Hawk Down is another! Oh, good! Thank you for reminding me. Yes, Black Hawk Down . I’m trying to put the next tour together. I really struggled on that Gladiator theme. I sort of had it in my head and it just took a while. I’m always last guy, you know, because it could just be a little bit better. You just live and hope that things can be more beautiful, or more refined, or more succinct.
Well, Chris Nolan said that about you with Inception , that he had to actually come in and tell the orchestra, ‘We’re done. This is a wrap,’ because you wanted to keep trying to perfect it.
It was late at night, and I actually thought I was gonna die. I actually thought that I was going to have a heart attack. My chest was really hurting. I was so tired, there was nothing left in me. And Chris sort of saw that, and he went up to the mixing board—and we still haven’t had a session with the orchestra—and he said, ‘I think we’ve done enough recording.’ And I’m going, ‘No, no, no,’ you know, as I’m dying. I’m going, ‘No, we haven’t. I still have ideas.’ The problem is, I still have ideas, but the body just won’t behave, and I think Chris saved my life. I really do. I mean, I was not a well puppy. Trust me.
Bruckheimer said something else, too, that I wanted to know if you agreed with him on. He said that he believes that you need to be in a great deal of pain to write something truly beautiful.
I totally disagree with him on that, except, it happens to be sort of relatively true. (Laughs)
How does that reflect on you then, because you write a lot of really powerful, painful, beautiful music?
I just told everybody that I’m taking June and July off, and I don’t care what happens. No, you always pretend it’s fun. If it’s good, it comes from a place deep inside you, and you have to really dig. Sleep seems to not be an option as part of that journey, you know?
If you were to look back at a young Hans Zimmer in the Buggles, you know, in the middle of London and your youth, what advice would you give him? Would you have any insights that you would offer him?
Yeah, absolutely. Pretty much what I did, I just didn’t do it consciously. Always say, ‘Yes.’ You know, say yes to a project, and then go, ‘I have no idea how to do this,’ and figure out how to do it. But always say, ‘Yes.’ It’s an adventure, what’s the worst that can happen?
AN ELEPHANT OF A STORY
By Jake Baur
Opening photograph by Liz Lara-Collado
Americans have always embodied resilience and a spirit of playful ingenuity—where bold ideas defy convention and transform the ordinary into something extraordinary. It’s a spirit that pushes us to create and innovate, and one that refuses to be crushed, no matter the odds. We face adversity head-on, with grit and determination, emerging stronger each time. And standing 65-feet-tall, just five miles southwest of Atlantic City, is Lucy—a quirky, larger-than-life symbol of that unyielding spirit. She’s not just an elephant; she’s a testament to the tenacity and boldness that define America.
This tenacity and imaginative spark were embodied by the man behind her creation. James Vincent de Paul Lafferty, Jr. was born in Philadelphia in 1856 to prosperous Irish immigrant parents. As a confident 25-year-old entrepreneur, engineer, and inventor, Lafferty came into possession of a number of sandy lots in the South Atlantic City area, which at the time was a desolate stretch of sand dunes and scrub pine, cut off from the frame houses and mule-drawn street cars of the rapidly growing Victorian vacation metropolis of nearby Atlantic City.
“Atlantic City was a brand-new seaside resort which was incorporated in 1854. They had just built the railroad from Philadelphia [the second most-populous U.S. city at the time] to Atlantic City, and Lafferty thought that if he built this crazy structure, he could generate curiosity from the people in Atlantic City and sell his real estate holdings in ‘South Atlantic City’ (later renamed Margate),” said Richard Helfant, executive director and C.E.O. of the Save Lucy Committee. Lafferty’s unique and unconventional real estate promotion tactic was driven by his vision to transform the desolate South Atlantic City into a thriving shore community. “Lucy is a pioneer; she is literally one of the first roadside attractions built in this country,” continued Helfant. With this goal in mind, in 1881, Lafferty enlisted architect William Free to design and begin building the 65-foot-high, 60-foot-long, and 18-foot-wide elephant, fashioning it after the famous elephant Jumbo from the Barnum & Bailey circus. Lucy was initially quoted to cost $25,000, which was a considerable amount of money at the time; however, by the time of completion her cost had risen to a staggering $38,000. Yet so confident was Lafferty in the structure’s success, that he applied for a patent from the U.S. Government on his zoomorphic building idea. In the application he explained: “My invention consists of a building in the form of an animal, the body of which is floored and divided into rooms, closets, &c., and the legs contain the stairs which lead to said body.” Not wanting others to capitalize on his idea, Lafferty also specified: “The building may be in the form of any other animal than an elephant, as that of a fish, fowl, &c.” Patent No. 268503 was granted to Lafferty on December 5, 1882, giving him the exclusive right to make, use, and/or sell animal-shaped buildings for 17 years.
A Big Investment
Today, Lucy the Elephant still stands tall and grand, a remarkable feat of engineering and craftsmanship. Originally named “Elephant Bazaar,” her construction was a labor of love, with nearly one million pieces of wood meticulously hand-shaped to create the intricate curves and supports needed to hold her massive 90-ton frame. Covered in a sheath of 12,000 square feet of hammered tin, Lucy’s body stretches 38-feet-long and 80-feet around, her head alone measuring 16-feet-long and 48-feet in circumference. Her elegant neck rises 6-feet-high, leading up to ears that spread 17-feet-wide. There are 22 windows in total. Each of her sturdy legs stands 22-feet-tall and 10-feet in diameter, with toenails as large as living room chairs. Perhaps the least known part of Lucy is her tongue—you have to search behind her trunk to find it.
Painted “gastric pink,” the 18-by-18-foot interior belly of the structure can be accessed via spiral staircases in her 10-footdiameter legs, and the two center doors open into additional stairwells that climb into the patio-sized “howdah” on Lucy’s back, which offers sweeping views of South Atlantic City, the sandy shoreline, and the endless expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. This unique design was modeled after the opulent carriages used by Indian royalty during the Victorian era. In 1929, a violent storm tore off the original howdah, which was later replaced by a less ornate one.
Interestingly, of the three towering elephant-shaped structures inspired by Lafferty’s vision, Lucy is the only one still standing. Lafferty was commissioned to build her larger sister, Elephantine Colossus, on Coney Island in 1884. She was big—roughly twice the size of Lucy and approximately 12-stories tall! She stood 122-feet-tall and had seven floors and 31 interior rooms. However, due to her popular location and competing attractions, the building never gained enough traction and was a financial failure from the beginning. By 1896, it was practically a deserted structure, and on Sunday evening, September 27, 1896, Elephantine Colossus caught fire and crumbled to the sand.
Lucy’s smaller sister, the Light of Asia, was a 40-foot wooden elephant built on the beach in what is now the Borough of South Cape May, New Jersey. “This elephant was owned by Theodore Reger of Philadelphia and built under the supervision of James Bradley, a builder of the area; Lafferty did not help build that structure,” said Jeremy Bingaman, director of education and C.O.O. of the Save Lucy Committee. “Since Lafferty owned the patent on all animal-shaped buildings, Reger had to get his permission—which Lafferty granted under the condition that it was shorter than Lucy.” Work began on her frame in May of 1884, but by the spring of 1900, the elephant had deteriorated to the point that it was declared beyond saving and was torn down.
Winds of Change
By 1887, Lafferty sought to unload his South Atlantic City holdings and found a willing buyer in Anton Gertzen, a Philadelphia-based business and family man who was impressed by the area and its potential. Along with other land, Gertzen purchased the remaining elephant building. After Anton Gertzen’s death in 1902, his properties were divided amongst his children. His third son, John Gertzen, along with his wife Sophia Blackowski Gertzen, took ownership of the
elephant structure and expanded the family’s local influence. The couple charged visitors ten cents to tour Lucy’s furnished interior and climb the spiral stairway to the howdah. It was Sophia who gave the goliath its enduring name — “Lucy the Elephant” — that same year, though her exact reasoning for choosing this name was never recorded.
Lucy’s interior space has been rebuilt several times during the last century, but not without some notoriety. The most common misconception about Lucy was that she was once a hotel. While she appeared on numerous souvenir postcards promoting “The Elephant Hotel of Atlantic City,” the actual hotel was located in a separate building—not inside the elephant itself. She served as Lafferty’s office space before he sold it to Gertzen, and was also operated as a tourist attraction, but she never offered hospitality to tourists seeking a unique place to spend the night.
Later that year, Lucy was leased by an English doctor and his family for the summer; they were the only people to ever reside inside the elephant. They moved into her ample interior and converted the main hall into four bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen, and parlor. A bathroom was outfitted in one of the small front shoulder closets using a miniature bathtub. A year later, in 1903, Lucy was heavily damaged in a ferocious storm and was standing knee deep in the sand before volunteers helped to dig her out and move her farther back from the sea. Not long after, Lucy was converted into a tavern, but rowdy drinkers kept knocking over the oil lanterns, quickly ending her days as a bar. From then on, Lucy continued to be a staple of the beach community; Sophia and her children continued to run the business as a tourist attraction, but the financial upkeep became too much, and Lucy deteriorated over time.
In 1970, the Gertzen children donated Lucy to the City of Margate and sold the land to developers.
On the Brink
“My first remembrance of Lucy is being a five-year-old kid. My mother would take me to visit her when she was kind of derelict. Then, in 1962, the city condemned her and shut her down, because she fell into such disrepair after a three-day Nor’easter in March of that year covered the island in water,” said Helfant. “Even though the Gertzens owned it, it sat and continued to deteriorate and become even more dilapidated. It never operated again from ’62, all the way until after it was sold and restored by the Save Lucy Committee.”
The Save the Lucy Committee was formed in 1969 by local residents Josephine Harron, Sylvia Carpenter, and Edwin Carpenter. By then, the 88-year-old landmark had succumbed to decades of neglect and decay, with much of its tin sheeting ravaged by rust and its wooden timbers rotting away.
Through a door-to-door volunteer effort, the Save Lucy Committee raised the funds necessary to move the elephant
to a city-owned property nearby and begin restoration. “I started volunteering to save Lucy in seventh grade, selling candy to save her from a wrecking ball,” remembered Helfant. On the morning of July 20, 1970, the 90-ton structure was slowly and carefully transported via a trailer towed by a truck 100 yards down Atlantic Avenue to a new city-owned location on the corner of S. Decatur Avenue. Local utility companies worked to clear power lines, while thousands of spectators cheered as the pachyderm made her “moving day” journey. “As she came down off the curb, everybody held their breath because we all worried that the elephant was going to crumble to the ground. I remember the pigeons and seagulls flying out of her, watching pieces of wood fall to the ground. There were clouds of dust and creaking nails, but she made the move,” shared Helfant. It was a monumental undertaking, taking nearly seven hours to safely secure the elephant in her new home two blocks away. Lucy’s preservation wasn’t just a battle against decay—it was a fight through political and bureaucratic obstacles. “Just three days before her scheduled relocation in 1970, the Atlantic Beach Corporation served an injunction, claiming Lucy would decrease adjacent property values. In an unprecedented Saturday hearing, Judge Benjamin Rimm ruled in favor of the Save Lucy Committee, but this left workers scrambling to complete preparations that had been halted. The city government itself showed little support, with Mayor Martin Bloom declaring that Lucy wouldn’t receive any taxpayer money. The city even required the Save Lucy Committee to take out an insurance policy to cover cleanup costs when — not if — the elephant collapsed,” continued Helfant. Despite years of contentious relationships with various city administrations who fought tooth and nail against preservation efforts, the Save Lucy Committee thankfully persevered. Today, they enjoy a positive partnership with the current administration, though
James V. Lafferty, Jr. and children. Belived to be the only photograph.
this hard-won cooperation came after decades of political resistance.
By 1974, the exterior and structural elements had been repaired, allowing Lucy to reopen to the public after 12 years of neglect. Two years later, in 1976, Lucy was formally recognized. “Co-founder Josephine Harron successfully lobbied the federal government to designate Lucy as a National Historic Landmark. To be one of those landmarks — on the same list as the Statue of Liberty, which Lucy is actually older than — is pretty humbling,” expressed Helfant. One might think Lucy’s biggest challenge would be her proximity to the ocean, as well as the salty air and high humidity, but “It’s not,” declared Helfant. “It’s the sand blasting. She’s been hammered with sand for over a century. In fact, we replaced all of her skin with an alloy called Monel 400, which is a nickel and copper-based alloy resistant to these corrosive conditions. That was a 2.4-million-dollar restoration on her exterior.” That 15-month project restoring Lucy’s weathered exterior was completed in December 2022.
New Life
“In September, we are embarking on interior restoration,” explained Helfant. “We’re about to tear down and rebuild the welcome center. It was built in the 80s when we had 3,000 visitors a year. Now we have 150,000 visitors a year, and the building just can’t handle it. We plan to demolish the building and [construct] a state-of-the art, ADAcompliant Welcome Center. This will enable us to market to schools and get kids to visit and learn about Lucy’s history, while continuing her legacy.” The project will also involve refinishing the walls and the soft, yellow pine floors, which
have been worn down over time by sand being tracked through the area. Upgrades to both the fire suppression and alarm systems are also planned.
Over the years, the 143-year-old elephant-shaped structure has come to the brink of demolition several times, only to be saved by outpourings of public protest and grassroots fundraising. “She’s survived so much. Hurricanes and Nor’easters, but also apathy and neglect from the public, when she didn’t matter, and no one cared. And the fact that today she still stands as a beacon of what man can do when he sets his mind to something—it’s amazing.” And as a selffunded nonprofit, Lucy continues to stand proudly thanks to generous donations from her loving fans.
Even after all these years, Lucy continues to captivate hearts and stay relevant in a fast-changing world thanks in part to her active and engaging social media presence. The outpouring of love and engagement she receives online reflects the genuine affection that people have for her. “I credit it to people truly loving Lucy. There’s no other giant six-story elephant anywhere. She’s that special,” mused Helfant.
Recognized as the twelfth-largest statue in the United States, Lucy was crowned America’s number one roadside attraction in a 2024 USA Today poll, a tribute to her enduring charm and resilience. Lafferty’s visionary zoomorphic design sparked a legacy of whimsical roadside attractions, paving the way for other iconic larger-than-life roadside wonders like the Cabazon Dinosaurs in California and The Big Fish in Bena, Minnesota. These oversized marvels, scattered across our highways, celebrate the quirky spirit that defines America’s love for the extraordinary and are reminders of the creativity, determination, and playful ingenuity that have shaped the nation’s story.
An aerial shot of Lucy standing out among the many buildings in Margate City.
Photograph by Carol M. Highsmith.
Tucumcari, New Mexico, is one of those Route 66 towns that oozes Route 66 culture. From the quaint mom-and-pop motels to its diners, neon signs, and old gas stations, it is a time capsule that has preserved the ethos of the Mother Road like few other towns along the 2488-mile expanse.
And it is here that Jerry Mares, 64, is feeding local residents and travelers alike at one of the most recognizable spots in town, La Cita.
The name itself—La Cita—is somewhat difficult to translate from Spanish, because it can mean numerous things. Ranging from the basic “appointment,” to a date with someone of the opposite sex, or a planned rendezvous to meet someone somewhere, it can also mean a direct quotation from someone, or even a saying that is often repeated. Interpretation is in the mind of the beholder. Mares prefers “a meeting,” though, a subtle nod to the coming together of people and food.
It all started in 1940, some 14 years after Route 66 had been designated atop what was then known as Gaynell Avenue. La Cita was originally located on the northwest corner of Gaynell and 1st Street, directly across from the current location, and was owned and operated by Maurice and Lee Snider. “It started across the street in a gas station. I believe she was the cook, and he was the waiter,” recalled Mares. “They ran it forever.” In 1961, the tiny restaurant moved into larger digs on the southeast corner opposite them in a new building and added one of the most unique doorways along the Mother Road, one that has caught the eye of many a photographer.
A large stucco sombrero was added above the conical entry, which angles toward the northwest and catches summer’s setting sun directly. Measuring 30 feet tall and 15 feet wide, the sombrero has become a kitsch icon. Between that and the old neon sign which had followed them in the move, La Cita had what was arguably the most eye-catching appearance of any business in town. Mares, a Tucumcari native, remembers it well from his youth, the food and curb appeal planting a seed that would bloom many years later. “I also have recollections of it having that bright red carpet, the kind [people] had in their house at the time,” he chuckled. La Cita had a ringside seat at a time when there were 2,000 motel rooms and “Tucumcari Tonight” was more than a clever slogan, but a necessary reality for road travelers. Dozens of mom-and-pop motels lined both sides of Gaynell, which by 1970 had become known as Tucumcari Boulevard, along with other cafés and countless gas stations. This particular stretch of road remained Route 66 throughout this time. By the middle and latter part of the century, southwestern cuisine was carving its niche all across the U.S.; not just regionally. Cultural stereotypes were prevalent, if only to give the impression of authenticity. But they were fun, and motorists enjoyed, as they still do today, the kitschy side of road travel. The giant sombrero and all the brilliant colors on the building called out to them.
Tucumcari residents Karen Manning and Sharon McCauley (now deceased) bought the business side of La Cita in
1998, but by 2004 they found themselves with unspecified business problems between them and their landlord, who still owned the iconic location. The two women closed La Cita completely, and opened Dean’s down the street, which only lasted a year. It closed in 2005.
La Cita reopened in 2006, this time under the ownership of DFL Properties, who also owned the Pow Wow Restaurant and Lizard Lounge. The latter was popular for its anthropomorphic talking lizard and is located a few blocks west along 66. Among this group was Mares.
The new owners remodeled and repainted La Cita to freshen its appearance. It was at this time that the neon sign was restored as part of New Mexico’s Route 66 neon sign program.
Mares and his partners wound up in the restaurant business unintentionally. His two partners were more interested in the liquor license that was included with Lizard Lounge, but there was the large restaurant that went with it, not to mention a Best Western Motel. They operated the motel several years before selling it to a California-based company around 2009, this being outside their original scope of business. But it was Mares’ prior experience in food service that made both the lounge and restaurant work.
“Back when I was in high school, I cooked. I started as a busboy at the Holiday Inn. I hated it because I had to wear a tie. One night all the chefs walked out. The owner asked me if I wanted to cook,” said Mares. “I responded, ‘Do I have to wear a tie?’ He said no, promoted me, and I went to work as a cook.” Little did he know that he would fall in love with food service. But that was just the beginning for the young restaurateur.
“When I was young, I hung out with a friend whose parents owned the Sahara Sands Restaurant. I cooked there, and eventually I wound up leasing that restaurant. I ran it for three years, and then got out of the restaurant business for a long time.”
In 2022, Mares and his partners sold the Pow Wow and Lizard Lounge, which they had purchased in 2002, to local businessman Todd Duplantis. At about the same time, the other two partners also opted out of the restaurant business entirely, transferring full ownership of La Cita to Mares. A respected businessman in town, he also owns the hardware store near downtown and has a construction company with his brother. He is also a municipal judge, meaning that he changes hats— and robes—regularly as he transitions between roles.
Today, that gaudy red carpet is gone, and Mares uses the four walls as an ad hoc art gallery featuring Southwest and Tucumcari motifs. As for the neon sign and its chaser bulbs, it was restored again in early 2024, following a devastating hail storm that wiped out many signs in town. “I just hope it keeps growing by leaps and bounds,” Mares waxed, optimistic.
Judging by the volume of customers going in and out through that sombrero, Mares has succeeded in bringing people and food together for a very restorative meeting, but more importantly, it was the Sniders who were prescient in placing that sombrero there in the first place. You can bet that Mares is tipping his hat.
BEST MUSEUMS ON ROUTE 66
Imagine cruising down the open road, wind in your hair, the hum of the engine roaring, and the promise of adventure around every curve—this is the magic of the American road trip. Among the nation’s legendary highways, one stands out as THE leader of them all: Route 66. Along the Mother Road, it is not just the brilliant neon and kitschy roadside attractions that stand out, but the quirky, unforgettable museums that fill the journey with unexpected
Route 66 Association Hall of Fame and Museum – Pontiac, IL
delights. From tiny roadside gems tucked away in forgotten towns to well-designed, professional institutions, there are dozens and dozens of spots that both celebrate the legendary highway and captivating regional history. Truly, there is no shortage of places to fuel up on nostalgia. These are just a few of our top picks for the best museums on the road. So, map them out and plan to invest some wonderful time strolling through unique and fascinating history and culture.
Nestled in the charming town of Pontiac, the Route 66 Association Hall of Fame and Museum is a must-visit for anyone with a love for the Mother Road. Pontiac itself is a vibrant Route 66 town, boasting historic murals, classic diners, and an unmistakable small-town charm that transports visitors back to the golden age of road trips.
Inside the museum, you’ll discover an incredible collection of memorabilia, photographs, and stories that celebrate the people and places that made Route 66 legendary. Highlights include the famous Bob Waldmire collection, showcasing the artwork and van of the beloved Route 66 artist and historian. You’ll also find vintage signs, classic road maps, and exhibits honoring the businesses and icons inducted into the Route 66 Hall of Fame.
Best of all, admission is free, making it an easy and worthwhile stop for history buffs, road trip lovers, and families alike. Whether you’re traveling the full route or just passing through, the Route 66 Museum in Pontiac is a perfect way to experience America’s most famous highway. Before you hit the road, don’t forget to snap a photo with the massive Route 66 shield mural on the brick facade outside — the highway’s largest painted Route 66 shield — and take a walk and explore the more than 20 murals that decorate this charming town.
McLean County Museum of History – Bloomington, IL
Located in the heart of Bloomington, the McLean County Museum of History is a favorite for local history enthusiasts and travelers alike. Bloomington was once a key stop along the Mother Road, offering a deep connection to America’s highway culture. Today, the museum brings that history to life while showcasing the broader story of McLean County and its role in shaping Illinois.
Housed in a beautifully restored 1903 courthouse, the museum features five exhibit galleries covering everything from the region’s agricultural heritage to its pivotal role in Abraham Lincoln’s legal career. Explore artifacts, photographs, and interactive displays that highlight local history, including the county’s connections to Route 66. The museum also hosts engaging programs, walking tours, and special events throughout the year.
Whether you’re a road-tripper, a history buff, or just looking for a unique experience in Central Illinois, this museum offers an unforgettable journey into the past—just steps away from the legendary Route 66. It is a serene destination so plan to peacefully enjoy the quietness and history that permeate the building.
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum – Oklahoma City, OK
Located in Oklahoma City, a town with a rich Western heritage, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is the perfect stop
for anyone fascinated by the spirit of the American West. At the museum, you’ll explore an incredible collection of Western art, artifacts, and history, covering everything from Native American culture to cowboy life, rodeo legends, and frontier settlements. Stand in awe of Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell’s iconic Western artwork, wander through a lifesized replica of a frontier town, and discover historic firearms, cowboy gear, and movie memorabilia from Hollywood’s greatest Westerns.
With interactive exhibits, stunning sculptures, and engaging stories, this museum brings the Wild West to life like nowhere else. Whether you’re a history buff, an art lover, or a Route 66 traveler looking to experience true Western culture, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is an unforgettable stop in OKC!
Oklahoma Route 66 Museum – Clinton, OK
Located in Clinton, a classic Route 66 town that is deservedly known for its nostalgic roadside charm and quaint downtown, the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum is perhaps the most popular museum on the highway. Inside the museum, you’ll take a trip through time, experiencing the history of Route 66 from its 1920s beginnings to its golden age and beyond. Walk through immersive exhibits featuring vintage cars, oldfashioned gas stations, classic diners, and neon-lit motels, all set to the soundtrack of the eras they represent. Discover personal stories, rare memorabilia, and interactive displays that bring America’s most famous highway to life.
Whether you’re a lifelong Route 66 fan or just discovering its magic, the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum offers a fun, nostalgic, and educational stop for travelers of all ages. Don’t miss this chance to step back in time and experience the true spirit of the Mother Road!
Will Rogers Memorial Museum – Claremore, OK
The Will Rogers Memorial Museum is where cowboy charm meets Hollywood fame! Opened in 1938, this hilltop tribute to America’s favorite humorist, actor, and rope-spinning philosopher is packed with memorabilia, movies, and plenty of Rogers’ legendary wit. Swing by to celebrate the man who never met a stranger—and maybe pick up some cowboy wisdom yourself!
Step inside and journey through Will’s incredible life, from his Cherokee heritage to his rise as a Vaudeville star, beloved radio personality, and silver screen icon. Explore exhibits filled with his saddles, scripts, and signature quips, or catch one of his classic films in the museum’s theater. Outside, take in breathtaking views of Claremore, stroll through the peaceful gardens, and pay respects at Will’s final resting place.
Still in town, the Claremore Museum of History also gets a shoutout— discover even more about the town that shaped this legendary cowboy. Come for the history, stay for the humor, and leave with a heart as big as the Oklahoma sky!
Mesalands Community College’s Dinosaur Museum – Tucumcari, NM
Get ready for a prehistoric adventure at Mesalands Community College’s Dinosaur Museum! Home to life-sized dinosaur skeletons, fossils, and even a Tyrannosaurus rex skull, this museum brings the ancient past to life. With hands-on exhibits and a working fossil lab, it’s a dino-lover’s dream. Whether you’re a kid or just a kid at heart, this place rocks—literally!
Step inside and be greeted by towering fossil casts, including a fearsome T. Rex, massive, long-necked giants, and even the armored Ankylosaurus. Get up close with real dinosaur bones, touch ancient fossils, and watch paleontologists at work in the museum’s fully operational fossil lab. If you’ve ever wanted to see how science and discovery collide, this is the place!
Beyond the dinosaurs, the museum also highlights New Mexico’s rich fossil history, from early marine creatures to the mighty beasts that once roamed the region. Plus, interactive exhibits let you compare your own footprints to a dinosaur’s and even try your hand at fossil digging!
Still in town, the New Mexico Route 66 Museum & Monument also gets a very special shoutout—where you can take a nostalgic trip down America’s most iconic highway. Whether you’re here for dinosaurs, road trip history, or classic cars, Tucumcari is a must-stop destination for travelers looking to experience the past in a big, bold way!
New Mexico Mining Museum – Grants, NM
Small town Grants is a historic Route 66 town known for its rich mining heritage and breathtaking high desert landscapes. Also a major draw to this peaceful destination is the New Mexico Mining Museum, a location that offers a unique underground adventure into the world of uranium mining. Grants, once the Uranium Capital of the World, still embraces its Route 66 charm with retro motel signs and other roadside relics, making it a great stop for road-trippers exploring the Land of Enchantment.
At the museum, you can experience a simulated underground mine, where you’ll descend into a realistic setting filled with authentic mining equipment, tunnels, and stories from the miners who helped power America’s nuclear age. Feel the cool underground air as you navigate passageways lined with heavy machinery and learn what it was like to work beneath the surface during one of America’s most significant mining booms. Above ground, explore fascinating exhibits on New Mexico’s mining history, local geology, and the impact of uranium on the region. Discover the science behind uranium’s power, handle fluorescent minerals that glow under black light, and hear firsthand accounts from those who worked in the industry.
Whether you’re a history buff, a geology enthusiast, or just looking for a one-of-a-kind stop along Route 66, the New Mexico Mining Museum in Grants is a must-visit attraction that digs deep into the past in a surprisingly engaging way! Step into the world of miners, feel the weight of history, and uncover the fascinating legacy of a town that helped fuel the atomic era—all in an unforgettable underground adventure!
GET YOUR KICKS UNDER THE ROAD
While it may not look like it today, at one point, during Route 66’s heyday, numerous sections of the highway were incredibly busy with automobile traffic, making pedestrian crossing certainly a little dangerous. So, several towns devised plans to safeguard their foot traffic while ensuring that the flow of the motoring public went undisrupted. Today, underneath a section of Route 66 that runs through peaceful Chelsea, Oklahoma, survives one of these plans; a pedestrian underpass that holds a piece of the town’s storied past and is a symbol of the historic road’s legacy.
By 1956, parts of 30-year-old Route 66 had approval to expand from two lanes to four due to the pressure of growing traffic. At that time, Chelsea was nearing the completion of a new elementary school building on the east side of town, raising concerns among residents about students crossing the four-lane Route 66. As a result, plans to build a pedestrian underpass were introduced and approved by the Oklahoma State Highway Commission later that year. In November 1958, the subterranean pedestrian underpass was opened.
“We [used] to walk across town and use the underpass. It wasn’t really nice down there then, but it wasn’t too scary for little kids, either. We were in fourth, fifth grade at the time. But after Route 66 was decommissioned, it was abandoned,”
other residents concerned about Chelsea’s decline, they created Project Chelsea with the goal of preserving and promoting the town’s Route 66 history. Their first project to restore the pedestrian underpass and highlight its historical significance came to life in January 2016 with the recruitment of local Sapulpa muralist Kenneth Hollingshead, who was excited to help alongside the Stanbros’ son, Parker. The plan was to have painted mural illustrations of the history of the town.
recalled Pam Stanbro, a lifelong Chelsea resident.
Once Highway 66 was de-certified in April 1985, traffic reduced, and the underpass ceased to be of use. For three decades, it lay neglected and decrepit until a chance road trip sparked an idea. In 2015, Stanbro and her husband, Bill, traveled west to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary in Malibu, California. Debating on a route back to Oklahoma, they decided to embark on a Mother Road adventure.
“At that time, we were stopping and getting brochures and maps and stuff. Chelsea wasn’t even listed as a Route 66 town. So, we’re like, ‘We’ve got to get Chelsea on the map!’ So, all the way home, I’m getting these ideas, and I’m planning to go home and tell my friends, ‘We’ve got to do something!’”
Pulling up to the only stoplight in Chelsea, the Stanbros unexpectedly spotted the forgotten underpass across the street and found inspiration. Along with
“They wanted to include some kind of business that was actually on Route 66 in Chelsea. I had a picture of my grandfather’s station, and Hollingshead had the idea to paint it on there. Then we got to talking about Parker’s old car — a Buick — that he was given when he was two years old. So, Hollingshead said, ‘Well, let’s paint that car on there too,’ and decided to paint the little boy and the older man. It looks like Parker is standing there in front of his greatgrandpa’s station. And it made it more than just a mural for my family. It made it pretty special,” said Stanbro. Hollingshead also added other postcard paintings along one wall that included several beloved Chelsea landmarks, including the Pryor Creek Bridge, built along Route 66 in 1926 and used until the highway’s realignment in 1932, the Chelsea Motel, built in the mid-1930s, a view of Main Street from the early 1900s, and Oklahoma’s first oil well, among others. The opposite wall of the tunnel was titled “Sign Our Wall” to encourage visitors to sign and leave their mark under America’s Main Street.
Four months and $6,000 in donations and fundraising later, the restored underpass was unveiled to 300 people at the grand reopening on April 30, 2016. The event included Cherokee nation speakers, a barbeque, and a car show. Once an abandoned relic, the revitalization of the underground tunnel has put Chelsea back on the map, despite declining activity and some challenges with vandalism. Now existing as the only ‘open’ pedestrian tunnel of its kind on the Mother Road, the Chelsea Route 66 Underpass serves as a nostalgic reminder of the heydays of Route 66 and the efforts to accommodate both vehicular and pedestrian traffic on one of America’s most famous — and busy — highways.
Miami, Oklahoma
66.
Photograph by David J. Schwartz –Pics On Route
AUTHENTIC OZARKS
The Ozarks have long been a place of legend and mythology— hillbilly stereotypes who love moonshine and don oversized overalls and greet everyone with a smile. But the truth is, this stretch of land is rich in history, tradition, and some of the best damn barbecue you’ll ever eat. If you’re cruising down Route 66 through eastern Missouri, you might just find yourself lured off the highway by the sweet, smoky scent of barbecue drifting through the forest. That’s no accident—it’s Missouri Hick Bar-B-Que in scenic Cuba, and if you haven’t stopped in yet, you’re missing out on a true Mother Road experience.
Hunkered down in a rugged, timber-framed joint that looks like it sprouted straight up from the Ozark soil, Missouri Hick has been serving up smoky goodness for more than 23 years. The decor is more “Grandpappy’s barn” than “upmarket fine dining.” Ain’t nobody complaining, though—folks come here for the cherry wood smoked meat and the kitschy ambiance, not the tablecloths.
thought Dad was a crazy fool for opening the restaurant. ‘A terrible location. A terrible idea,’ they said,” laughed Ryan.
Upon opening in 2002, Route 66 was still part of America’s bygone era, and friends and locals thought that with the giant interstates, no one would care, and no one would stop. But with the Mother Road’s resurgence in interest and popularity, they quickly all ate their words (along with some delicious BBQ).
Missouri Hick keeps it simple—because good barbecue doesn’t need fancy fixings. Their menu is packed with all the classics: St. Louis-style ribs, melt-in-your-mouth beef brisket, and their legendary stuffed baked potatoes big enough to make a grown man weep. They’ve added a few extras over the years, like broasted chicken and fried catfish (all-you-caneat on Fridays, if you reckon you have the stomach for it).
The story of Missouri Hick started with Dennis Meiser, a fella who knew his way around a smoker and a sawmill. He also knew a great lure, if you will, and took full advantage of the local Ozark stereotypes to create a modern-day attraction that would naturally draw both domestic and international travelers off the historic highway. “In the Ozarks, a hick is like a country hillbilly, someone who adopts a simple, country lifestyle,” said Ryan, Dennis’ son. “Since we’re Cuba, Missouri locals and serve simple barbeque fare, the restaurant kind of named itself.”
Dennis was a visionary and a dreamer who built the place with his own two hands, crafting the staircase, as well as every table, chair, and countertop from live cedar cut in the woodshop next door. Dennis passed on in 2021, but his son, Ryan, picked up the torch—or in this case, the tongs—and carried on his daddy’s legacy with pride. “I was in here at five years old, standing on a milk crate and washing dishes. Greeting patrons and opening and closing the door for them,” recalled Ryan. “This place has been a big part of my life, ever since I was young. I take care of it to the best of my ability because it’s supported me all my life. A lot of people
And if you like your barbecue sauced up, they have six kinds to choose from—but the Sweet & Smoky, a Kansas City-style molasses-brown sugar dream, is the crowd favorite. The inside of the restaurant looks like a museum of hillbilly ingenuity. Old woodworking tools and farming equipment, saddles, and even a couple of hand-crank washing machines are scattered around like a tribute to Ozark grit. “Even the bases of some of our tables were made from old, foot-powered sewing machines,” Ryan said, nodding to his father’s love of craftsmanship. And you can’t talk about Missouri Hick without talking about Route 66—which runs right out front. Being one of the first stops in the iconic Mother Road town, Missouri Hick’s staff have become unofficial tour guides for folks passing through. “We send them off to see the murals, the historic Wagon Wheel Hotel (next door), and of course, ‘The World’s Largest Red Rocking Chair’ over in Fanning,” continued Ryan. “Half the fun of Route 66 is the stories, and we are proud to be part of ‘em.”
The highway might’ve changed somewhat over the years, and the interstates might be faster, but Cuba isn’t letting go of its Route 66 roots. And at Missouri Hick Bar-B-Que, the smoke keeps rolling, the meat keeps cooking, and travelers keep stopping in—looking for a taste of old-school Ozark hospitality. And if you leave hungry? Well, that’s your own darn fault.
ROUTE 66 EXPERIENCE
By Mitchell Brown
Photograph by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66
Trying to condense 300 miles of culture and history into a single confined space is no easy task, especially concerning something as prolific as the Illinois stretch of Route 66. It’s the lifeblood of the state. The celebrated road not only starts in Chicago, but it spans the Land of Lincoln and sustains so many small businesses and highlights plenty of visually unique attractions. So, how do you celebrate something so massive and extravagant? That’s what the Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau asked themselves with the approaching centennial of the Mother Road, and that’s what put the ball in motion to simulate the Illinois Route 66 Experience and what led to the creation of…well, The Illinois Route 66 Experience.
Created as a self-guided educational exhibit, The Illinois Route 66 Experience in Springfield was developed to inform younger generations of the importance of the road and the 92 communities it passes through, while also showcasing the romance of road trips and traveling. The Experience combines informative exhibits that describe the small businesses (past and current) and communities on Route 66 with large-scale attractions that display the road’s iconography, including vintage billboards, a miniature drive-in theater, a neon sign park, and a tribute to Muffler Men giants. All of this, combined, creates an immersive experience of a micro-version of driving down Route 66 in Illinois. The concept came in early 2020 when Scott Dahl, director of Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau, approached the Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway to collaborate on a project and celebrate what the road means to Illinois. The timing was perfect, as they had recently appointed a new executive director, Casey Claypool. However, it would come at a price. “I started on March 2nd , 2020, two weeks before the stay-athome orders came in for COVID,” said Claypool. “I think, on my 10 th or 11th day on the job, Scott called and introduced himself to me. They knew a non-profit could get it done faster than a city entity. That was my first meeting with him, and he sold me on the project as soon as we were done talking.”
Even before collaborating with the Byway though, Dahl was already location scouting the Illinois State Fairgrounds to potentially use a corner of the property for what would eventually become an exhibit. It was deemed that the area wasn’t being utilized to its fullest capacity, having been mostly vacant for several years, and since it runs along America’s Main Street, it morphed into the perfect location. Development was initially set to get started in June 2020, but due to the pandemic, progress would come to a standstill until June of the following year.
However, once the world opened back up and people were able to get back to work, there was nothing that got in their way to bring their idea to life. “It was pretty seamless. We had no hurdles with the fairgrounds or the Department of
Agriculture, and were able to obtain grants,” said Claypool. “Ace Sign Company did the project from start to finish. Every ounce of fabrication and installation.” The company went on to create everything in the park, from the miniature replica of the Route 66 Drive-in that used to be on South 6th Street in Springfield (which plays silent clips from films like The Wizard of Oz and the original Godzilla) to the recreations of iconic neon signs such as the Bel Air Drive-in and the Chain of Rocks Motel. The signs were chosen based on the criteria of having existed at the time of Route 66’s inception or in its earliest carnations, with the final four selected out of ten potential options. Since the group responsible was relatively small—five people in total—and were all on the same page, making a decision proved to be an easy process. The signs ultimately became one of the more popular attractions for visitors, some old enough to remember visiting the locations represented, giving the park a nostalgic ambiance that comes to life when the sun goes down. In many ways, a visit to the neon park at night is a wonderful assault on the senses. The larger than life and brilliantly lit signs really dazzle and captivate against the dark night, as neon is supposed to do.
The original idea in the concept stage was to include miniature versions of attractions on the road, but that was eventually shot down when the realization came that that would create less urgency to see the attractions in person and ultimately defeat the purpose of the entire exhibit.
“We talked about doing replicas early on, and we quickly nixed the idea,” said Claypool, “The whole point of the project is to get people to think, ‘Wow, we really need to get out on the road,’ so the project was restructured to turn it into a teaser and an educational project, but still gives people’s imaginations room to run.”
The Route 66 Experience was completed in August 2023, following a lighting ceremony that took place in late July. Since its creation, the exhibit has exceeded the creators’ expectations. With the available viewing hours being from dawn until dusk, visitors can be seen coming in at all times of day to take pictures, whether it be early in the morning or late at night. Businesses in Springfield have also used it for commercials, and the state’s tourism office has used it as part of their nationwide ‘Middle of Everything’ campaign, giving Claypool high hopes for its future sustainability. “We’ve done radio interviews, television interviews, and several articles. So, I think it’s just naturally going to become one of the biggest attractions in Illinois for Route 66.”
There has always been a lot to draw people to Springfield, Illinois, a land steeped in history and legend. It is the state capital and a place that truly celebrates the life and work of Abraham Lincoln and the impact of the automobile. It’s now home to a new attraction on the Mother Road that brings together the vintage and the new and inspires visitors to see that America is really still out there.
MORE THAN JUST A DINER
America has always had a love affair with greasy spoons, hole-in-the-wall eateries that may be tiny and unsophisticated, but whose simple ambiance and tasty food were exactly what patrons desired. Over the years, due to financial hardship and a shift in culinary taste, the majority of these classic spots have closed. But right on Route 66, at the corner of 7th and 622 Chouteau Avenue, in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, sits a plain, white brick building whose legacy still sparks collective nostalgia amongst locals. Meet the original Eat-Rite diner.
Right from the start, the tiny establishment’s beginnings were marred with a period of restlessness as it jumped from one owner to another, changing its name with each new transfer. From a burger-grill eatery called White Kitchen in 1933, to a Regal Sandwich Shop in 1955, and a Gateway Sandwich Shop in 1966, it took many years before the café would finally settle into the hands of a couple, under whose stewardship, it became a cherished piece of St. Louis history.
By 1970, Lewis B. Powers — a St. Louis local, raised in the sandwich-making business — and his wife Dorcas, had amassed a successful chain of six diners called “Eat-Rite” that boasted the snappy slogan: “EatRite or Don’t Eat
At All.” Catching sight of the quaint establishment at 7th and 622 Chouteau Avenue one fateful day, Lewis Powers quickly added it to his growing empire. However, little did the couple realize the instrumental impact that this diner would have on them and the surrounding community.
just a little counter and a family-owned operation in a kind of harsh neighborhood,” continued Elz.
However, surrounded by decaying 18th Century houses and rampant crime within the downtown district, the Powers’ little diner faced an uncertain future. But then an unlikely savior stepped into the picture: Ralston-Purina — a cereal and pet food corporation.
Today, better known as Nestlé Purina, the company almost single handedly kept Chouteau Avenue from becoming a ghost town when it built its 15 storied headquarters at 801 Chouteau Avenue. The company also sponsored a $30 million redevelopment program of the surrounding area that proposed rehabilitation and new housing. Sometime after the RalstonPurina revitalization, as the 1980s rolled in, the Powers sold their other restaurants, but held onto the Eat-Rite diner.
“They had the building for so long and loved the property. You think about hamburger places like White Castle or Culver’s, or Burger King… there’s no true connection. But here, in St. Louis, Eat-Rite had a connection,” said Elz.
“Eat-Rite was always at the heart of [Chouteau Avenue]. People came from all over to that tiny building, and it had as much business at night as during the day,” said Ron Elz, St. Louis radio legend and history buff. The diner’s compact size and distinct horseshoe-shaped counter created an intimate atmosphere, where conversations flowed as freely as the coffee, and it quickly became a beloved stop for people from all layers of society. Its iconic “Slinger,” a hearty dish featuring eggs, hash browns, chili, and cheese, became a legendary favorite.
“Everybody knew everybody — it was a first-name basis. There were a lot of politicians, police officers, judges, and even crooks. Everyone was equal; nothing was ostentatious, and you were treated very nicely. There were no computerized things, no AI, no machines taking your order;
In 2017, after almost four decades, a busted exhaust fan, and an 80-year-old Lewis seeking retirement, the Powers were prompted to sell their beloved eatery to real estate agent Joel Holtman, who became the new caretaker. After some extensive renovation and upgrades, but still maintaining the diner’s traditional charm, Holtman reopened the venue in 2018. Boasting a retro black-and-white tiled floor, the legendary counter, red stools, a pinball machine, and a jukebox, the establishment continued its long-standing tradition of bringing people from all walks of life together.
For two more years, the diner flourished, providing a taste of vintage Americana and a menu that remained faithful to beloved dishes. But then, the pandemic struck, the world entered lockdown, sales crashed, and, on December 12, 2020, Eat-Rite closed its iconic doors for good.
While the original building remains standing, it is now under a new owner and a new name (again). But in the minds of St. Louisans, the tiny white building on the corner of 7th and 622 Chouteau Avenue will always remain a stalwart fixture of a bygone era; a reminder of a place that once represented that welcoming feeling of coming home to a place where everyone belonged.
66.
Photograph by David J. Schwartz
HORSEPOWERED HEARTBEAT
Remember when driving was a joy? Back when you drove to escape, to feel that rush of freedom, or to connect with the person across that bucket seat from you. You’d share a smile when that one song came on; the stereo would get turned up, and windows would get rolled down. You can recapture that moment—or find it for the first time—on Route 66. Feel that horsepowered heartbeat that you’ve been missing in America’s Heartland.
Take the Scenic Route: VisitLebanonMo.org
A BRAND NEW FACE
By Cheryl Eichar Jett
Photographs by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66
The year was 1916, and Oklahoma City was an up and coming destination with a burgeoning, 27-year-young downtown. It would be at this location that the Ford Motor Company would build a Model T assembly plant that would help develop the district and town. This structure, a gargantuan four-story building to the tune of over 186,000 square feet, with an American Commercial exterior, looked down on the beginnings of the city’s industrial district. The whole thing occupied a half city block, its brick-and-glass facades spread right to the sidewalks.
Into this imposing edifice walked 24-year-old Fred Allison Jones, fresh off a Rock Island train from Georgia and looking for a job. Throughout the next half-century, Jones’ career soared, and in 1967, he finally purchased the building where he’d started his career.
Almost 50 years later, in 2016, the inspired lodging, restaurant, and art museum hybrid known as 21c Museum Hotel opened within the enormous space of what became the Fred Jones Manufacturing Company. But what of the young man who had walked into the assembly plant back in 1916? He got the job, of course. But that was truly just the beginning. His family continues to honor his legacy in this classic yet uniquely American story.
Fred Jones and the Ford Motor Company
In the shadow of the new Oklahoma Capitol’s construction, the city’s industrial district was developing nearby. In April 1916, the Ford Motor Company’s new assembly plant at the 900 block of West Main Street began operations. Its spacious windows and soaring brick pilasters identified the industrial style of architect Albert Kahn, who designed more than 1,000 buildings for Ford. On its opening day, Fred Jones is said to have been the first employee to punch in. In town to visit a cousin, Jones had liked the energy of the young and growing city and the ambition of the Ford Motor Company, all of which convinced him to adopt the city as his own. Jones rose through the ranks at the assembly plant and by 1923 began purchasing and growing Ford auto dealerships — eventually a total of 39. By 1926, Jones was the biggest Ford auto dealer in the Southwest, and by the time the decade of the Great Depression was nearing its close, he was the fourth-largest Ford dealer in the country.
During the Great Depression, Ford ceased car production in the West Main Street plant and began operations as a parts branch, which would continue with much less fanfare for the next 35 years. But Jones’ next venture was revolutionary. “In World War II, Ford couldn’t build parts — they were building tanks and airplanes — so someone had to remanufacture a part. And so, he did that, and started a huge industry of remanufacturing,” said Fred Jones Hall, president of Hall Capital and grandson of Fred Jones. Soon,
Fred Jones Manufacturing Company became the biggest Ford-authorized parts remanufacturing company in the U.S.
In 1967, Ford closed out its parts branch at 900 West Main, and Fred Jones was finally able to attain his goal of buying the Ford building, which became the headquarters for his businesses.
Throughout his career, Jones regularly gave back to his adopted city. He and his wife Mary Eddy (Neal) Jones became known for their philanthropy, community involvement, and patronage of the arts. But one of their largest gifts, the Fred Jones Jr. Art Center on the University of Oklahoma’s Norman campus, was the result of a tragedy—their son Fred Jr.’s death at the age of 25 in a plane crash in 1950. The new art center was their tribute.
Fred and Mary Eddy’s daughter, Marylin, married Brooks Hall, a Princeton- and Harvard- educated businessman, and an executive in the Fred Jones company. Brooks and Marylin’s first son was named Fred Jones Hall for his grandfather, with two more sons, Brooks “Boots” and Kirkland, joining the family later. The boys’ grandfather, Fred Jones, passed away in 1971 at the age of 79, although grandmother Mary Eddy would live until the year 2000, when she died at the grand old age of 97.
The Jones-Hall Synthesis and the Third Generation
As the three Hall grandsons were still getting their education, Fred Jones’ death precipitated a change in the control of his businesses. With no clear leadership heir, Ford Motor Company stepped in and engineered a sale to non-family members. Still overseeing operations were Mary Eddy and Marylin.
But Fred, Boots, and Kirkland Hall eventually knew it was time for them to return to Oklahoma City, buy out the new owners, and reclaim the Fred Jones legacy. By 1983, they had become controlling owners of the company and later diversified to add another component to their portfolio— capital. Thus was born Hall Capital. Through it all, the Hall brothers continued the philanthropy and community involvement that had become a hallmark of the family. And they began to wonder about a new chapter for the Fred Jones Manufacturing building.
21c Museum is Born
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the country, Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, philanthropists and art collectors in their native Louisville, Kentucky, wondered what role they could play in historic preservation, adaptive reuse, and contemporary art to drive building revitalization.
“We owned a building in downtown Louisville and knew that we wanted to do something to help revitalize the downtown corridor,” said Wilson, one of the founders of 21c. “The discussions and ideas kept evolving and 21c was born. My dad once told me art is worthless. I’ve been on a lifelong mission to prove him wrong. Contemporary art can be a spark for community, economic revitalization, and commerce; we have seen it in all of our locations.”
The first 21c Museum Hotel opened in 2006 in a series of 19th Century warehouse buildings in Louisville’s arts and theater district. But besides the boutique hotel and farmto-table restaurant, the couple incorporated an attraction
in line with their belief that art has the power to transform communities— a free admission, 24/7, contemporary art museum. “21c Louisville was successful almost immediately. We received the Readers’ Choice Award from Conde Nast Traveler magazine, and it really catapulted the property into a different sphere of recognition. We began to gain the attention of community leaders and art collectors from around the country. People began asking us to come and do the same thing in their hometown, and after some consideration, we decided to form the company,” Wilson said. One of those community leaders that contacted Wilson and Brown about doing “the same thing in their hometown” was Fred Jones Hall from Oklahoma City. He and his brothers felt that their historic building was the perfect spot for a 21c Museum Hotel.
“As soon as [my grandfather] bought the building, he called it his Camelot, so with that legacy, it’s not like we can sell [it]. We knew we wanted to make something special with it,” Hall said. “We had heard about 21c, and somebody suggested that I talk to Steve [Wilson]... that’s how it all came together.”
A New Life for a Historic Building
The Fred Jones Manufacturing Company, formerly the Ford Motor Company assembly plant, was indeed the right building, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014 as plans began to evolve and the partnership was cemented. Laura Lee and Steve’s 21c company partnered with Hall Capital. Deborah Berke’s architectural firm was called upon again, this time to work with local firm Hornbeek Blatt Architects. The Oklahoma City 21c Museum Hotel opened in the summer of 2016 — in the building’s centennial year — as the only hotel opening ever in a Ford Motor Company assembly plant!
Remarkably, the building had remained mostly unaltered over its 100-year life, and the scale of the structure lended itself to 21c’s generous use of large, airy, light-filled spaces. The architects reimagined the plant with a contemporary interpretation of the building’s industrial heritage, keeping in place or recreating many original elements. Throughout the vibrant redesign of the building, architect Kahn’s signature was splayed-top concrete columns, hallways wide enough to drive a Model T through, and the terrazzo tile floor in the former automobile showroom. One hundred thirty-five
high-ceilinged boutique hotel rooms were carved out of larger spaces or converted from former offices. Bathrooms were constructed with a luxuriously sleek, industrial look. An outdoor patio where the plant’s train shed once stood was outlined with old steel railway canopies.
As for the 21c’s unique restaurant, it was named Mary Eddy’s Kitchen and Lounge as a tribute to Fred Jones’ wife. Oklahoma City restaurant designers Benji Homsey and brothers Corbin and Ross See were tasked with reimagining the restaurant space to invoke the nostalgia attributed to the Jones’ neoclassical home — not far away on 17th Street. “The redesign of the restaurant included William Morris wallpaper, wood millwork, vintage chandeliers, pieces of her china, and a painting of Mary Jones herself,” explained Melanie Briley, 21c Museum OKC then-director of sales & marketing. “The family was very close to this project, which was really wonderful because it’s more than just a financial partner. It’s someone who wants to continue the history and the impact of this building on the city and wants to move that forward in a very different way.”
The art museum consisted of 14,000 square feet of exhibit space administered by Alice Gray Stites, Chief Curator and Museum Director for 21c’s multiple venues. The history of the building inspired four site-specific artworks collectively entitled Mechanical Magic, using materials and mechanics of 20th Century industry.
“Fred Hall and his family in Oklahoma City were the perfect partners for 21c,” Wilson emphasized. “Not only have they been community leaders for generations, but they also share[d] our passion for the arts. They understood the importance of the arts in the development of a city. The building they own, the former Model T Ford factory, is symbolic of the mission of 21c — it is steeped in tradition and architecturally important. Its redevelopment has also been a key catalyst for the revitalization of that part of downtown Oklahoma City.”
Melanie Briley and Fred J. Hall.
As Wilson and Brown have witnessed with other transformations, 21c Museum in Oklahoma City inspired additional revitalization in the West Village District. Apartments, shops, and restaurants have opened in the surrounding blocks. “We were really the first corporate inhabitants to start out there. It was great to see 21c being the anchor and Jones Assembly being one of the best restaurants, along with Mary Eddy’s, then to see the apartments flourishing,” Hall remembered. But more changes were to come.
The Fordson in Born
By the middle of 2023, Hall Capital and 21c Museum agreed to end their formal partnership. Hall wanted to go in a fresh direction, a decision that led to the addition of Avion Hospitality and later a partnership with Hyatt Hotels Corporation. Oh, and a brand new name: Fordson. It is clear that 21c Museum has been an integral part of Oklahoma City’s hospitality and arts scene in the past, and Hall is quick to take an opportunity to celebrate their contributions, but moving forward, the Fordson Hotel will be focusing more on showcasing the entrepreneurial spirit of Fred Jones and the family is excited to build upon the legacy of this historical landmark.
“When you think about the property and how the building is interwoven into the tapestry of the whole [Jones-Hall] family, it became important to share that story and that history. The Unbound Collection by Hyatt gave us a platform to be able to not only tell our story, but to welcome guests into the property and make space for them to tell theirs,” said Briley, who was promoted to General Manager of the hotel when they made the switch. The Unbound Collection is a curated group of unique, independent properties within the Hyatt portfolio. These hotels are characterized by their distinctive design, local character, and individual storytelling. The collection includes properties that have historical significance, unique architectural features, or
strong connections to their local communities. The Fred Jones Manufacturing Company building met all the criteria, thus: Fordson Hotel. Hyatt gave the Fordson space to be able to tell its story and celebrate its history, making for a one-of-a-kind experience.
“Guests really love the story and how it’s woven throughout the property in little and big ways. We have a Model T in the lobby now. There hasn’t been a Model T in the building since the 1940s, we think. So, to be able to bring these pieces back together is something special,” said Briley. “We were able to bring in a collection of memorabilia and photographs from Fred Jones’ original office. There’s old factory photos, plaques, really great photos of them and their children and grandchildren throughout the years. We were able to put in the original architecture photographs from Albert Khan; they actually have the stamp still on them that says ‘Ford Service Building, Albert Khan architect.’ We blew those up to huge proportions and have installed them in our guestrooms. It really sets a place and time when you stay.”
In early 2025, the Fordson transitioned the family’s namesake restaurant to Mary Eddy’s Italian Grill. “The restaurant is located in that historical showroom, a truly stunning space, architecturally and design wise. So, we did not change the interior. It’s still decorated to honor the matriarch of their family,” noted Briley. But they wanted the space to focus on family, longer meals, sharing, and togetherness. So now it’s a high-end Italian restaurant serving pasta, steak, and martinis. “Mary Eddy was known to be a wonderful hostess, always welcoming people to their home. We honor her spirit and warmth and hospitality by doing the same.”
While the Fordson had to return all of the artwork to 21c Museum during the transition, they have since partnered with the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art to decorate the cityblock long building. The art now featured throughout the property highlights local Oklahoma talent.
“There’s the building my grandfather started working in and helped grow, there’s the partnership with Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, created to pay respect to my late-uncle, and now Mary Eddy’s Italian Grill, after my grandmother, and they’re all together now—it’s really an homage to all our original history,” said Hall. With these additions and collaborations, the Fordson gets to honor and celebrate that incredible legacy every day.
The Ford assembly plant turned Fred Jones Manufacturing Company building lives to thrive in an exciting new chapter.
“I’m the CEO of a 103-year-old family company that started in this building. The legacy me and my family have with this building, with Ford, and now with Hyatt, is really something special, and I run this business with great love and affection,” reflected Hall. The family’s and building’s adaptation and continued success exemplify the American Dream — a classic Americana tale.
Fordson Hotel lobby.
WHISPERING GIANTS
By Stephen Plummer
Photograph by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66
America is a country that loves a good road trip.
And for many Americans, hitting the road is far more than traversing long busy interstate highways and much more about discovery. And along many routes, especially the quieter, more scenic ones, these discoveries take the form of roadside attractions: vividly designed murals, giant objects of all sorts, creative rock art, and so much more. They are not just an important part of a road trip; they are the essence of why so many people hit the open road in the first place.These creative landmarks transform ordinary landscapes into open-air galleries. They turn highways into cultural corridors, inviting travelers to stop, admire, and connect with the stories embedded in the land. Roadside art not only decorates the journey but shapes the experience of exploring America.
One of the more unusual examples of American roadside art is Peter Wolf Toth’s Trail of Whispering Giants. These enormous carved wooden statues stand as sentinels in honor of the indigenous peoples that once flourished in this land we call the Americas. In just over 50 years, Toth has carved 74 Whispering Giants — at least one in all 50 states and parts of Canada — making him one of America’s most prolific roadside artists of all time. In fact, he’s about to embark on his next journey to create his 75th in the Amazon.
Peter Wolf Toth’s journey began in 1971, when he carved his first Native American sculpture into a cliffside in La Jolla, California. “I saw this haunting face of an Indian in the natural stone and took my hammer and chisel and just brought it out of the rock as I saw it.” Toth then traveled back to his adopted hometown of Akron, Ohio, where he carved his second from the trunk of a large tree, which is the medium he’s used to create his Whispering Giants ever since. “I tell people that this is not something that just came to me out of the blue. This was a mission. My whole life was pushing me, tugging me, to create statues of the forgotten and displaced people of this land.” And it is this mission that has driven him to not only carve these magnificent statues across an entire continent, but to literally give them away. As Toth explained, “I don’t work for a commission, but to fulfill a mission. I try to intertwine the spirit of the Indian with the spirit of the tree.” While his sculptures are highly stylized, “due to the constraints of the tree I’m working with”, they’re painstakingly researched beforehand, from the actual physical traits of the people living today, as well as descriptions and drawings found in the Smithsonian’s archives, so that they accurately portray the people who ONCE lived in the areas his statues reside. Each sculpture is mainly hand carved using a hammer and chisel, but there are times when he will use power tools when needed. He works with local communities and tribes to locate a suitable tree in which to carve, which is cut, and provided to him for his sculptures. So, what would drive an immigrant from Europe to dedicate his entire life to crisscrossing the continent,
carving, and donating these magnificent wooden monuments?
Toth was born in Hungary in December 1947, soon after the Second World War. When he was just a boy, the communist party confiscated his father’s land and prized peach orchard with it. So, he and his family, now homeless, fled to Vienna, Austria, leaving much behind. It was in Austria that Toth began studying art. Eventually, he and his family were able to migrate to America where they settled in Akron. He went on to continue his studies at Akron University before embarking on his dream of creating a Whispering Giant in every state in America. A deeply empathetic man, born of the memories of the hardships that he and his family endured under communist rule, he became aware of the challenges faced by Indigenous peoples on this continent and has devoted his life to honoring their experiences through his art.
The name Whispering Giant was given by an Arapaho woman who came to see his carving in Lincoln, Nebraska. “She said that my giants were whispering to her. Telling of the sufferings of [her] people over the centuries. And that’s how the name came to be.” Toth has lived among, and been formally honored, by the many different tribes that his work portrays. Many, including the Iroquois, the Seminole, and the Lakota Sioux have formally dedicated his statues; it was at Standing Rock, during the Sioux’s annual powwow, that Toth received a generous gift of money — collected in a blanket passed around the dance grounds — enabling him to travel to Valdez, Alaska, to create his 40th statue from a colossal Sitka spruce. But the most meaningful honor that he’s been given was when he was adopted into the Wolf Clan of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee, after dedicating his 63rd statue — that of the famous Sequoyah who created the Cherokee alphabet in 1989 — in the town of Cherokee, North Carolina. “That’s why I now use Wolf in my name. To me, it is an honor and a show of respect for what I’ve been given.”
A few of Toth’s statues have fallen into disrepair over the years, and have been removed, such as his second in Akron and one in St. Louis. Along Route 66 there is only one Whispering Giant remaining. Located in First Street Park, just across from the intersection of W. First Street and N. Berry Avenue in Winslow, Arizona, tucked away, along the side of the railroad tracks that mark the edge of town. Carved from the 30,000-pound trunk of a tree growing in the northwest corner of the state, it was originally set on a pedestal and erected in Hospitality Golf Park in 1979, but was later moved to its present location in the newly created First Street Park in 2005. If you find yourself face-to-face with one of Peter Wolf Toth’s giants, it might just whisper something quite profound to you. It is Toth’s sincere hope that you will remember that before there were highways that connected this great land of ours, there were, and still are, a great and proud people that paid dearly for the America we know and love today. As he often says, “If you don’t get the point, then you’re missing the whole point.”
DRIVEN BY NOSTALGIA
By
Aaron Garza
Photograph by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66
Few things are associated with America’s Main Street like cars. An integral part of the road trip experience, automobiles have experienced a massive shift and change in style and design since their inception in the late 19 th Century, and certainly since the beginning of the Mother Road in the early 20 th . Of course, as the old is phased out and the new moves in, the cars of the past soon find themselves squirreled away into the assortments of private collectors in the best of cases, and junkyards to rust away in the worst. Thankfully, automotive museums across the country tirelessly work to preserve these vehicular histories. And for travelers coming through Oklahoma, Sapulpa houses their own slice of car history at the Heart of 66 Auto Museum.
This Mother Road story starts though in the iconic Route 66 city of Tulsa with Richard Holmes, a local attorney at law and car enthusiast. A Tulsa native and lifelong resident, Holmes was born with a love for automobiles and quickly had a mind that equaled his love for vehicles.
“My parents said I could identify every car on the road when I was four,” said Holmes. “I’ve just always been a car nut ever since I can remember. I love old cars and new cars and all cars. I’m just a car nut.”
By 2012, holding in his heart that deep passion for automobiles, Holmes eventually noticed something sorely lacking in Tulsa. They didn’t have their own car museum. And that just couldn’t stand.
“I had a number of people that were car friends and businesspeople — I’m an attorney, so some were clients of mine — and we put the Tulsa Auto Museum Board together. They’re all just great people that are really interested in promoting a car museum in northeastern Oklahoma as there wasn’t such a thing at the time,” said Holmes. “I thought it’d be a good idea, and everyone joined me. We looked around Tulsa but couldn’t find a place. Then we got a call from the Economic Development Director, Ted Fisher, who was in Sapulpa. He said that they’d been deeded the old National Guard Armory in town by the federal government and asked if we’d be interested in it to use as a museum. They offered it to us for $10 per year. We couldn’t pass that up!”
Three years of searching came to a close with that single call. On April 1st , 2015, the Tulsa Auto Museum signed the paperwork and proudly claimed a small stretch of land along the Mother Road as their own. It cost the organization half a million dollars to renovate the building. Walls had to be torn down, and ceilings had to be raised. The bathrooms and kitchens had to be gutted and plumbed, and the electrical system had to be improved to come into the 21st Century, but fast forward just a year, and the Heart of 66 Auto Museum opened on August 1st , 2016.
Run as a nonprofit, the Heart of 66 Auto Museum relies on a small but hugely dedicated staff of just over a dozen volunteers and employees that keep the show running, showcasing the car and memorabilia collections of the museum’s board members — alongside generous donations from independent collectors and other organizations — as well as the left behind remnants of the Armory’s National Guard days.
“Since the museum was put into a decommissioned National Guard Armory, we kept the paintings that were representing the Thunderbird division and a lot of the military symbols. We kept them and even restored some of the damaged and faded ones. Plus, we’ve got some military vehicles, 48-star flags, uniforms, and lots of military memorabilia,” shared Holmes.
Among their oldest pieces, the museum houses a pair of functioning touring cars from the 1920s that they love to take out every weekend, with Holmes himself even volunteering from time to time to drive museum guests through the pretty Oklahoma countryside. Whether it be in their 1922 Packard or 1923 Cadillac Phaeton — both over a century old and still running — visitors are generally quite thrilled.
And in their broad collection of displays, ranging from vehicles nearing or already celebrating a century of operation to sleek creations of more recent years, the Heart of 66 also proudly displays a General Motors EV1, one of the less than four dozen vehicles donated to museums and institutions of higher learning as an effort by some to preserve history. The rest of the line of cars was doomed to be crushed in late 2003, as GM decided the car market was not ready yet for an all-electric vehicle, despite much love from the California and Arizona lessees that were able to try out the EV1. Thankfully, the Heart of 66 is glad to have this piece of modern automotive history around as the automotive industry has circled back to trying to mass produce electric cars again.
Of course, you can’t talk about the Heart of 66 without talking about their unique sign, and coincidentally, the World’s Tallest Gas Pump. Towering a fitting 66 feet into the air and bearing a style reminiscent of the gas pumps seen along the Mother Road at its inauguration in 1926, the museum commissioned the pump in 2016 to help draw the eyes of visitors coming down historic Route 66, while still honoring the long-held tradition of making large — and just a little bit strange — sculptures seen all along the famous highway. Holmes got the idea when he stumbled upon POPS and its giant soda bottle off of 66 in Arcadia. The original idea was an enormous gear shift, but Holmes wasn’t sure. He then suggested a giant gas pump and the idea stuck.
The Mother Road is home to no shortage of stories, both mild and exotic, from this century and the last. As the years march onward though, even those fascinating stories and vibrant history are easy to misplace and lose, turning once popular stops in small towns into abandoned buildings that people barely remember. Places like the Heart of 66 Auto Museum are blessings to history lovers the world over as they preserve both pieces of Route 66 and general automotive history. And with the quickly approaching Mother Road Centennial in 2026, the museum’s space is set to expand soon. So, if you’re driving through Sapulpa, keep an eye out for that giant gas pump — it’s pretty hard to miss — and take it as a sign to stop on in and take a look at their celebration of America’s car culture history.
