ROUTE - April / May 2023

Kick Back on Route 66

Whether it’s classic cars, old fashioned burgers or a museum that brings history to life, you can relive the glory days of Route 66 in its birthplace. We love our city and know the best places to eat, drink and play.

SEE YOU IN SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI

Here, a historic highway holds hidden gems. Route 66 roamers flock to a reimagined filling station for a new kind of fuel: nostalgic diner fare! A rocky refuge for Gold Rush travelers remains a gold mine for hikers and campers. Carriages and classic cars sit side by side, depicting a key turning point in history. And a stay at a charming farmhouse offers warmth, serenity and stargazing — whether it’s for one night or a full week.

Imagine that.

Revamp your Route 66 road trip. Get inspired at TravelOK .com.

Red Rock Canyon Adventure Park Hinton

Hinton Historical Museum & Parker House Hinton

The Farmhouse at P Bar Farms Weatherford

Lucille’s Roadhouse Weatherford

Willowbrook

Chicago

Romeoville

Joliet

Joliet

Wilmington

Braidwood

Dwight

Pontiac

Pontiac

Tulsa is simply a must for any Route 66 trek. Once known as “The Oil Capital of the World,” T-Town is recognized today for countless unique attributes such as a skyline brimming with cherished Art Deco architectural treasures, pivotal art, music and history museums―and of course―a massive collection of Route 66 landmarks along its 28-mile stretch of the Mother Road. Tulsa really is the city of everything you could ask for... and more.

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CATHEDRAL DISTRICT

Known for its historic churches and stunning architecture, the Cathedral District boasts a rich combination of faith, culture, entertainment & dining.

KENDALL WHITTIER MAIN STREET

With a mix of art studios, music venues, restaurants & retail, Kendall Whittier is a hub of Hispanic culture & Tulsa’s unofficial brewery district.

UNIVERSITY DISTRICT

Surrounding the University of Tulsa, the district is an eclectic mix of local and chain restaurants, shopping, services, and historic neighborhoods.

SageNet Center at Tulsa Expo Square

A weekend celebration of Route 66’s past, present, and future. You’ve never seen The Mother Road like this!

This June, AAA Oklahoma will present the second annual AAA Route 66 Road Fest. If you are a fan of Route 66, classic cars, Americana, the colorful history of The Mother Road, or just looking for a fun, family-friendly weekend activity –mark your calendar!

The Road Fest is a one-of-a-kind celebration giving you the chance to take your own journey through the history, attractions, characters, and fun on one of America’s most enduring treasures. It’s also a great opportunity to experience the Route itself. Make a weekend of it, and hit the road to explore some of the 400-plus miles of Route 66 that run through Oklahoma.

Route 66 Historical Exhibits, Over 200 Classic Cars

More Than 100 Vendors, Activities for the Whole Family – and More! Visit Route66RoadFest.com for tickets and more details, including national and regional deluxe coach trips to Road Fest. Follow us on

CONTENTS

24 At the Ford

By Nick Gerlich

All across the Mother Road historic properties are being rescued from demolition and restored to their once dazzling status. Down in the bustling town of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the El Vado, a 1930s motel, is once again welcoming visitors and showcasing the majestic nature of the road through the region, but this time in an undeniably fresh way.

32 Arcadia Replica

By Cherwyn Cole

The mention of Arcadia, Oklahoma, may bring to mind the quirky Round Barn or the eye-catching Pops Soda Ranch, but just east of town stands another must-see attraction that defies description. The “Arcadia Replica” is part museum, part vintage car garage, part nose-in-the-dirt Volkswagen Bug Ranch, part Route 66 icon replicas, and 100% the inspiration of one man who decided to bring Route 66 right to his doorstep.

38 La Posada Chic

By Cheryl Eichar Jett

The American Southwest offers its own unique mix of history, art, and romanticism at numerous establishments, but nowhere is it more evident than in the lovely Turquoise Room. Featuring a blend of cultural cuisines, this restaurant, located within the historic La Posada, in Winslow, Arizona, brings the legacy of Fred Harvey’s dining experience, once the finest in the region, to you.

44 A Conversation with Andrew McCarthy

By Brennen Matthews

The 1980s was a decade of excess for sure, but it was also the decade of treasured entertainment, including dozens of iconic films that still live in the hearts and memories of the people

who experienced them. While many actors have come and gone with time, Andrew McCarthy has proven that not only could he dominate a decade of pictures, but he can remain relevant and active 40 years later.

60 The Vrooman

By Michael Vieira

Route 66 is home to many historic destinations, but down in friendly Bloomington, Illinois, one grand 1869 mansion has a story to tell that is as fascinating today as when events were actually taking place within its awe-inspiring walls.

66 Deep Underground

By Ellen E. Proctor

Many people may not know that America’s Main Street is home to numerous picturesque underground caverns, places where time marches on slowly, its beauty hidden far beneath the earth. But few true Route 66 enthusiasts are unaware of perhaps the most famous caves along the Mother Road, the Meramec Caverns.

ON THE COVER

Munger Moss Motel, Lebanon, MO.

The Old West streets of Oatman, Arizona.

Photograph by Efren Lopez/ Route66Images.

THE ROAD TRIPReinvented!

Discover Springfield, Illinois - one of the most iconic stops on historic Route 66. The road comes through our “Living Legends & Landmarks” Explorer Passport with 14 stops to engage all of your senses! Plan your road trip, meet the legends face-to-face, marvel at the landmarks, snap some pics, and create your own Route 66 memories!

As many of you will know, I have been busy in recent months promoting my new book, Miles to Go: An African Family in Search of America Along Route 66. This has been a new experience for me. I am used to magazine journalism and have discovered that I am more comfortable behind the scenes. I love promoting the awesome articles and photography that we bring readers in every issue. I am always fascinated with the career and personal journey that our featured celebrities have taken, but now I need to be a little more out front in promotion of my book and my family’s journey and discovery of America via Route 66. It is at times intimidating and at others, downright uncomfortable. But it has taught me a few good lessons, the biggest being that sometimes the story is bigger than us. Yes, Miles to Go may be my family’s personal trek into American culture, history, landscapes, and more, down the most iconic highway in the nation, but millions of others have ventured on that same tarmac before we ever set foot there. Our journey is unique to us in many ways but not unique at all in others. America has always been a land of people on the move. The country has always elicited a visceral, emotive response to the road trip experiences that it offers. One of the most common comments that I receive from readers of the book is that they love the fun but honest and realistic human interactions that we present in Miles to Go. I am always delighted to hear this, as for us, while we love the vibrant history, beautiful landscapes, diverse culture, and quirky roadside stops, it was the people, it has always been the human connecting with the people that we met and continue to meet as we travel America’s bountiful highways, that truly stands out. Often we are asked, “What is it that you guys love so much about America?” and the answer is simple, “Everything.”

In this issue, we finally find ourselves in the loving arms of spring. Man, I am so happy to see the weather change and the warmer winds and optimism generating sunshine return. It has been a very long winter season. Many of the stories in the April/May issue reflect this shift. We bring you the fascinating stories behind the Vrooman Mansion, a stunning 19th Century home (1869) in Bloomington, Illinois, that has managed a comeback in recent years, and the El Vado Motel in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a 1937 motel that has been saved from the wrecking ball and re-envisioned into something that blends true Southwestern vintage architecture with a modern trendy space. These are both great places to spend some time, but even better, destinations that have really unique and interesting stories behind them.

We also take you underground, deep underground into the Meramec Caverns. Located in tiny Stanton, Missouri, unsuspecting travelers will likely see numerous billboards along the highway advertising the largest caverns west of the Mississippi. This incredibly picturesque cave holds a story that includes Native Americans and French explorers from the late 1700s, Civil War exploits from the 1860s, town dances and events from the 1890s, and one of the state’s most creative entrepreneurs, Lester B. Dill. If you have a hankering to head underground this season, make sure that you spelunk into this story first. And if an unusual destination is what you are in search of, look no further than down in little Arcadia, Oklahoma. John Hargrove, a former airplane and school bus mechanic, has an experience for you! In this wonderful article, we showcase the story behind the place and the man, a stop that has sought to recreate some of the most iconic attractions on the historic highway: Twin Arrows, the Jackrabbit, the Wig Wam Motel, a Meramec Caverns barn advertisement, and more. But just how did Hargrove, an OKC native, decide to create this wacky roadside destination? Read the story and find out!

These and so many other wonderful articles make up this packed issue of ROUTE Magazine.

Remember to follow us on social media and visit us online regularly for stories and information not found in the magazine. And if you haven’t ordered a copy of Miles to Go yet, please remember to do so today and take the trip with us.

Blessings,

Brennen Matthews Editor

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

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

Christian Lopez

DIGITAL

Matheus Alves

ILLUSTRATOR

Jennifer Mallon CONTRIBUTORS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS

Chandler O’Leary

Cherwyn Cole

Cheryl Eichar Jett

Efren Lopez/Route66Images

Ellen E. Proctor

JFPR

Kathleen Byrne

Kelli Smith

Liquidfish

Marianna Civitillo

Mary Grace Ortega

Mia Goulart

Michael Vieira

Mitch Brown

Oldham County Chamber of Commerce

Rob Whitmore

Vrooman Mansion

Editorial submissions should be sent to brennen@routemagazine.us

To subscribe visit www.routemagazine.us.

Advertising inquiries should be sent to advertising@routemagazine.us or call 905 399 9912.

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.

THE STAGECOACH

All across America, in towns of all sizes and descriptions, historic buildings and modest museums hold fast to preserve and protect local history. One can almost imagine their very foundations reaching into the soil around them to hang on, defying demolition orders, the decay of time, a lack of funding, and sadly, sometimes the apathy of a good share of its citizenry. But just as often, local heroes come along, saving a building and preserving the town’s history and artifacts through sheer determination and persistence. Such is the story of Waynesville, Missouri’s Old Stagecoach Stop.

“This is a history that would have been lost. And… it was saved,” said Jeanie Porter, President of the Old Stagecoach Stop Foundation. “I love sharing it with people. They don’t really realize what a rich piece of history we have right here in town.”

In 1983, the City of Waynesville decided to condemn the two-story building, which had stayed vacant and neglected for decades. It was earmarked for demolition. Luckily, a handful of community members — Gene and Maxine Farnham, and James and Connie Martin — came to the Old Stagecoach Stop’s aid. They knew what it once was and what it could be again, and they had every intention of maintaining it. They purchased the building, later transferring ownership to their newly formed Old Stagecoach Stop Foundation.

“It was a lot of time and a lot of money,” Porter recalled. “It took a lot of fundraisers. They were determined to get it back to its original luster. That was always the original goal.”

The Old Stagecoach Stop is largely run by the foundation’s nine board members, who each spend time giving tours to the public. “Visitors have come from all 50 states and from around the globe to see the historic building,” said Porter. But what always impresses her the most are the unknowing locals that wander in. Porter, who has lived in Waynesville since 1973, has worked with the foundation for over 10 years, but is always learning something new about the historic stop.

As the oldest publicly accessible building in Pulaski County, it was originally built by William Walton McDonald, on land

that he purchased in 1854. It was designed as a double-pen log cabin. One pen served as living quarters for McDonald and his family, while the other operated as a stagecoach stop. “There were five people in the family living in this one room,” said Porter. “We tell, especially kids, that. I say, ‘How would you like to live in one room with your parents the whole time?’ They look horrified. But that’s just how they did it.”

McDonald, a Mexican War veteran, served as Waynesville’s Circuit Clerk, County Clerk, and Postmaster, while also running the stagecoach stop for the St. Louis to Springfield stage route.

The Old Stagecoach Stop served many purposes over the course of its lifetime, including as a hospital during the Civil War after it was commandeered by Union Forces in 1862. After the war, it was remodeled, a second level added in 1876, and served as a hotel with various owners before falling into disrepair in the 1960s. It was abandoned thereafter. Today, it serves as a museum that showcases each face of its past life with tours of every room, time capsules of their eras. Honored in the museum is the “McDonald Log Cabin.” The room showcases the McDonald family’s residence and reflects what home life was like in the mid-to-late 1800s.

The town of Waynesville has borne witness to a lot of history — the grueling years of their home state torn between the Union and the Confederacy, the construction of the Mother Road through their community, and the loss of neighboring towns due to the Fort Leonard military base. “We hear that with people coming through,” Porter said. “They say, ‘There were buildings in our town that were just torn down. We lost that history.’” But through the work of the foundation and other committed citizens, visitors have a place to learn about the area’s past.

After surviving the Civil War, the condemnation of the building, and the ultimate killer — time — the Old Stagecoach Stop has endured, thanks to the Old Stagecoach Stop Foundation, and their efforts to help this landmark hold fast.

Image by David J. Schwartz –Pics On Route 66.

Today 11:05 AM

talk now. On the Road.”

CLEAR YOUR SCHEDULE. GET TO PULASKI COUNTY, MO!

Carving its way through rugged Ozark terrain, the 33-mile stretch of Historic Route 66 that carries cross-country pilgrims through Pulaski County, MO, bears the relics of a legendary past. Witness both natural beauty and engineering marvels at the scenic overlooks of Devils Elbow. Explore the murals and roadside attractions that captivated mid-century travelers and light up the night sky to this day. Savor local flavors and discover uncommon treasures at our diners and shops. Check out our Great American Road Trip itinerary and plan an incredible journey through American history.

Plan your next Mother Road adventure today at PulaskiCountyUSA.com.

“Can’t

KEEPING IT

Photograph by Liquidfish

QUIRKY

Route 66 is a highway full of color. It is also a highway of quirky places. It has always been. The historic artery through the country has had more than its fair share of creative entrepreneurs eager to pull tired motorists off the road and into their cozy rooms. From giant muffler men to kitschy billboards to colorful neon, many business owners were rightfully willing to do whatever it took to make sure that they got noticed. Can you blame them? There was a lot of competition. However, few can boast of being as vibrant and visual as one recently renovated Oklahoma motel.

Located on 820 N Classen Blvd. in Oklahoma City (OKC) not very far from the 1926–1930 alignment of Route 66, the Classen Inn motel, so named after the street it resides on, was built in 1962. Details of the motel’s early history are sketchy at best, but its Googie architecture accents — a design style influenced by the Space Age popular during the 1940s through 1970s and seen in banks, diners, motels, and other commercial architecture of that time — must have been a sight to behold. Its V-shaped classic sign with spinning lit globes undoubtedly captured the imagination of the motoring public.

But as the boom of the oil industry began to wane, the OKC downtown core entered a state of decline as people and businesses moved into suburbia and the Classen Inn followed suit, eventually only drawing “colorful” clientele and developing a questionable reputation. So much so that it is rumored the Oklahoma City Council were discussing condemning the motel as a public nuisance. It seemed that the fate of the once retro motel was sealed, that is until, the downtrodden property, which was put up for sale, caught the visionary eye of OKC developers, Steve Mason and Aimee Ahpeatone.

By the time Mason and Ahpeatone purchased the property in May 2018 from then owner Manharbhai Patel (for a reported $640,000), the motel was run-down and barely in an operating state. With rotting wood railings, cracked paint, and shaky stairways, the motel needed significant care to be brought back from the neglect of past economic downfall and ownership. Mason and Ahpeatone were old hands at restoring and revitalizing historic buildings, though. With a background in environmental engineering, Mason had sculpted a passion and a career out of rejuvenating Oklahoma City’s historic properties. Through his company, Mason Realty Investors, he had pioneered dozens of projects in and around the city, including across Capitol Hill, Automobile Alley, and the Plaza District, helping spring a once-declining area back to life with art, live music, and a thriving culinary scene. On Patel’s end, he simply decided to focus on his ownership of larger hotels that would yield more traffic and profit. For him, a 17-room motel made no sense.

“Oklahoma City, like all cities in the United States, went into a state of decay,” said Mason. “But in the last 15 years, they’ve returned, and people want to be in the urban cores.”

With the motel’s bones intact and the preexisting visual character — the sign, geometric and space-infused details, and outside-facing setup — the serial renovators saw brimming eccentricity and potential. Mason also knew that as the last remaining pre-1970 motor inn in the urban core area, renovating the Classen was a chance to preserve an important piece of OKC history.

“We’re in the placemaking business, building places where people want to be,” said Mason. “The other people who

were looking at buying [the motel] were going to turn it into apartments. We own 38 historic buildings in the urban core of Oklahoma City, and our goal is to protect these buildings for their original purpose. In the United States, we love to tear stuff down. But it’s important that before we tear down beautiful old things to build something new, that we’re respectful of these historical buildings or traditions of our society.”

The new owners embarked on a $2 million makeover that would return the venue to its glory days. But as noble as their mission was, they had their work cut out for them. The renovation spanned two years and persisted through the early months of the pandemic.

Mason and Ahpeatone looked to the Classen’s early-1960s architecture and a few other Googie-style restoration projects throughout the country as inspiration. They traveled to the Austin Motel in Austin, Texas, a similar Googie-style 1938 motel renovated into a high-design boutique hotel in an urban setting. They returned inspired and sought to infuse kitsch and freshness into the 17-room motel at every opportunity.

“They wanted to let the Googie architecture shine and keep the bones of the building, but make everything colorful, inviting, and fun,” said McKaela Lee, general manager of the Inn.

Luckily, the mainstream resurgence of mid-century interiors made procurement simpler. Ahpeatone special ordered everything from toilet paper holders to towel rings and layered design elements until every square inch of the motel felt like it comprised a greater work of art. Each room offers a different style, all in the realm of 1960s Americana and retro oddities. In other words, a stay at the Classen is an indelible one.

While the pair opted to add many new features, there was a very important one that they hoped to revive: the original 1963 neon sign. Today, the verdant green beacon proudly towers over Classen Boulevard, its globes spinning. But when Mason purchased the property, it had been dark since 1980. “When the hotel was in its worst times, [the owners] didn’t spend money on [neon],” said Mason. “We had pictures of the sign in 1963, and then somewhere after that. There were two globes on it. The globes had gone missing, they just disappeared. We started renovating this thing, and a sign company called me and said, ‘We have your globes from your original design.’ So, we bought the globes and put them back on.”

In 2020, Mason relit the quirky sign and now the globes spin each night, after being dark for 40 years. The careful recreation and restoration of the sign highlights the motel’s fusion of old and new that is reflected even in its visitors. “We have such a fun mix of guests that stay with us,” said Lee. “It’s a combination of the younger crowd wanting something more fun than a standard hotel and older folks that remember the ‘60s fondly and enjoy the throwback.”

The Classen’s originality and flair exude the vision for the resurgence of the downtown community. “People want to be in Oklahoma City,” concluded Mason. “Oklahoma City is very deliberate in that. We’re restoring buildings. People are coming downtown. There’s been big changes, big improvements.”

All across the Mother Road, visionaries are purchasing vintage properties and restoring them with the love and enthusiasm that is needed to take an iconic motel into the future. Now, in the Classen Inn, others have a fabulous example of just how to do it.

Words by Kelli Smith.

OUR LADY OF

THE HIGHWAY

Photograph by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66

Route 66 travelers, like most other motorists decades ago, faced many uncertainties along the road. Some sections of the iconic highway were even labeled Bloody 66 due to the regular accidents that occurred. The earliest generations of the Mother Road were narrow, with no guiding shoulder or fancy reflective paint or guardrails to keep people between the lines. A trip down the road was uncertain and there were constant accidents, some fatal. But in the late-1950s, a group of kids from the corn fields of the Midwest had a plan. They would erect a shrine near Raymond, Illinois. It was created for a simple purpose: to provide hope and solace for those venturing down the road. Some people call the 12-foot-tall Carrara marble statue the Queen of the Road, but to most she is simply Our Lady of the Highway.

Built in 1958 and dedicated in 1959, the statue still stands along Old 66, which in that part of the state is now the west Frontage Road along I-55. Purchased and placed for a total of $900 raised by the youth at Saint Raymond’s parish, who were under the auspices of the Litchfield Deanery of Catholic Youth Council, the lovely shrine still stands, silent, serene, a longtime resident in rural Illinois. Along the base, a plaque humbly petitions, “Mary, Loving Mother of Jesus, protect us on the highway.”

The statue is a replica of Our Lady of Lourdes in France and was imported from Italy.

The marble, a blue-gray that is popularly used in sculptures and architecturally, has been mined since Roman times in the mountains near Carrara, Italy. The industrious teens even used leftover materials and meager funds to lay a stone walkway to the alcove and plant evergreens.

Of the $900, $500 was used to purchase materials to create the grotto, which included concrete, wood, and lighting. The lights have shone on it day and night ever since.

Upwards of 400 people attended the dedication, and in the years immediately following, there were numerous pilgrimages among the young people who had labored to build it. There were rosaries recited and hymns sung, followed by fellowship. Participation waned after five or six years, though, as adulthood intervened, and these events dwindled to only a faithful few.

Interestingly, the shrine is nowhere near a church. Instead, it has been on private property since its installation, when Francis Marten agreed to oversee its well-being adjacent to the family farmhouse. In 1965, he assumed sole responsibilities for its upkeep, first while actively involved in farming, and then in retirement and in his role as caretaker

for his wife, Ruth, who suffered a series of strokes in the 1980s. Ruth passed in 1985 at the age of 73.

Francis’s daughter, Loretta, was part of the group of farm kids who took it upon themselves to create the shrine, and it is that connection that prompted the elder Marten to donate his land for this purpose. For his efforts and dedication to the Mother Road, he was inducted into the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame in 1990.

All the while, Francis spent $200 a year just to keep it lit at night, and performed the kind of maintenance that is needed for anything subject to the whims of Mother Nature. He died in 2002 at the age of 88.

Immediately south of the shrine are 12 small signs, each posted just off the highway right of way and on his land. Each of these signs has one line from the Ave Maria (literally, “Hail Mary”), a Roman Catholic prayer to the mother of Jesus. In sequence, they resemble the popular red and white Burma Shave signs of the mid-century. The coming of the interstate presented a challenge for Marten, because the state wanted him to remove his signs. However, he held his ground, because they were all planted four inches within his property line.

Today, the Marten family continues maintenance and upkeep so that travelers can continue to stop as they have always done, to say a prayer or seek guidance. The Marten children provide a viable safety net to keep the shrine alive for present and future generations of travelers.

“We just like to honor our Blessed Mother, think about her, and pray to her,” said Carl Marten, the youngest adult child of Francis and Ruth. “We keep it lit all the time at night.” The shrine has become a family ministry, one that will be continued by their son and daughter long into the future.

“It’s uplifting and a way to honor God,” Carl continued. “In 2009, we had a 50th anniversary celebration, and we had mass in one of our farm buildings out here. We had three priests and a deacon, and probably 200 people. We did that on October 25, 2009. 50 years to the day.”

The shrine is easy to miss for modern travelers, especially for people driving the freeway at 70mph. Few are expecting to see such a significant monument under a shade tree along the busy freeway, much less on private land. The Virgin, though, her hands clasped in prayer, is no different today from the day she arrived in 1959. She is a beacon for travelers now as she was more than 60 years ago, providing hope and a promise.

Just like she always has.

Words by Nick Gerlich.

AT THE FORD

By Nick Gerlich

Photographs by Efren Lopez/Route66Images

FORD

lbuquerque—the Duke City, and aptly named for the Duke of Alburquerque (note spelling)—is one of the oldest cities in the U.S. Founded in 1706 as a Spanish colony, its location along El Camino Real connecting Mexico City with Santa Fe put it along what was then a major thoroughfare. However, at the point where the Rio Grande bisected a deep north-south valley throughout the entirety of the state, getting across it was often a challenge for early settlers. Although a shallow, wide stream, it sometimes floods, especially when carrying seasonal snowmelt from the north, or sudden rain falls during summer’s monsoon. The city thus formed east of the river, first in what is known colloquially today as Old Town, and then beyond to the modern city center and Nob Hill.

It wasn’t until 1882 that a bridge was finally built across the Rio Grande, but it was destroyed by floods in 1891 and then rebuilt. Later, in 1910, it was replaced once more, and all this before autos would carry many motorists westward. The bridge locations, though, were at a relatively easy place to construct such passageways. Technically known as a ford, these well-placed bridges made it possible for people to move more freely to the western half of the state. While the first road westbound was New Mexico Route 6, it was not until 1937 that U.S. Route 66’s path through the state was rotated on its side along east-west Central Avenue. It is into this tableau that El Vado Motor Court — literally, “The Ford” in Spanish — was built that same year by Irish immigrant and former New Yorker Daniel Murphy, who quit his job as manager of the Franciscan Hotel in downtown Albuquerque to take advantage of the anticipated popularity of Route 66. It was built immediately east of that ford, conveniently located to intercept motorists before they left town heading west, or when first entering town. When it first opened, a vibrant neon sign, with an American Indian wearing a colorful headdress, plus gas pumps located outside the front office welcomed Route 66 travelers.

Over time, the motel was passed on to Murphy’s son-in-law, Patrick O’Neil, and then to investors Ali Hakam, and Sam Kassam. And while there have been some nervous moments in recent years about this historic court’s preservation, it is now in the safe hands of Chad Rennaker and Palindrome Properties of Portland, Oregon, doing business the same way it did more than 85 years ago.

And it’s the story of a motor court as resilient and steadfast as those early settlers who figured out a way to cross the mighty Rio Grande.

Good Times, Bad Times

Like many motor courts of the era, El Vado featured smallish rooms, but also an enclosed (on three sides) parking garage to shelter your car. The Pueblo Revival architecture was typical of other structures in town, reflective of a trend at the time. The exposed vigas (wooden roof beams), irregular parapets,

and stucco walls conveyed a message of authenticity for the region.

Developers probably did not realize it at the time, but they were reflecting the nascent car culture that came to grip the nation, especially after the war. A car was a prized possession and needed to be protected from the elements. The garages provided that protection.

Of course, they also did not realize that they were using valuable real estate that could otherwise be used to build more rooms that generate increased revenue. Garages do not produce anything after they are built; hence, by the 1950s, motel owners decided that open-air parking lots were fine and much cheaper to build.

By the early-2000s, El Vado had fallen on hard times, like many other vintage motels along Albuquerque’s 18-mile run of Route 66. Interstate 40 was completed through town in 1970, foretelling challenges and steady decline for the many mom-and-pop motels lining Central Avenue. Shiny new hotels were built along the freeway, and travelers, not knowing any better, abandoned the old for the new.

In 2005, Sam Kassam, then the owner of El Vado, sold the property to a developer, who soon announced his plans to demolish at least a portion of the venue in order to build new luxury townhouses. Little did anyone know that roughly a decade of inactivity and legal wrangles would keep El Vado’s fate in limbo, deteriorating one room at a time. It is the lack of use that speeds up a building’s demise.

Complicating matters in the several years that followed was an effort by the City to declare El Vado as a landmark property. While Kassam was in favor of preserving El Vado, he did not support those efforts, worried that it might hinder his sale to the developer. Casting a shadow on his desire for preservation, though, was his death that year, shortly after he sold El Vado.

The developer was not as preservation-minded and was vocal in characterizing the property as run-down and unworthy of landmark status, insisting that no self-respecting traveler would ever want to stay there. He was quick to lump El Vado into the same category as other derelict properties that the City had demolished in recent years. A site inspection by the City, though, was polar opposite in its evaluation, asserting that the property was in good condition, and better so than other properties that the City had determined appropriate to be renovated.

While the City approved landmark designation early in 2006, the developer challenged it with continued petitions for demolition. In 2007, though, the City once again affirmed the designation, after hearing testimony pro and con from preservationists, Route 66 enthusiasts, and those in favor of urban development.

Frustratingly, the City and the developer continued to lock horns, with the possibility of it going to court. A judge even warned both parties to seek a compromise. Furthermore, citizen groups staged vocal protests of the impending demolition. The developer argued that it was bold ambition to seek to replace El Vado with townhouses, because that side of

town had not enjoyed much economic prosperity of late. The City, though, argued that townhouses were out of character with the nearby community, but a revived motel would be a perfect fit.

In 2008, the City, seemingly tired of the legal wrangling, decided to seize the property, and El Vado was saved from the wrecking ball. What was missing, though, was someone with the drive and funding to take upon themselves a decaying property and return it to something resembling its origins. El Vado thus continued in dormancy; the City thrust into the unlikely role of real estate owner. But the motel withstood the ravages of time nonetheless, testimony to its builder and those who were caretakers for generations prior.

Hope Springs Eternal

It wasn’t until late 2013 that the future of El Vado once again made headlines, when the City Council approved a redevelopment plan centered upon the motel as well as a nearby restaurant. Included in the language of the plan was the word “blighted,” which may sound negative at the surface, but actually permitted the City to allow for incentives to a developer, as well as remove impact assessments.

If ever El Vado had a second chance at life, it was then. Plus, the property was a non-producing asset for the City, and there

was motivation for commissioners to get El Vado off their property rolls and into the private sector.

Late in 2014, the City announced, after it had reviewed submissions to a call for RFPs (request for proposals), that it had selected Rennaker and Palindrome as the new developer. It initially approved an adaptive reuse of the property to include a boutique motel, food court, an events center, and an amphitheater. Oh, and a fully restored neon sign, complete with the Indian and headdress that had become synonymous with the motel. The price of the project was listed at $15.9 million.

While there were some who begged to differ with a not completely true-to-the-original renovation, others conceded that it was perfectly appropriate given modern circumstances and the realistic need for a variety of businesses along that stretch of 66.

Rennaker was already familiar with Albuquerque as owner of Ponderosa Brewing Company there and numerous other properties. He said at the time, “I have been coming to Albuquerque and doing real estate development for 15 years. I have driven past this property many times. It was the saddest looking soul I had ever seen.” After a decade of sitting in the desert sun, it was beginning to look forlorn. However, Rennaker was not dissuaded. “But [it] looked like a project that would be so cool to redevelop and turn into something,” he added.

A tranquil view of the vintage motel’s courtyard.

Coming Back to Life

Rennaker labored over how to turn a historic motor court into something viable today. “It was like this idea found me, rather than me finding it.” Waxing philosophic, he added, “The thing that makes real estate thrive is not the real estate; it’s the people that are enjoying the real estate. From the very beginning, the notion of restoring this hotel into something that was just a beautiful piece of real estate was something I didn’t want to do.”

As further proof of his commitment not only to travelers but also the nearby residents who would see El Vado every day, he added, “I never want to do a project in a neighborhood where they don’t want me there.”

Rennaker then embarked on lengthy informal meetings with his neighbors to communicate what he wanted to do, but perhaps more importantly, to find out their concerns. To further that end, Rennaker worked with the City to make certain that no details were lost in the renovation, and that all constituents within the City would be pleased. It was a labor of love that culminated with a July 2018 reopening. The finished result, which took an estimated $18 million to upgrade, differed somewhat from the earliest plans but is still consistent with them. “We have 22 rooms, while in the past we had 32 rooms,” said General Manager Joe Kautz. “The room sizes did not change. The rooms that are larger are the suites with the converted carports.” The rooms and suites pay homage to classic vehicles with names such as Hudson, DeSoto, and Packard.

In addition, an outdoor food hall was added on the west end of the south wing, whereby small independent restaurateurs could claim a space and call it home, and retail shops were added on the north side. “There are five restaurants and a bakery, so that’s six spots taken up by business owners,” said Kautz. “On the opposite of the front desk of the motel, we also added six retail shops.” The shops occupy former rooms and are undeniably charming, fitting in perfectly with the wider design.

A tap room is featured prominently on the west end of the north wing, featuring many New Mexico craft beers. It occupies the space of the former owners’ residence and has come to be a focal point of guest interaction. An outdoor commons or lounge area was created, where guests could interact or enjoy hosted live music events.

But as with all restoration projects, there were challenges along the way, as well as surprises. “With doing something that is on the historic registry, you can’t change the physical appearance of the building itself,” Kautz continued. “That’s why the rooms are quite small inside, because they couldn’t knock down walls.” They also had to get permission to add anything, like the shade structure in the commons area. “That had to go through about a year of review to get the approvals, even if it is not impacting the building at all.” The biggest surprise, though, was when workers began finding reading material in an odd place. “During the renovation, workers found many old newspapers stuffed inside the stucco walls that had been used for insulation. We saved a lot of those, ironed them out, and laminated them,” said Kautz. Some of these are now on display in the event center.

“This [El Vado] was Chad’s first dip into revitalizing an old property. It was very important for Chad to make sure that it was done right,” said Kautz.

Soul of the Matter

In the few short years that El Vado has been open, Rennaker has become enamored of not only Albuquerque lodging, but also restorations in general. He purchased the former Monterey Non-Smokers Motel next door and remodeled it, and is currently renovating the old Imperial 400 Motel a short distance east of downtown. It was through working on El Vado, though, that he gained the most important lesson.

“I often say to folks when we’re dealing with old structures like this, that there’s a soul that’s in these buildings. That soul was thriving at some point when this building was first developed, and it was relevant. As that building goes through its life cycle, that soul slowly dies. As we would take walls down, repair roofs that were leaking, replace adobe walls, you could feel the soul of El Vado slowly rejuvenating itself, and becoming happier and happier.” But, as he also noted, that soul is not fully happy until people are there enjoying it again.

Route 66 is having a wonderful moment at this time, with the refurbishing of historic properties all across the highway. There is an energy and a vision, from people new and old, to the road that recognizes the importance of preserving and celebrating iconic, once neglected properties. And as new entrepreneurs find themselves looking for an opportunity to invest their life on Route 66, the El Vado will continue to play a key role in the future of hospitality on Route 66.

The El Vado Taproom offers a variety of New Mexico craft beers.

Image courtesy of El Vado.

EVERYTHING TO DO WITH ME

By Mary Grace Ortega

If you were to drive westward down old Route 66, from Santa Fe, New Mexico, towards the New Mexico/ Arizona border, you would soon come across a sign; a roadside billboard announcement containing a polite message:

Greetings from ORTEGA’S ON THE PLAZA

Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.A. Collectable jewelry, pottery, and rugs

Invariably you will drive past this sign, paying little to no heed to it, for it has nothing to do with you. If you are touring the Southwest and in the market for an authentically Native American-made squash blossom necklace, or perhaps a bolotie with turquoise inlay, you might snap a photo of the sign, or remember to go to ortegasontheplaza.com (handily located on the bottom of the billboard for your convenience) later. But it’s most likely that you’ll just drive on by.

After traversing several more miles of wide empty desert and open blue sky, broken only by stony ridges and multi-colored freight trains, you will come across another billboard.

Historic El Rancho Hotel

Stay Where the Movie Stars Stayed!

Armand Ortega’s World Famous Indian Store

Exit 22

Miles more, and you’ll pass the Max Ortega Rest Stop (“Clean Restrooms!”), and even farther, a road sign, proclaiming that Ortega Road is exit 341.

The name DON TOMAS ORTEGA is embossed into the stained-glass window of St. Joseph’s, the old brick church in Winslow. The “Armand Ortega Dinner Special’’ is advertised in black and white lettering on a restaurant marquee sign in Gallup. Carved into the red sandstone cliffs near the state line are the names of other Ortegas innumerable: my greatgrandparents, grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, siblings, and finally, tying reality to the myth, my own name: Mary Grace Ortega.

Ortega’s On The Plaza is owned by my uncle and aunt, in a building that has burned down three times in the last century; bought with money my grandfather stole from his father’s safe. Armand Ortega was my great-grandfather, the longtime owner of the historic El Rancho Hotel. The Max Ortega Rest Stop was named after great-great grandpa Max Ortega, who opened his own store in the 1930s, on a parcel of land he was awarded after he unknowingly saved the life of the president of the Santa Fe railroad. Don Tomas Ortega got his name etched into the church’s altar window through an act of friendly blackmail, after the parish priest made some cutting remarks about Tomas’ philandery during a Sunday sermon. Tomas’ response was to drunkenly steal a statue of the Virgin Mary that he had donated and refuse to return it until the good father made reparations. The collection of names chiseled into the cliffs belongs to those of the family who similarly crave immortality but lack Tomas’ distinct persuasive element. The Indian Ruins Trading Post, on Ortega Road is

where Armand Ortega Sr. and his wife, my great-grandmother, lived for close to sixty years after she moved west from Louisiana to be a nurse during World War II, got married, and discovered a new home.

Out of everywhere on earth, I feel most at home along this stretch of Historic Route 66, America’s Main Street. My family’s story was built around this highway that has brought through a steady stream of tourists ever since its inauguration in 1926. These have been people seeking hope and fortune, adventure, a brighter future, a place to call home, or merely a change of horizons. The travelers, the adventure-seekers, the desperate, the explorers of the last hundred years, drove down the highway looking for the same things that my family has been searching for through the past six generations. A new start, a place they can call their own, a life they can build for themselves. This is what they had been seeking when Max Ortega first opened his little trainside shop; when Armand Ortega bought the El Rancho Hotel

the day it was scheduled to be demolished — waving his arms in front of the oncoming wrecking ball — and what they were seeking when my great-grandmother exchanged the cotton fields of Louisiana for the setting sun over the jagged mountains of The Great American West.

Growing up, I loved being part of this story that had started long before me and will surely continue long after. Saturdays in middle school were spent pricing jewelry in the back room of Ortega’s On The Plaza, and no road trip was complete without the obligatory stay at the El Rancho Hotel, where we ran up and down the stairs waiting for greatgrandpa to invite us down to his World Famous Indian Store for a stick of hard candy.

Main Street U.S.A stretches out distantly into the future as well as the past. I hope that someday I’ll have the courage to follow my own life down Route 66, under the impossibly wide sky, wherever the rolling road takes me, like so many of my flesh and blood have done over the years.

All this is why, when a recently road-tripping friend sent me a photo of a dingy roadside billboard proclaiming “ORTEGA’S” with the question: “Does this have anything to do with you?” I smiled and typed out the reply: “Oh, that has everything to do with me.”

ARCADIA

By Cherwyn Cole

Photographs by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66

REPLICA

uirky attractions across America often consist of something gargantuan, such as Muffler Men, giant rocking chairs, tea or coffee pots as big as a house, or unique barns. And sometimes the opposite is true, travelers also flock to slightly smaller roadside oddities like a glass bottle tree “ranch” in California or a collection of dozens of tiny little doors in Michigan. But on a sweet old stretch of Route 66 just east of Arcadia (a tiny town with one of those big unique barns and a 66-foot pop bottle), in Oklahoma, tourists seeking out a roadside attraction that seems to be just the right size may find exactly what they’re looking for at OK County 66, commonly known as John’s Place or John’s Trim Museum, but also answering to the description of the “Arcadia Replica.”

Here, among the gently rolling lush green hills of Oklahoma County, almost unbelievably only 15 miles outside of bustling Oklahoma City, travelers discover a quiet, peaceful spot along the nation’s famed Mother Road to stop for a visit that’s just the right size — with perhaps just the right amount of kitsch. Whether one takes a quicker look at the Route 66 replicas, or a longer stay to try to take in everything that’s packed into a handful of acres, John’s Arcadia Replica is a stop not soon forgotten.

The interesting anomaly on this gentle curve of old road is the result of a man skilled in mechanics, apt in construction and design, and suitably retired with a generous piece of property. It turns out that John Hargrove is not only a child of Route 66, but at the time of his retirement was more interested in bringing Route 66’s sights to him, rather than traveling its length to see them himself. This unique view of things, combined with Hargrove’s considerable design, construction, and mechanical skills, eventually resulted in Hargrove living and working amongst lawn-size versions of some of the Mother Road’s most iconic attractions.

But don’t think for a minute that this means the man was just ready to sit down and take it easy, despite his 78 years. John Hargrove is a man of action and activities.

A Paper Boy on Route 66

John Hargrove grew up with his two sisters just three blocks from busy, bustling North 23rd street — Route 66 — in Oklahoma City. (John also grew up with a special friend living just blocks away in his neighborhood — Yvonne Marie Taylor, who would become his wife during their college years.) A couple of mid-century Route 66 icons were part of the backdrop of his own immediate neighborhood. The wedge-shaped Milk Bottle Grocery, dating to 1930, with its gimmicky giant milk bottle on top created in 1948 (John was about kindergarten age at the time) still stands next to the small park where John and his friends used to fly their model

airplanes. And as a Classen High School student, John could look out the window — when he got up out of his seat, that is — to keep an eye on the construction of Oklahoma City’s famous “Gold Dome,” designed and built beginning in 1958 to serve as a bank. “I’d get up to go and sharpen my pencil, just to watch what they were doing,” Hargrove quipped.

The important thing that John remembers from his childhood — he knew that he lived on Route 66 — was that it was the road to California. And he knew that fact because his parents, Herschell and Helen Hargrove, grew up in the middle of the Dust Bowl era. From the Hobart area, in Kiowa County, 120 miles west-southwest from Oklahoma City, the Hargroves stood fast in their native state, but knew of plenty of other Oklahomans that fled the Dust Bowl, headed west. Instead, Herschell and Helen moved into Oklahoma City around 1949, where Herschell went to work as a taxi driver for a while. But it stayed with John that the highway that was named 66 was the road that so many others had fled west on. It became viewed by many as the road to salvation from the death and destruction brought on by the drought.

In his Oklahoma neighborhood, as young John progressed through public school, he became a newspaper delivery boy — on 23rd Street, where he grew to know his Route 66 neighborhood and its soon-to-be icons well. From delivering newspapers, he went on to packaging groceries at the nearby Humpty Dumpty grocery store. But there were more opportunities to come.

Airplanes, Education, and Vehicles

Although John’s father, Herschell Hargrove, took a taxidriving job when he and his family moved to Oklahoma City in the late ‘40s, airplanes were his love — not vehicles — and he soon found work at airports.

“He flew his whole life and rebuilt airplanes and worked at airports. During World War II, he was a flying instructor for the Army in Chickasha, Oklahoma,” explained Hargrove.

“And then after the war, he worked on planes and then managed an airport for a number of years. As I grew up, he would buy damaged airplanes and fix them and resell them, and we were flying them for about 25 hours [each]. So, that’s how I got all my flying. He was a flight instructor and a mechanic. So, he got me enthused about all that. And then, I went to school for airplane mechanics. And I got my pilot’s license — but I can’t fly at night. That means I can’t be a commercial pilot.”

After high school, Hargrove and his by-then girlfriend Yvonne Marie Taylor both attended Oklahoma State University at Stillwater, and married in May 1965 during their college education. But when he graduated, she still had two years left. He filled one of those years with drafting courses before she finished, after which he went to work at an airport. But disappointments ensued, as he was denied a waiver on the color-blind issue on his pilot’s license, and his

wife left him after disagreements on the amount of time that he worked on airplane and car projects. Hargrove moved on to work at a Chevrolet dealership in the Oklahoma City area for the next five years.

Then, the local superintendent of schools, who was the father-in-law of his old high school friend, offered Hargrove a job taking care of the school buses and equipment. “I got a chance to be head mechanic for [Choctaw-Nicoma Park] public schools, and I worked there for 30 years.”

Yet, struggles were not done with John Hargrove. In the 1980s, he suffered an injury and became sedentary for a couple years, although he was able to keep his employment. Eventually, he began going to a local YMCA to exercise, and from there he began running marathons on the weekends. Yet, he desired a change in his life and when he discovered that he was eligible for retirement in October 2005, he decided to do so.

All things vintage and automotive intersect at Arcadia Replica.

To celebrate his retirement, the very next day, on Saturday, October 1, 2005, Hargrove, along with his running buddy Lance, began a 100-mile foot race! But that is just the type of guy that John Hargrove is.

A Retirement on Route 66

In 1998, seven years before his retirement from the school district, Hargrove bought eight acres of empty property just east of Arcadia between Arcadia Lake and Luther on Route 66. To do so, he had to sell his airplanes and his lot with the hangar at the airport.

“And when I did that, I asked myself the question, ‘What am I going to do?’ I won’t just find some land and live on Route 66 because I’m a car guy. I like the hot rods — Dad didn’t get along with that, but anything I wanted to do with an airplane I was welcome to,” he explained, laughing. “I gradually started learning about 66. People were coming from other countries to drive Route 66; I just had zero idea [about it] but I knew I wanted to live on Route 66, because I’ve been around it.”

And so, instead of traveling 66 himself, he decided to build some miniature Route 66 icons, and the world began to come to him. John created a part museum, part art gallery, part hot rod garage, and part replica array attraction, but it has become 100% a Route 66 icon. He credits his college drafting and design classes plus all the practical experience he gained both from working with his father and with his career jobs.

To start, Hargrove kicked off his long list of projects with a Volkswagen Beetle sticking out of the library on the second floor of his building. Looking like it’s broken through the exterior wall, it’s usually the first thing that catches visitors’ attention. “I cut that Volkswagen in half and made it look like it was kind of staking out my ground. I’ll never own a Cadillac, but I’ve had several Volkswagens. Then, I thought, I will just build me a Blue Whale. So, I did that, and that’s where it went from there.”

Where it went eventually included an old phone booth (“get in there and use your cell”), a Volkswagen bus painted

like Fillmore in the Cars movie (underneath its own carport to protect the paint job), a Kachina like the one at the Route 66 Museum in Elk City, gas pumps in front of a station facade, a rusty motorcycle (with a tractor seat) sculpted to look like Easy Rider (“I call it the Hard Rider”), Twin Arrows and Jackrabbit Trading Post replicas, a tin man (identified as “Petro Man”), and another Volkswagen Beetle nosed into the ground, along with a variety of road signs. And that’s just outside.

Inside the two-story building, visitors will find a diner with a large Meramec Caverns sign, a small theater section, and a teepee. Then there’s a generously sized garage for John’s car projects, plus old-fashioned store fronts and memorabilia collections and exhibits, including his many medals from the plethora of long-distance races he’s run — and placed in.

“You know, it’s just all sorts of stupid stuff. I tell everybody, ‘If you expect everything to make perfect sense in here, you’re in the wrong spot. But now, I’ve got my little museum. I started out renting it for birthday parties, but it was just taking up time, so it turned into a tourist stop, and that’s good enough for me.”

These days, the word on the street is that if John’s gate is open, his attraction is open. He generally reserves his mornings for fitness activities, so stop by after lunchtime. If you visit before noon, he just may be at Zumba class. But stick around — the visit to this attraction and its entrepreneur is definitely worth the wait.

A Bonafide Attraction

“I’ve been here since 2001, living here every day, and the biggest thing, I enjoyed meeting all the people from other countries,” Hargrove said. “You see a different side of life when you work in a place like this — people beyond their honeymoon, that have recovered from cancer and they’re doing their bucket list deal. I’ve had several people that have restored antique cars overseas and had them shipped over here and drove Route 66 in them. Isn’t that amazing? The front of my building faces Southeast. So, in the evening, I’m in the shade out here, and I’ll sit out there and drink some water or beer and watch the traffic go by.”

It’s pretty easy to see that John’s OK County 66 attraction has “arrived.” PBS aired an episode in 2016 of the second season of the show Gallery America aptly titled, “Route 66 Auto Trim Museum.” The crew of the Roadfood show, also from PBS, caught up with Hargrove and his attraction in 2022, airing an episode called “Oklahoma/Route 66: The Onion Fried Burger.” And a plethora of other media have showcased this unexpected stop along America’s Main Street. But that is the real beauty of a living historic highway, there is always room for someone new and always interest in new additions to the multitude of crazy roadside stops along the way.

Fillmore of Cars fame greets guests.

LA POSADA

POSADA CHIC

By Cheryl Eichar Jett

Photograph by Efren Lopez/Route66Images

The romanticism and scenic beauty of the American Southwest is often a siren call to tourists, with its synthesis of cultures, stunning landscapes, fascinating history, and unique cuisine. The charm of adobe buildings lures travelers inside with the promise of an experience that they won’t soon forget, and nowhere is that appeal more evident than at La Posada in charming Winslow, Arizona. The last of the iconic Fred Harvey company’s trackside hotels to be built, it was Harvey’s longtime designer Mary Colter’s favorite project and considered to be her masterpiece. Opening in 1930, the romantic and museum-like hotel featured Southwestern art, comfortable furnishings, and every amenity, including a Fred Harvey dining room regarded as one of the finest restaurants in the Four Corners region.

Fred Harvey, restaurateur and hotelier of the American Southwest, was famed not only for feeding travelers in trackside establishments, but also on the trains themselves, where fine dining service became expected. The Santa Fe Railway took its dining service up a notch on board its iconic Super Chief, which ran between Chicago and Los Angeles. On each Super Chief train, a special car called the Pleasure Dome offered a luxurious lounge plus a special dining room — the Turquoise Room — designed by Colter. Travelers were enchanted with the romance of the Southwest before they even stepped from the train at one of the Super Chief’s destination cities.

But in 1957, La Posada closed, the result of the decline of the railroad era and in some ways fine dining itself, as the upswing of the automobile age and the drive-up, drive-thru stylization of food businesses took over with the motoring public. The Pleasure Dome cars lasted into the 1960s before they, too, were retired from the Santa Fe Railroad system — more about them in a minute. At La Posada, iconic designer Mary Colter’s lovely and romantic décor and design throughout the hotel was gutted, office partitions and fluorescent lights were installed, original furniture and fixtures were sold off or destroyed, and what was once the Gem of the Southwest became bland railroad offices.

But forty years after it closed, La Posada got ready to open again in 1997, rescued by the passion and determination of the husband-and-wife team of activist Allan Affeldt and artist Tina Mion, who moved from California to a wing of the hotel in Winslow — where today they still keep a residence. But then, in the neglected and decaying building, they began to tackle an unbelievably large project one room at a time — including what was a large dining room that faced out onto the railroad tracks.

“So, where the dining room is now were just a series of little rooms that were called the dispatcher rooms, with huge LED panels to see all the [railroad] switches across the Southwest because they were all controlled by microwave from La Posada,” Affeldt recalled. “All that had to be taken out. There was nothing left of the original restaurant. We had to completely rebuild that space. We built the dining room back in its original form, believing that we should have a first-class restaurant.”

Months of painstaking restoration and furniture building and acquisition produced a beautiful airy dining space. There, guests are delighted to find Southwestern art, comfortably spaced tables and chairs, and large windows to

look out over the tracks where trains still rumble past. But the restaurant needed a name.

“Since Colter had designed the china and interiors for the Turquoise Room, we named our restaurant the Turquoise Room in an homage to the Santa Fe Railway and Mary Colter and those fabulous train cars,” said Affeldt. “And at the time we didn’t know that any of those train cars [still] existed.”

Allan and Tina approached their friend, chef John Sharpe, notable for his work in Southern California restaurants, about coming to Winslow. Sharpe ended up leaving his 25-year career with award-winning restaurants behind, and with his wife Patricia, moved to tiny Winslow and purchased the restaurant operation within La Posada. There, in 2000, Sharpe opened the restaurant, featuring a new menu of contemporary Southwestern cuisine, reflecting nearby Native American food traditions.

Then, in 2016, the existence of one of the old Pleasure Dome railroad cars became known! “[We had named the Turquoise Room] not knowing that there were any more of them, and certainly never imagined that we would find one and be able to acquire it and move it to Winslow,” said Affeldt. “It’s still on the siding and has not been restored. It belongs to the Arts Trust, the organization that I created. We worked very closely with the BNSF Railway, and they got the train car for us for $1. The railroad sometimes does this for nonprofit organizations.”

But as with all good things, in time, changes occur. And so, after 20 years at the Turquoise Room, chef-owner John Sharpe retired in the fall of 2020. His longtime assistant, Jesus Nunez, stepped into the position of head chef, as Affeldt purchased the operation that Sharpe had developed within La Posada.

“When John retired, we bought the restaurant out, including the menus and everything that was in the kitchen, [which] we have actually ended up doing a tremendous amount of work on,” Affeldt explained. “We completely rebuilt the bar and opened it just a few months ago, and it’s really spectacular. That was quite a complicated project and for that we worked with John Suttman, who’s done a lot of wrought iron work [here].”

Most of Sharpe’s staff stayed on, with some moving up the management ladder. Now, besides Chef Nunez, management includes General Manager Tanita Tso, Administrative Manager Dennis Burbank, and Floor Manager April Carver. “[The staff stayed] so they basically just transferred to become our employee. Tanita Tso and Dennis Burbank were managers and they’re both Native American, so it’s kind of nice.”

Tso, who’s worked in hospitality since the tender age of 17, grew up in the area, but spent some years down in Tucson with her young children before returning to Winslow. “I came back to Winslow and the first place I wanted to go was here. At that point in my career, what I wanted to do was be a part of the Turquoise Room,” said Tso. “There is a pride that I take in my staff, and just to be immersed in the history that is within the property. We take pride when we are able to answer a simple question about something on the menu. To say, this is the historical background of it, and this is why we love it.”

Fred Harvey or Mary Colter couldn’t have asked for more.

Welcome to e Turquoise Room Restaurant & Lounge

Located in the World Famous La Posada Hotel

Only a short stroll to the renowned Standin’ on a Corner attraction in Winslow, Arizona, and along iconic Route 66, The Turquoise Room is one of the Southwest’s most unique destination restaurants, serving a regional, contemporary interpretation of Southwest classic cuisine. Travel along Route 66, explore the exquisite architecture of La Posada — a fully restored Fred Harvey Hotel— stop for a drink in the newly renovated Turquoise Room Lounge, and enjoy a fine dining experience at this hidden gem of a restaurant.

e Turquoise Room at La Posada Hotel

305 East Second Street Winslow, AZ 86047

928.289.2888

www.theturquoiseroom.com

Now hiring professional restaurant sta in all areas including career path Sous Chef and Kitchen Manager. Competitive salaries, eligible bene ts, including employer paid wellness/medical plans.

Little Station on the Plains

The Great Plains of the Texas Panhandle became cowboy country in the 1800s as huge working ranches were established, spreading out on the flat, dry land surrounding the Panhandle’s towns — Shamrock, Groom, Amarillo, and a small rural town called Vega, Spanish for “meadow” and so named for the vast open prairie that the little town rested upon. Here, in this arid, windswept country, the horse was the accepted mode of transportation. But changes arrived in the 1920s as the automobile slowly began to populate the Panhandle’s dusty roads, and the new federal numbered highway system bestowed U.S. Highway number 66 onto the dirt trail. The communities along that east-west axis rose to the occasion and began to build gas stations to meet the expected increase in vehicle traffic and the opportunities that it would provide.

One of these early born stops found its home in tiny Vega, a town on the Ozark Trail, two years before the route officially became Route 66. Built in 1924 by Colonel James T. Owen, the station, one of only two in the town, sought to lure motorists via its Magnolia brand gasoline. The two-story adobe building featured living quarters upstairs and a large canopy that sported a “Highway Service Station” sign and covered the pumps. Within a couple of years, Owen leased the operation — and the living quarters — to Edward and Cora Wilson. This began a chain of lessee operators including E. B. Cooke, A. B. Landrum, and Kenneth R. Lloyd, who married his wife, Marie, at the station, before they moved in upstairs. Marie’s memories of life in the apartment are memorialized on a plaque that is now on display at the restored station (more on the restoration in a minute):

Kenneth saved all the silver dollars he was paid with, 37 of them, and went to Sears and Roebuck in Amarillo and paid down on furniture and curtains. We had to get kitchen cabinets, a stove, a breakfast room set, and most important, curtains for the front windows. (The apartment faced what was not just the highway, but the town’s main street!)

In 1933, the station was taken over by a young man with the first name of Austin — according to which source you read, it was either Austin Wilson, son of Edward and Cora

Wilson, or Austin Owen, son of Colonel Owen. In either case, young Austin switched from Magnolia gasoline to Phillips 66 at that time. The chain of ownership is a bit murky after Austin came in — he may or may not have operated the station up until 1953, when the pumps were shut down due to lack of business. But around this time, the Slatz Barbershop moved in and occupied the building until 1965.

Decades of vacancy allowed the structure to deteriorate badly, but the sad, dilapidated building hadn’t been forgotten. Not totally. As with many locations along Route 66, the small station found a savior. Joann Harwell at the local Chamber of Commerce led the charge to preserve the station through grant funding and donated work and cash. “When I was running the Chamber of Commerce, I was going through the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) [for collaboration on restoration],” said Harwell, now a local business owner. “Then Linda Drake [also with the Chamber of Commerce] did the majority of the work. She worked hand-in-hand with the National Park Service to get the [costshare] grant that they offered.”

The city came up with the matching funds through the sale of engraved bricks — which now decorate the perimeter of the building — and the utilization of local contractors to replace the stucco, roof, windows, and doors. The long-gone large canopy was reconstructed in a close match with the original, working with the TxDOT to size it a bit smaller to conform to current road easement regulations.

Completing the restoration in 2004, the interior was also restored and furnished with era-appropriate appointments and large easy-to-read plaques that tell the station’s story. “You can show up at any time of the day and look in the windows and everything is very visible on the inside,” said Greg Conn, Director of the Milburn-Price Culture Museum in Vega. “It kind of runs itself.”

Self-guided museum or not, the Magnolia Station has become a truly iconic stop for Route 66 enthusiasts. “Travelers from different countries pull up to the Magnolia, next to the old gas pump, and act like they are pumping fuel,” Conn said. The tourists are really attracted to the station.” As they should be.

The cowboys never went away, but Route 66 and the automobile are once again front and center.

Image courtesy of the Oldham County Chamber of Commerce.

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

WITH

Andrew McCarthy A CONVERSATION

By Brennen Matthews

Photographs courtesy of JFPR

As a young person growing up in the ‘80s, a trip to the movie theater was a magical experience, and iconic films like Pretty in Pink , St. Elmo’s Fire , Mannequin , Less Than Zero, and the like raged at the Box Office. And often, one of my favorite actors at the time, Andrew McCarthy, was a key part of helping to tell these stories.

It was a decade of excess and attitude, over-the-top action, and big, bold characters, but McCarthy brought something different to each of his roles. He represented the nice guy next door; the real person who could actually be your friend. McCarthy brought sincerity and a needed innocence, a naiveté even, to many of his roles, and for me and my friends, that was just what we wanted.

Then he serendipitously carved out another creative outlet as a travel writer and an author, now with four books under his belt, including his memoir, Brat: An ‘80s Story, which raises the curtain on his tumultuous youth, when he first became famous, and his newest book, A Walk with Sam , an introspective journey across 500 miles of Spain’s Camino De Santiago with his eldest son.

In this conversation, McCarthy takes us back to the beginning, walks us through the middle, and takes us to his life now as an acclaimed author and father.

You knew pretty early that you wanted to be a stage actor. How did that journey start for you?

I was cut from the basketball team in tenth grade and my mom suggested that I try out for the school musical, but I didn’t want to be in the school musical, I wanted to be the point guard. Anyway, so I did the play. I was the Artful Dodger in Oliver! and I walked out on stage, and my life was different after that. I just knew. It was like I woke up, and it sort of felt like, “Here I am.” In that instant, I knew that was what I was going to do. I had no idea how, but I said, “This is what I’m going to do.” There is something wonderful about being young and innocent and naïve, because you don’t know that it’s impossible.

Then when it came time to go to college, I applied to NYU to the theater program. My grades were so bad… I was a terrible student. I had no interest in school. But I auditioned; I needed a monologue and didn’t know what that was, so someone gave me this book of monologues and I read one, the first one, and I go, “That one seems good!” and I read it. I got into NYU. I’d done a couple of plays — okay, I feel good when I do the plays, so I want to be in plays. That was as far as my logic went. It never occurred to me to be in the movies.

Your first major role in movies was in Class (1983). How did that come about?

There was an ad in Backstage Magazine, which was the unemployed actor’s magazine, and a friend of mine called and said, “They’re looking for someone 18, vulnerable, and sensitive to be the lead in a movie.” And I had just gotten kicked out of college and I didn’t know how to tell my parents that I was not going back to school in a month, so I went, and I sat there in the hallway at the Ansonia Hotel with 500 other 18, vulnerable, sensitive kids. I walked in and a guy named David Rubin was the casting director, he said, “Come to the office tomorrow.” I was, like, “Really?”

My naiveté and my obliviousness was my calling card and it worked! (Laughs)

I did a reading with the casting director and then read for the director, and then they said, “Well, now we’re going to put you on video tape.” I was like, “What’s video tape?” Video tape was brand new. I realized, “I can get this job!” So, I just froze. You’re in a room and the video cameras were giant in those days and there were all these flood lights on me, and I just froze. I did a terrible job, and I knew “Well, that’s that. That is over.” And they took the tapes back to L.A. to show people. They got to mine, and the director said, “Skip this kid. He’s terrible.” But, they couldn’t figure out how to press fast-forward. Anyway, they were forced to endure watching my audition one more time. The producer watched it, and he was like, “This guy’s weird! He has crazy eyes.” The director’s like, “No, he’s terrible.” So anyway, they had to sit through my audition again and they couldn’t find anybody for the part, so they brought me in again. And again. I think I auditioned like ten times. And then they flew me out to Chicago, finally.

So, I flew to Chicago to do a screen test, because that’s where the movie was going to start in like a week. I was teamed up with Rob Lowe and two other kids. But then I had to fly out to L.A. to meet Jacqueline Bisset for her to approve me, because I was playing her young lover, so I had to go out to her house. I remember it so clearly. Marty Ransohoff, who was the producer, this old school Hollywood kind of guy, with the big comb-over, the big belly, and cigars, like from Central Casting, Hollywood producer: [in a deep gravelly voice] “She’s going to love you, kid! She’s going to love you!” And I’m like, “Oh, okay, Mr. Ransohoff.” “Marty! It’s Marty!” “Oh, okay, Marty.” Anyway, so I go in and sit there waiting for Jacqueline Bisset to come out. Then I heard a toilet flush somewhere in the house, and for some reason that just relaxed me completely. And I went, “Oh! She goes to the bathroom.” So, she came out and we met. I said something — I don’t know what — and she just went, “Oh, he’s cheeky. I like it.” And I was in the movies.

It’s 1983, the movie comes out. It’s your first big movie, and you know it’s going to change your life…

And it doesn’t. (Laughs)

A year went by before you found the next real job. What was going through your mind and heart that year?

I felt like I had blown my opportunity. I was in a weird No Man’s Land because I couldn’t go back to NYU, I didn’t fit in at school anymore. Then I wasn’t really in show business, but trying to get into it. So, it was just a weird, difficult time of like, “Well, what am I going to do?”

Your next big movie, St. Elmo’s Fire also almost never happened for you.

Well, that movie came about because I’d auditioned for a movie called D.C. Cab that Joel [Schumacher] was doing, which was a Mr. T movie. I didn’t get that job, thank God, and Joel remembered me a year later when he was doing his next movie. They asked to see me, so I went in and read, and I instantly knew that part was, like, it made sense to

me. And for the first time, I really felt like I could do the role better than anyone else. I just knew, so I did very well, and they wanted me to be in the movie, but the studio was, like, “This kid was in two movies that were failures. Who is this guy?”

And Schumacher went to bat for you and literally got the studio to greenlight you.

They flew me out to Los Angeles again to go to the studio to meet an executive. They put me in the Chateau Marmont and sent a big stretch limousine, because that’s what you drove in back in the ‘80s. So, I was driven over the hill to Warner Bros. and met this studio executive, and Joel was there. I was just terrified. I knew I was there to perform, to impress, and that made me very uncomfortable. So, I just sat there on the couch like a bump on a log and Joel was, like, “C’mon!” The more I was encouraged, and they tried to draw me out, the more I withdrew. I could feel myself like under a rock. There was nothing I could do about it. That’s just how I behaved when I was frightened, I withdrew. So, they sent me home.

Joel’s assistant drove me home in his VW. I really realized the irony of arriving in the stretch limo, blowing the meeting, and being driven home in a VW bug. Halfway home, I was like, “I just blew that!” So, I told his assistant how much I wanted to do the part and I was suddenly just pouring out all this, what I should’ve done in the office. The assistant spoke with Joel who later called me up and said, “You’re a jerk.” I said, “I know, I know!” He full-out got me the part.

That movie changed my life, because it was successful.

You’re suddenly in a film with a bunch of other young actors, peers, people who have been working: Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Rob Lowe, Ally Sheedy. It’s a great ensemble cast. But you said you felt like you were on the periphery of the popular kids, if you will. Why so?

That was the position I was put in and carved out. I knew that it would suit the role, it would suit my work. I couldn’t have been the center, that would’ve been unsustainable for my personality type, and for the role. You know, a guy who desperately needs these friends but desperately wants to be a loner, too. I liked being on the peripheral. I still do.

I wasn’t good at schmoozing and cultivating relationships because I found that mercenary and I was too shy and frightened of people in a certain way, so I wasn’t able to do that. That’s what’s required in a very real way to succeed; Hollywood is a small town in that it’s built on relationships. It was just more the idea of schmoozing and working the room that I was just never going to be able to do. To this day, I have no interest in it. To my detriment? Maybe.

After the film, did you stay connected with any of the other cast members?

I never was able to cultivate and play the game, as it were. My friends were not in show business, and they’re still not, generally. I was just never good at that aspect of the business. I see it with some people, they’ve worked together over and over, and I’m like, “Wow, that’s so great.”

I’ve just been finishing making a documentary about the Brat Pack and I went and interviewed a bunch of the folks in the Brat Pack, and I hadn’t seen Rob in 30 years. It was so great to see him because we were not close at all when we were young. We were competitive, we were different.

I hadn’t seen Emilio since the night the movie premiered, I haven’t seen Judd to this day. I’ve run into Demi a couple of times. We were all friendly in my experience, but I lived in New York, so maybe that was part of it.

How was it looking back at those ‘Brat Pack’ years with the cast of St. Elmo’s Fire ?

The whole Brat Pack thing is kind of interesting in that we hated it. What’s interesting is every single person had the same exact response. Rob, Demi, Emilio, Ally — everyone had the exact same experiences. We just had the rug pulled out from under us. We’d now been stigmatized and labeled and dismissed. Utterly dismissed as lightweights and kids who just wanted to party and had no respect for what they’re doing. Over the years and decades, it’s become this iconic, affectionate term for this moment in time, and we represent that, and it’s become a beautiful thing. Initially, we hated it.

I went and interviewed the writer, David Blum, for the documentary and spoke with him about it. It was a totally hostile hatchet job. That’s the way New York Magazine was, though, in the 1980s. That kind of “gotcha” journalism is what people did, and they got Emilio. What I always found so weird was so many of us… if you were to actually look at the article, which I hadn’t until I did that documentary, none of us are in the Brat Pack. It’s Judd, Emilio, Rob, Sean Penn, and Tim Hutton. It’s so interesting how certain people got sucked into it that weren’t even in the article, and other people who were, were able to escape.

When St. Elmo’s Fire and Pretty in Pink came out, that was that. Emilio said, when I was talking to him about it, he said it was like we were all kryptonite to each other, the second

that [label] came out. That’s when those young ensemble movies stopped happening. It altered the trajectory of our careers. For better or worse? I couldn’t tell you. We perceived it as this horrible, negative thing. But at the end of the day, decades later, I’d say it’s a beautiful thing.

Had I been in the same movies and the Brat Pack label not existed, I would’ve been some actor who’s in a bunch of ‘80s movies. As it exists now, I’m part of this iconic group of people that captured a moment in pop culture that will forever be beloved by a certain generation. It took me a long time to realize, “that’s fantastic.”

It’s a funny thing. I’ve written a book about it; I’ve now made a documentary because it was such a big part of my life. And still to this day, people come up and start talking to me and their eyes kind of glaze over because they’re thinking of their own youth. They’re not even talking to me; they’re talking to their own twenty-year-old self. That moment when their life is a blank slate to be written upon. And I and the rest of the Brat Pack represent that to that generation of people, and that’s a great gift. But it took me decades to get to.

After St. Elmo’s Fire , fame took on a whole different reality in your day-to-day life. How did you handle that phase of your career and of your life as a young actor?

How did I handle it? Not very well. (Laughs) It’s Pretty in Pink that changed my life. St. Elmo’s Fire gave me a career and put me on the map of Hollywood. Then Pretty in Pink changed my life, which I thought was so odd, because at the time, I thought, “This movie is about a girl wanting to go to a dance and make a dress. I mean, who cares?” Turns out I was wrong again. I didn’t even read the script, because I just needed a job, and it was the next job, and it was a John Hughes movie, and he’s big. He’s done The Breakfast Club, so you want to be in his movies. I read the script on the plane going out to L.A. and I discovered that my guy actually ditches Molly and is a jerk at the end. When I landed, I called my agent, “You got to get me out of this movie. This guy is a total wimp, he’s a loser. You got to get me out of this.” She went, “Honey, you read the script.” “Yeah, just on the plane!” Of course, they did a test screening, and we did a reshoot and all that. They reshot it because the audience wanted us to be together in the end, because the movie is a fantasy, a fairy tale, and you have to give her what she wants, and she wanted my character. The rest is history.

It’s a simple story, but it certainly changed my place in the world. I was suddenly famous to a generation of people. I found it overwhelming, in a certain way, and some of it was great and lovely and wonderful and I was getting offered jobs. They weren’t particularly the kind of jobs I wanted to be doing, and the Brat Pack label cemented that.

There’s a recurrent theme in your early movie career of people going to bat for you. Whether it’s Pretty in Pink , with Molly Ringwald or Joel Schumacher with St. Elmo’s Fire .

Yeah, I’m blessed. I was so defensive and so frightened, and so hedging my bets, always. In those instances, there was one person who was able to see through. Molly just saw that when I read that scene with her, she said, “Oh, that’s the guy. He’s dreamy.” It was written for the high school quarterback, square-jawed, broad-shouldered hunk, jock kind of guy, the fairy tale prince. John said, “That wimp?” She said, “No, he’s soulful, he’s terrific.” Once John turned the corner, the

studio went, “No, we need somebody more of a hunk,” and he went, “Nope, he’s the guy,” and that was that. But yeah, there always was someone.

Your notoriety or fame had its perks. Going out to dinner with Melissa Gilbert and Rob Reiner, going back to Sammy Davis Jr.’s house and hanging out with Liza Minnelli… How did all of that not blow your mind?

Well, Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis blew my mind. I went, “Wow! This is a long way from New Jersey!” That was a fun night, it was great. Again, it was a moment, I happened to be one of the people having that moment in the mid ‘80s. I just wasn’t really that aware of it. I also drank way too much. I began to drink excessively because I hid behind that, it gave me a false sense of courage. Drinking, a funny thing; it eventually turns in on you when you don’t know that it has happened until it’s too late. So, it began to dominate my life until I stopped in the early ‘90s. It took me a couple years to realize I was out of control for several years, then it took me a couple of years to realize I had a problem, then a couple of years to do something about it.

You’re 60 now.

Shocking. (Laughs)

You have three kids, the eldest, Sam, turned 21 in March. You’ve said in the past that you’re not a nostalgic guy, but as the kids have gotten older, do you ever get more reflective?

I don’t think so. I do think that I have more affection for my youth than I ever did. The answer’s no to nostalgia, but a couple of years ago, when I was writing the Brat Pack book, I hadn’t seen Jacqueline Bisset for 30 years. I hadn’t even seen a picture of her. So, I looked her up on the internet and this picture of a 78-year-old woman comes up. It’s beautiful, it’s Jacqueline Bisset, but it was a 78-year-old woman. I was shocked, because in my mind, she was still the 38-year-old woman that I fell in love with when I was doing this movie. To see her, it did something really weird to me. In a second, you go, “Of course, there’s Jackie,” but there’s the instant when I realized I still have harbored this fantasy that my youth was still there, or I could go pick up where I left it off. But no, 30 years have gone by and she’s a 78-year-old woman, you’re not going to stay at her house again and be 22 ever again. So, there was no nostalgia for it, but I realized in some way, I was still harboring these delusions.

So, no mid-life crisis at all.

Well, it depends when you talk to me. I went and did other things. I had a difficult time when I was not getting roles, so I went and became — by accident — a travel writer. That was a real creative revitalization in my life. My life got better after every decade, from 30s, to 40s, to 50s, it got better after every decade. My career didn’t, necessarily, but my life did. Certainly. I had no problem turning 50 — I didn’t even blink — but turning 60 was, “Woah.” That’s the beginning of going toward being old. There’s no youth anymore. The perspective is changing. I’ll let you know where it lands.

SO MUCH TO SEE IN OKC

21c Oklahoma City is the perfect road trip destination for the curious traveler. Explore our latest multi-media art exhibition, The SuperNatural, indulge in creative cuisine at Mary Eddy’s Dining Room or Pool Bar and Bodega, and make a night of it in one of our stylish and light-filled rooms.

You have four books out now; a lot of people don’t necessarily know that about you. How did that all come about?

I started traveling a lot, traveling alone, traveling the world, and travel changed my life and helped me feel safe in the world. It placed me. I met an editor and started writing about travel and became very successful at it quickly because I knew two things: I knew that travel changes people’s lives, and that it changed mine and made me feel safe in the world. The paradox was, the farther away from home I got, the safer I felt. I also knew intuitively how to tell a story, and so I did that and became successful at it, and then it just evolved into books. I’m very happy to sit alone in a room and write a book. People come up to me, and I’m waiting for them to say Pretty in Pink or St. Elmo’s Fire , and I’m about to go, “Thank you,” and they go, “I love your book!” and I go, “Oh! Thank you!” That’s always very meaningful to me.

You had a complicated relationship with your dad. Did that impact how you decided to parent your own children?

My dad was a different guy than I am, and I was very afraid of my father. My children are not afraid of me! A little fear might be useful. (Laughs) I’m a very different person than my dad was, so I’m a different parent. You learn from whatever and hope your kids go beyond you; hopefully I went beyond my parents and my kids go beyond me. When my first son was being born, a friend of mine’s father from the South said he could see the fear in my eyes. He said, “Andy, you just love him and keep him dry.” It’s still the best parenting advice I’ve ever gotten, it really is!

Have they seen any of your movies?

My daughter was 16 and saw the trailer for Pretty in Pink and saw me kissing Molly Ringwald and she said, “I’m not watching that.” My son saw Weekend at Bernie’s a while back and he said, “I love you, dad, but that’s the stupidest movie I’ve ever seen.”

You have a new book out, Walking with Sam , about a 500-mile Camino de Santiago walk that you did with your eldest son. Any reason you never chose something closer to home as a start-off, such as the Pacific Crest Trail or the Appalachians?

(Laughs) Well, on those you have to actually carry a massive load and camp and all that stuff, and that wasn’t going to happen. I walked it 25 years earlier in my own life and that’s what started me traveling the world and travel writing. So, it changed my life, that first trip, and I wanted to do it again with my son. I talked about it a lot with my family and how great it was. What I learned that first trip was how much fear had dominated my life and how it started liberating me from that fear. That changed my place in the world.

So, what motivated you to walk across Spain again?

Once the pandemic started, there was all this fear we were being flooded with. I really felt the fear rise up inside of me like I hadn’t in all those years, and I thought, “Once this thing clears up, I got to go walk across Spain again.” I was half-joking, then it became a reality, and I just took my son

with me. He’s cusping adulthood and starting to go out into the world and our relationship had to alter and change from day-to-day parenting him and scolding him and guiding him, to being more equal, kind adults. I thought it was an opportunity to try and transition the relationship in that way. I thought it would do him good and it would certainly do me good. He had just broken up with his first love, so he was heartbroken and in a vulnerable spot. When I said, “Let’s go!” and he went, “Okay.” I literally went into the next room and bought two plane tickets, and a few days later, we were in Spain, because I knew he would change his mind the minute he started to recover. I thought he was in the right spot for it, I was in a right spot for it. I thought our relationship was right for it, and that’s what it grew out of and that’s what the book is about.

I’m a travel writer, so it’s a travel book, but it’s more about fathers and sons. The most important thing in my life, I would say, is if my children want to have a relationship with me into their adulthood and throughout their lives; then my life will have been a success. I had no relationship with my father and it’s one of the great failings of my life. It’s important to me, and I thought it deserved a good, long walk. I had the luxury of being with my adult child, walking for 500 miles, having dinner every night, getting sick of each other.

You define yourself as a solo traveler, you like your space and alone time. How was the experience this time round, traveling with Sam and interacting with different people on the trail?

Well, it’s one of the more interesting things with Camino — people come from all over the world to do the same thing. Walking the pilgrimage is interesting, because there’s nothing to discover; it’s all been done before, the discovery is all internal. There’s so much that’s just walking, and long walking just solves and brings you down into yourself in a real way. The first time I walked it alone, about halfway through, I started making friends with people, and I would walk alone during the day, and we’d have dinner at night. It’s the same thing; Sam and I were together for the first half, and then we started to make friends in the second half. So, we would walk alone, sometimes I would walk alone, sometimes Sam would walk with other people, you just find your own rhythm. Ultimately, you’re still together. Part of the joy of the trip, you’re doing the exact same walk, but it’s a very different experience for the person right next to you.

How do you think Sam’s experience differed from yours?

I was working through my own fears — being able to take care of my kid, because I’m responsible for him here.

We were walking by a little tiny brick cottage, and it had two little windows, a slate roof, and a chimney with smoke coming out of it, and I looked at him and said, “This looks so cozy, nice, and safe. Sam, isn’t that house fantastic?” He goes, “The only difference between that and a prison is a couch and a fireplace.” The 180 degrees difference! Everyone’s experience is so different. Like, “Oh! That is how you look at it, how you view it. I never would have thought that.”

On day two, Sam said, “What’s the point of this f*cking walk?” And on the last day, he said, “Dad, that’s the only ten out of ten thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

COMING SOON TO ST. LOUIS

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A MEAL WITH

WITH A GIANT

Photograph by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66

It was mere days before the global pandemic beckoned an unsuspecting world into a full stop, when the birth of a new chef-inspired muffler man first towered over a buzzing food truck park in Springfield, Missouri. Carl was this giant’s name, and his looming twenty-five-foot stature represented a brief era where looking toward new horizons was warmly embraced by the community. This ideal was realized by Carl’s proverbial father, Kirk E. Wheeler, a local automotive business operator turned food truck park owner, and quickly positioned itself as a hopeful beacon once the world shut itself down. But before Carl became the local landmark that he is today, his story stems from a spontaneous road trip and the gentle soul his name is lifted from.

It was 2019, and Wheeler and a friend sought to check an item off their bucket list: to hit up Chicago and take Route 66 — America’s Main Street — all the way down to Santa Monica. The two embarked on their journey in Wheeler’s aptly numbered 1966 Chevy pickup, stopping alongside any muffler man that they came across, while reading up on their peculiar histories. Enamored with the stories behind each giant, Wheeler entertained an idea that would, within months, lead to the creation of Springfield’s own food truck park — a destination that would proudly boast its own muffler man.

Wheeler owned an empty piece of land in town and, upon realizing there was no place within a six-block range of the property to get any food, he recognized the potential and soon repurposed the area into a food truck park — despite the hesitation of his family and banker. Working through the appropriate municipalities in Springfield to get a fresh concept off the ground, Wheeler saw the enthusiasm in the community spark into an infectious flurry of excitement, with locals exclaiming that they looked forward to becoming customers. But he felt that something special would be needed. Considering the park would operate on Route 66, Wheeler knew that a muffler man was integral for the location.

“The muffler man giants along Route 66 seem to be a peak interest to a lot of travelers,” said Wheeler. “Anyone traveling Route 66 has got an eye out for them. They will typically stop and take a picture with them. I thought it would be a good draw for the food trucks and a destination for Route 66 travelers to [experience] something fun. Muffler man giants are a fun thing to have instead of a typical sign. It’s a great way to advertise.”

To ornate the newly christened Route 66 Food Truck Park with a giant of its own, Wheeler contacted Mark Cline, an artist based in Natural Ridge, Virginia, who specializes in the construction and refurbishment of fiberglass figures across the country. Cline fashioned the food park giant using the classic left palm facing down, right palm facing up mold, gifted the giant his own pair of cooking utensils, and appropriately crowned him with a toque. Echoing the bucket list-fueled road trip he took earlier to see muffler men of the past, Wheeler drove out to Virginia in a thirty-foot car trailer to secure a muffler man of the future and began an atypical excursion back home.

With the muffler man giant in tow and Springfieldbound, Wheeler’s cargo became the subject of curiosity on this father-son trip. “Everybody that passed us, or that we passed, had their cameras out,” said Wheeler. “It was hard to stop for fuel without getting into a conversation about him. If we were in a parking lot of any kind, he was like a magnet.

People would just immediately come over and say, ‘Hey! What’s that? What are you doing?’ and I would have to tell them the story.”

Upon arriving at the food truck park, the community continued to inquire about the giant as he lay dormant, patiently awaiting his proper installation. Several weeks later, a local sign company propped him up and bolted him down — the fiberglass chef finally stood proudly in Springfield. Wheeler knew exactly what to name this seminal landmark. Despite the muffler man’s grand stature, his namesake was sourced from someone our own size: Carl, a dearly admired work colleague who had unfortunately passed away.

“His real name was Harold, and we had another parttime employee — an older gentleman — that could never remember ‘Harold,’ so called him ‘Carl,’” recounted Wheeler. “We would correct him, ‘It’s Harold!’ and he was like, ‘Okay — Carl!’ He just couldn’t get ‘Carl’ out of his head, so we all started calling him ‘Carl’ and then named the muffler man giant in his memory.”

After battling an illness for several years, Harold passed in January of 2015. Wheeler, who had been in the hospital recovering from heart surgery at the time, made the effort to attend Harold’s funeral. “He was kind of like part of the family,” he reminisced. “He’d been with us so long.”

Soon enough, the park officially opened and demonstrated a deliciously delectable variety of cuisine: from BBQ to gourmet fusion tacos and Thai and Jamaican cuisine in between, each of the eight trucks offered unique tastes originating stateside and abroad. With Carl greeting the food truck park’s deluge of customers in its bustling beginnings, he swiftly became something of a local celebrity, attracting the attention of local news outlets and travelers before misfortune struck.

“It was all positive energy,” noted Wheeler. “But two weeks after our soft opening, we had to lock the doors for COVID, and the crowd never came back. The food truck owners got discouraged and started dropping out, so I pretty much had no choice but to shut it down.”

Three years on, Carl remains on the property, welcoming those who pass by, while a retired Wheeler, now 66 and plotting another Route 66 trip in the opposite direction, attempts to secure the property’s future. Carl remains a different matter.

“If I had wanted to sell Carl, I could have sold him probably a dozen times since I listed the property for sale. Everyone is interested in him! [But] I’m not going to sell him. I’m probably going to keep him until the real estate has a new owner, and hopefully he’ll be standing there forever.”

While Carl the muffler man currently has no food truck park to watch over, it is the spirit of “Carl” the colleague that proudly perseveres — though he might have had some thoughts on the giant. “He was kind of a shy guy down deep and he’d probably be embarrassed,” said Wheeler. “I’m pretty sure he’d feel honored by it.”

A certain stillness now fills the almost empty food truck park. Its ambitions, forcefully vacated due to an inexorable pandemic, belies something warmer: a sense of togetherness that is forever sealed in time. Carl bore witness to every joy in the park’s operation, and perhaps it is that smile upon his face that keeps those ambitions alive — and will continue to do so wherever his future takes him.

REMINDER OF THE PAST

Driving down Navajo Boulevard in Holbrook, Arizona, it’s hard to miss the towering sign beckoning road travelers to the Pow Wow Trading Post. The trading post is famous, if for no other reason than its giant sign — an imposing yellow and red paletted kachina doll with large, protruding horns, holding up the words, ‘Pow Wow Trading Post’, and in big bold letters below them, the word ‘ROCKS.” The story behind the sign and the multicomplex property it watches over, which has stood on this spot for over 100 years, is varied, and has shape-shifted more than once, leaving a sometimes murky trail. But it is undeniably a fascinating one.

The complex began as the seven-unit Central Auto Court and opened in 1917. Details of the auto court during this time are scarce, but a late 1920s postcard read “When in Holbrook, Ariz. stop at Central Auto Court — Gas for Cooking — Fireproof Construction — Cottages Equipped with Simmon’s Beauty Rest Mattresses — Private Baths and Toilets — All Night Garage Service.’’ In 1928, a curio shop named Pow Wow Trading Post was added, operating in tandem to the motor court. However, it wasn’t until around 1959 that the colossal neon sign with the huge kachina that we know of today, was added. Since then, the name and the complex have remained a part of Holbrook’s everyday scenery — and a big draw for Route 66 travelers.

Jack Paine, probably the original owner, sold the property to Ed and Pauline Leopold in the late 1930s, but they in turn decided to lease it out. In 1943, Everett and Martha Fox moved from California to run the motor court and at some point, Everett went on to become Holbrook’s police chief. Ed and Pauline’s son and daughter-in-law, Ken and Gwen Leopold, who owned the El Patio Motel, located, as a vintage postcard announced, opposite the “Famous Western Pow Wow Indian Trading Post,” took over the operation of the complex in 1946 and stayed for several decades. It was during their tenure that the rock shop opened and

around 1959, the then-existing, more modest sign on the property, was replaced with a more prominent “Pow Wow Trading Post” sign with the words “MOTEL” on the lower section. At some point, “MOTEL” was replaced with the word “ROCKS.”

Today, the motel business is long gone, and various other enterprises have come in, including a candy store and a smoke shop, which are still open. But its memory has not totally faded.

At some point during all that history, when lifetime Holbrook resident Albert Reyes was just a boy, his mother would give him five dollars to take to the little grocery at the trading post to buy her cigarettes. Back then, he had no way of knowing that he would come to own the complex. Life is funny in that way. In 2011, he purchased it from an unnamed “cowgirl.”

“She had chickens in one of the rooms, hay in one of the rooms, [and] rabbits in one of the rooms. That’s what kind of shape it was in,” said Reyes. He had to argue with the city over permitted renovations and safety features, but because of his perseverance, it is now a fully renovated set of apartments. “I’ve redone a lot of the sewer lines, the water lines, gas lines, heating, cooling, you name it.”

As for the sign, it still stands — one of Holbrook’s beacons that still lures Route 66 enthusiasts — but about half of its neon lights have burned out. “Everybody’s asked if we’re gonna fix it. I’ve been trying to get the City of Holbrook involved in trying to rebuild it [or] relight it… They keep telling me, ‘Well, maybe next year we’ll try to do this Route 66 grant,’” said Reyes. “I’ve had offers from people wanting to buy the sign. I keep telling them, ‘No, no, no.’ I wouldn’t give it away, sell, or trade it. It’s been in Holbrook way too long.”

On that, we agree. These are the last true vestiges of a Southwestern history that has been quickly disappearing. It will never return again, not in its true form, so we all owe a debt to people like Reyes, protectors and preservers of a very special period in time.

Illustration by Chandler O’Leary.

THE

VROOMAN

By Michael Vieira

Photographs courtesy of Vrooman Mansion

Illinois is blessed with majestic historic homes, many of which have been transformed into museums and/or luxury accommodation, their striking architecture and distinct features serving as an important part of American history. And down in the welcoming Route 66 town of Bloomington, visitors will discover one impressive home that has a unique story of its own, ready to offer us a glimpse of the genteel lifestyle of a bygone era.

Vrooman Mansion has stood at 701 East Taylor Street in the heart of town for over 150 years. Built originally as a private residence, the grand old home has found a new purpose and has been carefully renovated, blending vintage with new in order to offer a piece of history to all who step through her doors.

The Grand Gift

In 1869, Eliel Barber, a transplant to Bloomington from upstate New York, decided to gift his wife Malinda Lewis Barber a new home. It was the post-Civil War era and large homes were fashionable, so this second home needed to be grand. Barber enlisted the help of architect G.W. Bunting to design the edifice of the three-story 17-room structure to be built just a stone’s throw from the couple’s cottage. Sadly, while the red brick, Italianate-style home was being built, Barber’s beloved wife passed away and he subsequently sold it to Matthew T. Scott and Julia Green Scott in 1872. It was at this point that the home’s famous history really began.

Matthew T. Scott was born and raised in Kentucky and came from a well-to-do industrious land development family who would eventually accumulate more than 45,000 acres in Illinois, Iowa, and Tennessee. While attending Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, Scott met Julia Green, daughter of Reverend Lewis Warner Green, the president of the college. Miss Green came from the aristocratic surroundings of a New York finishing school and could trace her ancestry through seven generations of distinguished individuals, including George Washington, among others.

Scott and Green married in 1859 and settled in Chenoa, Illinois—a town Scott helped establish in 1855 and named after a Kentucky Indian tribe—as a center for his business activities. Chenoa remained too small for their ambitions, however, so they moved briefly to Springfield before relocating to Bloomington after purchasing the home at 701 East Taylor Street.

The couple quickly settled into life in Bloomington, bearing two daughters: Letitia and Julia, and a son Lewis, who died as an infant. The grand house was considered one of the most elegant homes of the day, and it served the family well. While Mr. Scott continued to expand his various business dealings in land development and agricultural interests—in the process becoming the president of McLean County Coal Company, backed by brother-in-law, Adlai Ewing Stevenson, the future

Vice President of the United States under Grover Cleveland’s second administration—Mrs. Green Scott, tapped into her southern Kentucky roots, and made their home the center of hospitality and entertainment for friends, family, and business associates. Scott rapidly became one of the most influential personalities in the region and went on to also publish the Democratic newspaper, the Bulletin , in 1881.

However, in the midst of his brilliant business career, he suddenly passed away on May 21, 1891, at the age of 63, leaving his wife to shoulder the weight of the family estate and business. With dignity and sound judgment, Mrs. Green Scott proved more than capable, managing 9,000 acres of farmland in Illinois and Indiana with great success, as well as becoming the principal stockholder and ultimately the president of the McLean County Coal Company. As she rose in prominence and leadership in the community, Mrs. Green Scott, well-known for her inspiring oratory dinner speeches, also invested herself in matters of public interest, specifically with the Daughters of the American Revolution, of which she ultimately served as president general for two terms.

From Home to Mansion

By the turn of the century, America had established itself as a world power. Telephones were in wide use; cities were being electrified; and the age of the automobile was underway. Cities were growing, producing new wealth. It was a time of booming growth. In 1900, Mrs. Green Scott retained a wellknown local architect, Arthur Pillsbury, to undertake a massive expansion of their family home. Pillsbury was a Harvard and University of Illinois graduate, and in 1897 he became one of the first architects to be licensed in Illinois. The extensive work would include increasing the floor space by 60%—doubling the size—and adding two new porches to the exterior of the house. Additional improvements included Tiffany stained-glass windows bearing the family coat of arms, an enlarged open parlor, domed opalescent glass ceiling fixtures, electric lights with gas backups, a cherry-paneled library, and an office with a large wall safe, complete with her name painted on it.

Externally, new facades, columns, and ornamental details were added, along with a new paint scheme to unify the old and new sections of the building. The changes were so substantive that the home is now considered to be a conservative interpretation of Romanesque style, rather than the original Italianate style. Those renovations helped turn the Scott residence from a “home” into an approximately 10,000 square foot “mansion.”

The Vrooman Years

Letitia, the Scotts’ eldest daughter, married U.S. Army Colonel Charles Bromwell and moved away to St. Louis, Missouri, while second daughter, Julia, now eighteen, met and fell in love with Carl Vrooman while traveling in Europe. Vrooman, who had grown up in Kansas, had studied at Harvard University for three years before joining Oxford University in England. Julia and Carl were married on December 28, 1896, in St. Louis. With the passing of her father, her uncle Adlai Stevenson, who was married to her mother’s sister, walked her down the aisle. The newlywed couple spent several years traveling in Europe before returning to Bloomington in 1900 to live with her mother at what had already become a well-known venue for gatherings

of dignitaries, as well as a meeting place for the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Carl Vrooman (pronounced Vroh-man) eventually became the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture under President Woodrow Wilson, and their home continued to be a regular stop for government officials and international heads of state. Visitors included President and Mrs. Wilson, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and poets Sara Teasdale and Vachel Lindsay. There are unsubstantiated stories that Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas spoke at the house, and that later on John F. Kennedy even visited with Julia Vrooman during his presidential campaign.

In 1923, Mrs. Julia Green Scott sadly passed away quietly at the mansion from continued frail health and a slight stroke of paralysis from which she did not recover. The April 30th, 1923, Bloomington Pantagraph remembered her as “one of the most progressive and far-seeing land developers in Central Illinois.” After her mother’s passing, Julia Vrooman continued in the family’s tradition of hosting elegant parties and events at the mansion and became famous for “Vrooman Bread,” which was sent to the Queen of England, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many other dignitaries. The Vroomans had no children of their own but were able to spread their wealth to various charitable causes in which Julia was an active participant. After World War I, she often traveled the bombed-out roads of Europe in a motorcycle sidecar to help those in need, and to visit with homesick American troops. She even played in a jazz band to entertain those far from home during the American occupation. Carl Vrooman passed away in 1966 at the age of 93, just prior to their 70 th wedding anniversary, leaving Julia to carry on alone. Her busy and active life continued until 1981, when she too passed away at age 104, in the very same room in which she had been born. With Julia’s passing, most of the contents of the home were sold at public auction, including the on-site Carriage House. 95% of the family’s five-milliondollar estate went to churches and the needy.

The home itself was sold to private owners in 1982, and in 1983 was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It was then declared a Historical Landmark in 1989. In 1995, the home became a bed and breakfast inn, then in 2000 was purchased by the current owners, Pam and Dana Kowalewski, who continue to operate it as a bed and breakfast inn and special event venue.

From Haunted House Owners to Innkeepers

In 1999, Chicago-area residents Pam and Dana Kowalewski, were out looking at investment properties in Bloomington when they were first introduced to the Vrooman Mansion. Together with a local partner, they had owned and managed the local haunted house in Bloomington and were scouting for new opportunities.

“We had a friend that happened to mention it to us. We had our eye on a house in Bloomington to possibly purchase, just to revamp it [as it] had prior damage, and our partner was supposed to tell us when that came up on auction or for sale. But he didn’t. He tried to make up for it by telling us about the mansion,” said Pam Kowalewski. Even though they had operated a business for several years in Bloomington, the Kowalewskis had never heard of Vrooman Mansion until then. “But he said, ‘I know of another house that is a few blocks’, really about 4-6 blocks away from our other business. We had had the business for five years and never knew about the mansion.”

The ornate design and details of both the interior and exterior of the property captivated their imaginations and left a huge impression on the couple.

“It was really the house, the quality of the construction and the architecture of the house for the price point that it was for sale. And then we thought, since it was a business [already], we would be able to increase that business going forward,” said Kowalewski.

Pam and Dana Kowalewski.

The pair had previously renovated homes in the Chicago area as a side business, and owning the Vrooman Mansion and maintaining it seemed like an excellent fit for their skills and interests. They discussed the possibility of purchasing the home with their business partners, but there was no interest in the idea from that end. And so, in April of 2000, the Kowalewskis decided to purchase the mansion on their own, crediting their youth and a certain degree of naiveté, for their decision.

“We were pretty young at 32, so we jumped in with two feet without really thinking much about the bed and breakfast portion of it. We had never stayed at a B&B before owning it,” continued Kowalewski.

On July 29, 2000, Pam and Dana became the proud owners and caretakers of the Vrooman Mansion and began learning about the property’s colorful past. “It is something that we studied. The previous owners had, as well. Thank goodness they had passed down the information from owner to owner. We find it interesting and important. The preservation of the building itself is what we strive for. We don’t consider it our home, we consider it Julia’s, and we’re just taking care of it,” noted Kowalewski.

Owning the Haunted House business, plus the mansion, and holding down full-time jobs at the time, while living in the suburbs of Chicago, turned out to be a bit much for the Kowalewskis, so after holding onto the Haunted House business for an additional five years, they sold their shares of the business to their partners. Pam left her market research work in Chicago after a twenty-year stint to focus on the mansion. The Kowalewskis now maintain a residence on the third floor of the home.

Stepping Back to the Grandeur of a Bygone Time

In addition to the ornate and historically significant rooms used for overnight accommodation, a big attraction of the mansion is the peaceful splendor of the other rooms in the home. The common areas all reflect the elegance of high society of the past, with high, open-beamed ceilings, stone fireplaces, and ornate, carved wood trim.

Eight-foot-high stained-glass windows greet visitors in a traditional English-style, two-story foyer, complete with an inglenook. A music room, which is thought to be the original dining room in the home, now houses a baby grand player piano and other instruments for entertainment. The library houses book cabinets with leaded glass doors, classic wallpaper, and more stained glass. In what is now known as the “Safe Room,” which served as Julia Green Scott’s office after her husband’s death, and where Julia Vrooman was born and died, the safe bearing Julia Green Scott’s name in gold lettering is still on display.

These days, visitors from all across the United States and the world enjoy the comfort and serenity that the Vrooman Mansion and its regular staff of eleven provide. Many are repeat visitors, whether Route 66 travelers looking for a slice of history, corporate travelers, local residents looking for a quick getaway, or international guests.

“Most people are surprised by the size. They think that the pictures on the website don’t do it justice,” said Kowalewski. “They are really awestruck once they walk in.” And whether there are ethereal guests that walk the halls of Vrooman Mansion, the Kowalewskis simply attribute any stories to the tales that older homes seem to generate over the years. “We personally haven’t experienced anything. Of course, there are always stories with 100-plus-year-old houses. There are just the normal noises of an old house: the boiler, the radiators, and the creaking of old wood floors. But we have had some guests comment, and some of the previous owners.”

Looking Toward the Future

Keeping a building of this age that’s in constant public use in first-rate condition is an ongoing task, and it keeps the Kowalewskis busy, both in normal maintenance and restoration. “We continually worked on it. What we have done recently is gotten the two large stained-glass windows restored. And we have been working on repairing and replacing the soffits, improving the landscaping of the grounds, and some minor renovations on the third floor.”

Pam and Dana have great regard for the history of the mansion, and they, along with their dedicated staff, are clearly striving to preserve the building itself, as well as the stories that go with it. “We see beauty and inspiration all around us. Working with our guests is such an incredible gift, and we feel very fortunate to be able to do what we love.”

The Mother Road will be turning 100 years old in November 2026 and any highway of her age is home to its fair share of historic residences. As travelers set out to explore Route 66 and undoubtedly seek out their share of incredible neon-laced motels, some will serendipitously stumble upon a different kind of venue, one with its own memorable tale to tell and experience to offer. And at the Vrooman Mansion, we’re pretty sure that they will discover an experience just as Julie Green Scott imaged that it should be.

The Vrooman Mansion’s warm and vintage interior.

DEEP UNDERGROUND

UNDERGROUND

By Ellen E. Proctor

oute 66 is known for its iconic, tourist-enticing attractions—both manmade creations and natural wonders, including the breathtaking Grand Canyon, the mystical Painted Desert, and massive subterranean passages of caverns in more than one state. But only Missouri is known as the “Cave State,” and it’s easy to see why—there are more than 7,300 caves, including 20 show caves open to the public for tours.

Formed millions of years ago from limestone, the enormous caverns were discovered long ago — but it would take hard work and dedication to transform them into bonafide tourist attractions. Few stops along Route 66 are more anticipated, or more steeped in legend and lore, than Meramec Caverns.

Native Americans used the caves as shelter for many years. In 1720, an Osage guide took French explorer Jacques Renault into the cavern that would come to be known as Saltpeter Cave for the potassium nitrate found there—an element used in making gunpowder that would soon be mined for ammunition. During the Civil War, the confederate gang Quantrill’s Raiders blew up a munitions plant in the area, and one of the gang members, Jesse James, made note of the location. He would later use it as a hideout.

Historic and romantic, Meramec Caverns is one of the most famous roadside attractions along Missouri Route 66. But it was Lester Dill who transformed the old saltpeter-mining cave into a legendary national treasure. Dill’s own story began in the caves of the Missouri Ozarks—a story nearly as fabulous and colorful as the local legends he would later bring to life, with many twists and turns and a long list of characters.

From Cave Explorer to Entrepreneur

As a boy, Dill was attracted to cave exploration across the Meramec River from the Dill family farm. Near what would become known as Fisher’s Cave, Dill convinced some local boys to explore Onyx Cave with him. They agreed—if Dill would lead the way. He did, and they got lost. Their lantern out of fuel, the boys sat down to think, and one of the older ones shared his tobacco. As young Dill watched the smoke curling into the air and eddying away, he had a revelation. Realizing that fresh air would lead them to the entrance, he shouted at them to follow the air currents. Instead of scaring him away from spelunking, the experience convinced him that it was nearly impossible to get lost in a cave.

By the early age of twelve, Dill was already earning money by leading lantern-light cave tours for tourists from St. Louis who had come to cool off on hot summer nights. There, locals held dances in the cave rooms large enough to accommodate them, not far from the massive network of underground passages known as Saltpeter Cave—that he would later rename as Meramec Caverns.

In 1928, his father, Thomas Benton Dill, was appointed

Rsuperintendent of the newly established Meramec State Park. Then, the state opened Fisher’s Cave as a park attraction, where Lester was contracted to run concessions. His contract there expired in 1933, but young Dill moved on to lease, and then purchase, the nearby Saltpeter Cave.

Dill opened Meramec Caverns to the public on May 1, 1933. Not having had time to build a parking lot by opening day, he allowed vehicles inside, calling it “The World’s Only Drive In Cave.” On opening day, six people toured the cave for forty cents apiece. It was a rustic experience, with a rope set up for people to pull themselves up to the chamber that he called the Wine Table Room. The single outhouse on-site was reserved for women, while men had to use a big sycamore tree. Dill was running his enterprise with just a couple of maintenance men, while he and his family lived in a tent on the site. For all his efforts, the first year’s gross sales amounted to $700. But as the years went by, he opened more areas of the cave, marketing it as “The World’s Only FiveStory Cave.” But that would not be his only marketing tactic.

A Marketing Genius

Once while traveling, Dill became captivated by the many signs that he saw painted on barns. He transformed that memory into a marketing plan. Offering watches, chocolates, and even whiskey in exchange, he and his team of painters traveled the country securing contracts with farmers to repaint their barns with the words: “Meramec Caverns, Stanton, MO.” Dill himself painted the very first sign atop a barn roof on Route 66 at a farm between St. Clair and Stanton.

An eccentric visionary, Dill is credited with the invention of the bumper sticker, but he began by tying signs to cars. Before developing adhesive-backed stickers, Dill hired schoolchildren known as the “Bumper Sign Boys” to tie a sign to every car that stopped at the caverns—while the tourists were inside.

Dill’s grandson, Les Turilli Sr., was a Bumper Sign Boy himself starting at the age of ten. “I worked all day for forty cents an hour. Four dollars a day. Ten years old, ten hours a day. I loved it,” he said. “The good old days—I had money out the wazoo!”

Turilli Sr. recalled his grandfather coming up with the idea of using stickers, and manager Lyman Riley made him a prototype. “He put flypaper onto clear plastic stuff, on a roll like Saran Wrap,” Turilli Sr. said. “The cheapest ones were hard to remove, but later, higher-quality stickers were made with vinyl, and those peeled off.” Eventually, the stickers became too expensive at over a dollar apiece, and they stopped the practice.

“Dill’s Meramec Caverns advertisements made Missouri’s ‘Cave State’ moniker resonate with Route 66 travelers,” said Ozarks historian Laura Abernathy Huffman. “Missouri’s show caves and wild caves throughout the state owe a hat tip to Lester Dill. He was an over-the-top showman.

Images by David J. SchwartzPics On Route 66.

His techniques worked and are still paying off for his descendants today.”

But Dill would not be the only over-the-top showman at Meramec Caverns.

Another Marketing Genius

During World War II, Rudy Turilli was stationed in the Ozarks at nearby Fort Leonard Wood. Dill was hosting dances for the soldiers at the Caverns, where Rudy met Dill’s eldest daughter, Francena, who was running the restaurant and gift shop. The couple quickly fell in love and were married in October 1944, and Rudy became the heir apparent to his father-in-law’s enterprise.

By 1948, Rudy took on the role of publicity manager—and took the job seriously. In New York City, he dressed up as a caveman and started making telephone calls before heading to the Empire State Building.

“I remember [Rudy’s] Italian grandpa lived in New York [and] he was out there visiting. Back then, the Empire State Building had an observation post, where in the old days you could get out and climb like you were going to jump off,” said Turilli Sr. “[Rudy] called the local PR man, Sy Preston; and he called the fire department, the police department, the TV stations, and the newspapers. They all came out to see the crazy man dressed up in the leopard skin suit. He’d do anything to promote the cave.”

Threatening to jump unless “everyone in the world” visited Meramec Caverns certainly created a sensation. Newspapers across the country carried the story, and the stunt landed Rudy in jail for a week. However, he would soon launch an even larger nationwide hullaballoo, involving Missouri’s most famous outlaw.

The Infamous Jesse James

In 1948, when Jesse James would have reached the age of 101, Rudy Turilli met a man who had been living under the name of “J. Frank Dalton,” who claimed to be Jesse James himself. Back in 1882, Robert Newton Ford had shot and killed a man that was said to be Jesse James, leader of the notorious James Gang, known for train and stagecoach robberies. Almost as soon as news of the death of Jesse James circulated in the papers, rumors of his survival spread. A series of men stepped up claiming to be James over the years, but thanks to Rudy, Dalton became the most well-known.

Dalton claimed he had faked his own death to avoid capture, saying that another man, Charles Bigelow, was buried under his name. Dalton showed marks on his own body that seemed to match the scars that James was said to have. This physical evidence helped sway Rudy to his case. Thoroughly convinced, Rudy invited Dalton to reside at the caverns as a living tourist attraction and began to promote Dalton as the outlaw, making television appearances and

Meramec Caverns was once frequented by the notorious outlaw, Jesse James.

offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who could prove him wrong.

For Rudy, Dill’s discovery back in the early ‘40s was further evidence that placed Meramec Caverns in the Jesse James story. James and his gang were believed to have used them as a hideout, accessed by an unknown route through the cave. When the water was low, Dill had discovered the chamber, and soon thereafter, claimed he’d found a strongbox, a lock, and old guns near “Loot Rock,” where he said the gang divvied up their spoils. Then, parking lot maintenance revealed a “secret” entrance that had been hidden for decades.

Turilli Sr. remembers when Dalton lived in a cabin on-site and he called the man “Uncle Jesse.”

“I believe that if Dalton wasn’t Jesse James himself, he was definitely either a part of the gang or a family member. My father believed that Dalton truly was Jesse James in the flesh.” Dalton died in 1951, and a post-mortem examination revealed evidence of numerous bullet wounds, burns on his feet, and a rope burn around his neck—the same distinguishing marks Jesse James was said to have.

A dozen years later, Rudy, with his wife Francena, established a Jesse James memorabilia exhibit at Snell’s, a nearby restaurant they operated on Route 66. The following year, they opened the standalone Jesse James Wax Museum. In 1972, while mopping up water flooding the museum from a sudden downpour, Rudy collapsed and later died of heart complications.

Rudy wasn’t the only unique individual that Dill drew into his enterprise. Ex-Navy Frogman Jim Gauer was another character who joined the Meramec Caverns team.

An Ex-Frogman with a Talent

Jim Gauer started with the caves in 1956, the same year as Turilli Sr.—both working the bumper sign job. Gradually, Gauer became more involved with operations, which turned into a 56-year career there. If a lightbulb burned out, Gauer ran up a ladder to change it. When more of the cave needed to be opened up, he did demolition. For a while in the 1960s, he and his wife ran the motel near the cave entrance.

When he started going out as a sign-painter, he discovered the danger of falling through a roof’s weak spot, so, he came up with his own safety system; having been in the Navy, he was good with knots, and this skill would become

a lifesaver. Gauer’s son, James, spent a couple of his high school summers on the road painting signs with him. “I’d be painting with him up on barn roofs, rolling for detail or using an air sprayer. Billboards were done with a roller and a brush. All was done freehand, not a stencil. He was selftaught,” James said. “His trick was pretty ingenious. He’d been on several where he’d stepped on a weak spot and fell through, so he got lengths of 100-foot rope. He’d throw it over the roof and tie it to a tree, or through a window and tie it to a rafter. As leverage, he’d tie it to his waist while spraying the paint. Those older barns were pretty steep. He wouldn’t let me do those—just ones without a deep slant.”

Past, Present, and Future

From humble beginnings in 1933, the business has grown over the years to include the Caveman Zip line, a rockclimbing wall, panning for ‘gold,’ and water attractions. A true family business, Meramec Caverns management has spanned five generations: Lester Dill, Rudy Turilli, Les Turilli Sr., Les Turilli Jr., and Les Turilli III.

Turilli Sr. took over the operations after Lester Dill died in 1980. “I was the fire chief in Brentwood in 1980,” he said. “They were going to sell the cave when Grandpa died. I knew how much it meant to them. They had lived in a tent there for three summers, before water, before the buildings, before the restrooms. My grandmother had no running water and no kitchen. So, I said, ‘What if I run it for you?’ and I bought out the rest of them.”

Turilli Sr.’s son, Les Turilli Jr., now holds the Executive Director position, and Lester Turilli III represents the fifth generation in the operation.

“The fantastic tale-telling style is still there. Like Hank Williams, it’s a family tradition. But now, it is more infotainment,” said cave historian Jo Schaper. “The Caverns hosts school groups, [educating] the kids on how water moves through rock and how stones grow through evaporation. How caves form on different levels as you walk through them, and yes, an occasional story with the truth stretched like silly putty, but always snapping back to reality. According to the Missouri Department of Tourism, it is one of the top three recognized tourist places in the state.”

2023 marks the ninetieth year of Meramec Caverns being open as a show cave. Nine decades of showcasing the unique natural beautiful of the Ozarks.

“Honestly, there was only one Lester Dill—and the world has greatly changed from the days of men in leopard skin shorties going up the Empire State building to bring the world’s attention to a show cave in Missouri,” Schaper said. “Dill died in 1981 but consider what he could have done with internet access. He was not a buffoon. In order to get publicity for the cave, you had to be a little outrageous. That was part of the job. He had a dream, and he chased it—and he nailed it.”

A journalist once described Dill as a “Merchant of the Imagination.” Dill himself was quoted as using a term, “the Ozark Truth.” Various versions of Meramec Caverns and Jesse James stories continue to circulate and evolve, and it is nearly impossible to pin down what is fact and separate it from embellishment. Perhaps that interwoven tapestry comprised of the warp of truth and the weft of fiction is the real “Ozark Truth.”

Lester Dill would no doubt agree.

Several generations of the Turilli family.

OASIS IN

THE FOREST

By Mitch Brown

Photograph by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66

In the center of the state of Illinois, just eight miles southwest of Bloomington and 150 miles from the nearest skyscraper in Chicago, is the small unincorporated community of Funks Grove. Named after its earliest settlers, Isaac and Absalom Funk, back in the early 1800s, the area is famous for its vast expanse of prairie land and untouched forest. Located on the east side of one of the largest upland timbers in the state of Illinois, the woodlands of Funks Grove was designated as a national natural landmark around 1974, back at a time when that was a rare occurrence in the country.

“Back then, there were only about seventeen landmarks in the United States [there are now roughly 600],” said Eric Funk, one of the founding board members of the Sugar Grove Nature Center. “Portions of the land had never been touched, and there are roughly a thousand acres of timber which Sugar Grove is at the far edge.” The research and paperwork were done by third-generation Funk brothers Gene, Lafayette, Paul, and Ted, who were responsible for a prosperous seed corn family business in McLean County.

And tucked shyly away from the main road, aka Route 66, that runs parallel to the land, rests what was previously a simple barn structure that is now known as the Sugar Grove Nature Center. It showcases to the public the natural beauty that Mother Nature has bestowed upon the land of Lincoln and earned Illinois the accolade of “The Prairie State.”

It was January 1993, and the Funks Grove Cemetery Association had purchased an attractive piece of land, approximately 246 acres, that was previously owned by the Funk and Stubblefield families. The purchase was made with the intention of reforesting the area to a pre-settlement landscape. By November of the same year, a young woman named Mary Olson presented the idea of a nature center to the association board, citing that there was no nature center in McLean County, and that this would be the perfect location for it. The board agreed.

“They thought that it was a good idea and contributed raw materials and labor, but no money,” said Funk. “She worked at it for a couple of years and then decided to leave to get her Master’s degree. The cemetery association still believed that it was a good idea, so they took on the job of building it while, at the same time, beginning to do reforestation that was run by John Rehtmeyer.”

Between 1994 and 1999, the board, along with help from family and volunteers, turned that simple barn into a thriving nature center. Gary Woith was hired as the manager, and took on the project until 2002, after which, Angela Smith came on board around April 2003, and became primarily responsible for its development. She would also go on to marry Eric Funk. Angela quickly set out to attract volunteers from Habitat for Humanity, the Twin City Astronomer Club, and the Illinois Nature Preserve Commission. She also put together a grant in 2006 for $2,484,000 in order to acquire an additional 476 acres of forest, the money attained by the Clean Energy Commission.

However, possibly her most significant contribution to Sugar Grove, which is also one of its more popular attractions, is the Imagination Grove. Growing up in Chicago, there was an area of construction where Angela liked to play in the piles of dirt that would inevitably accumulate. This childhood experience inspired her to develop a safe area at Sugar Grove where kids could play freely with minimal parental supervision. On July 1st , 2004, Imagination Grove was born, consisting of a creek where kids can splash around, trees that they can climb, an open area to dig in the dirt, and even a zipline and treehouse. Not only did this area become popular with families and an attraction for field trips, but it was also a cost-effective addition.

“She developed it with a total investment of one hundred dollars,” said Funk. “She was approached later by organizations who told her that they had $200,000 to build their own Imagination Groves, and she said, ‘You can do that if you want, but you don’t need that kind of money.’”

While Imagination Grove is great for the kids, the nature center has kept the attention of the public thanks to its other attractions, such as the observation buildings (which were constructed in 2000) where the Twin City Amateur Astronomy Club hosts monthly viewing sessions for the public. There’s also the Blacksmith Forge, which came in the fall of 2002 and provides summer classes to teach people how to forge metal, a program so popular that they often have to turn people away. But a nature center wouldn’t earn its proper name without just that: Nature. Sugar Grove offers eight miles of trails through beautiful prairie and forest, ranging from widely mowed grass trails to dirt and mulch. The hiking maneuverability is never too challenging, extending between easy to moderate difficulty. A stroll through the historic forest is serene and restorative and walking through these woods offers a definite escape from the busy world only 30 minutes away.

Sugar Grove is currently in a transitional period following COVID-19. While there are no solid numbers of yearly visitors, back in 2019, it was estimated that the Nature Center’s programs brought in roughly 20,000 people. When taking into account the number of hikers who walk the trails and enjoy the scenery, it increased the number to around 45,000. Then 2020 happened, and things took a hit.

“Because of COVID, everything shut down. The trails were open to people, there was a reduction in the maple syrup program, but the pandemic closed everything down,” explained Funk. “Now, we’re in the process of trying to rebuild. It’s a not-for-profit organization, so we’re in need of donations.”

Both outdoor enthusiasts and everyday individuals are sure to appreciate the calm and serenity of being completely engulfed in nature; surrounded by the aged maple, hickory, and oak trees that envelop visitors in a panorama view of greens in the summer and rustic hues in autumn. Its stillness and untampered qualities are bound to teleport visitors to what it must have felt like, way back in the 1800s.

OUR STORY

On Museum Square in Downtown Bloomington, the Cruisin’ with Lincoln on 66 Visitors Center is located on the ground floor of the nationally accredited McLean County Museum of History.

The Visitors Center is a Route 66 gateway. Discover Route 66 history through an interpretive exhibit, and shop for unique local gift items, maps, and publications. A travel kiosk allows visitors to explore all the things to see and do in the area as well as plan their next stop on Route 66.

CRUISIN’ WITH LINCOLN ON 66 VISITORS CENTER

Open Monday–Saturday 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Free Admission on Tuesdays until 8 p.m. 200 N. Main Street, Bloomington, IL 61701 309.827.0428 / CruisinwithLincolnon66.org

*10% o gift purchases

Indian Trading Post

When on a road trip, many Route 66 and Americana travelers keep their eyes trained on the roadside for a Muffler Man or another roadside attraction, keen to find a destination worthy of hitting the brakes and pulling over for. And just off the I-40, about 45 miles west of Oklahoma City, pay dirt. Quite unexpectedly, a fiberglass giant “muffler man,” modeled loosely as a Plains Indian chief, hails road-trippers and is a definite must-stop. He once greeted customers at the Howe car dealership not too far away in Clinton, Oklahoma. Another Native American chief in full headdress on a large billboard beckons travelers to stop and shop. You have reached the Indian Trading Post and Art Gallery.

Inside, vivid colors and a huge array of merchandise greet visitors as they walk through the door of the 4,000-squarefoot building, divided into a gift shop and art gallery. A large totem pole represents the tribes of the Pacific Northwest. Giving an old-time trading post look and feel are wall mounts of a bison head and full-size black bears, as well as snakes on ledges, plus a genuine grizzly bear rug hung on the wall.

Polished glass cases hold rows of intricate handcrafted artifacts, representing the work of the 39 nations of Oklahoma. Turquoise from Zuni jewelry makers, delicate beadwork from the Cheyenne and Arapaho people, Navajo pottery and intricate dreamcatchers, and bone necklaces and sturdy breastplates by the Sioux nation all draw the eye inside the cases. Additionally, there are counters full of souvenirs, bows and arrows, flutes, pillows, traditional clothing, supple moccasins, leather goods, mugs, and tiles.

In the gallery, both contemporary and traditional paintings and objects of art depict all aspects of Native life. Original works by renowned Cherokee artist Traci Rabbit, daughter of the late legendary painter Bill Rabbit, are featured there. Rabbit’s paintings are vibrant and modern illustrations, often of Native women going about daily life. Collectors of the late Kiowa art genius Robert Redbird will also find his signature style of blanket-wrapped Kiowa natives in several different mediums here.

For manager Teresa Crick, trading posts have predominantly been a way of life. “I think I was raised in a basket in a rug stand,” Crick laughed. “My family had a long

line of trading posts, at first pretty much exclusively Native rugs. We traveled up and down the East Coast highways putting up these makeshift trading posts.”

A grandmother of the family, along with her brothers, started the family’s mobile trading post many years ago in North Carolina, near the Cherokee reservation. There, they bought Cherokee rugs and crafts and sold them by the side of the road for a number of years, eventually opening a permanent store in New Jersey. As a child, Crick worked for her grandmother at that first store. Then, her parents began traveling west to Oklahoma in the 1970s and spent years making contacts and business associates among the Native artisans. Finally, Crick’s mother, Linda, opened the Indian Trading Post in Calumet in 1983. Their family has been the only owner of the post since that time, and now includes Teresa as secretary, Linda Wheeler as president, and Pam Toho as vice-president of the corporation. Teresa has worked the store as needed throughout her adult life while teaching at the local high school. After retiring from teaching, she took over as manager of the trading post.

The staff continues to concentrate on relationship building with Native American artists. As older artists retire or pass on, younger ones are encouraged and showcased, resulting in the showroom floor being in constant but exciting change with modern and traditional wares.

“The casinos have given Native [Americans] another source of income, so there is not as much emphasis on handcrafts among the next generation. Over the years, the crafts have been very traditional, but that is changing,” Crick said. “Although crafts are still very important to the Native Americans, the younger ones are not all taking up crafts or claiming their heritage.”

Happily, it seems that the Indian Trading Post will continue to stay in the family. Both Crick’s daughter and daughter-inlaw are taking over important roles, and her grandchildren are developing an interest in the business as well.

“The Indian Trading Post is well-supported and important to this community, because it speaks to what is Oklahoma and what the Native Americans heritage stands for. Many tell us how they love the nostalgia of the trading post; it keeps them coming back — it keeps us building those artisan relationships.”

Words by Kathleen Byrne.

HOMETOWN

HOMETOWN HERO

By Marianna Civitillo

The Mother of all roads has almost one hundred years of enchanting history well-chiseled under its embellished concrete belt, and with them, countless stories to tell. Utter the mystical words Route 66 and what comes to mind may be flashing neon signs on greasy spoon diners, wacky roadside attractions, charming mid-century motels, and rusty big body automobiles laying like sacred carcasses just off the twolane highway. Not many people would think of a pharmacy. But one historical landmark in tiny Chenoa, Illinois, aims to make visitors rethink how they understand Route 66: its history, and what it has to offer.

Located just 110 miles south of Chicago, Chenoa is quiet and unassuming, a town of just under 1700, yet home to one of the most pleasant downtowns in Illinois, and an iconic chemist that has been able to slip largely under the radar. Until now…

Tido Rudolph Schuirmann, known as “Carl,” came from Germany to settle in the Land of the Free (sometime between April 1859 and the early 1880s). It was a time of opportunity in America, and Carl was focused on building a bright future. Together with friend Henry Hops, a “pure” Illinoisian, the new resident purchased a local business in 1888 from Ruger and Banta — a burnished red-brick pile that perfectly illustrated the lived history of late Frontier America. The business started off as the Schuirmann’s Drug Store, with Carl as the pharmacist. At the time, apothecaries were “wizards” of sorts, doing everything from physics to prescribing drugs, to home-visits, and even minor surgery.

In Chenoa, Carl found a home, a business, and a closeknit community to call his own, with his pharmacy standing at the forefront of the small-town’s hamlet. The pharmacy quickly flourished, but in 1909, Hops decided he wanted to move on and so he sold his shares.

In his private life, Carl was a respected member of the Methodist Church, and also a passionate Arts patron, sponsoring anything art-related, from lecture courses to orchestra concerts, until his passing in 1930, age 70. He and his wife Meta had four children. Daughter Emma and son-in-law Herman Foltz took over the business and kept the lights at one of Chenoa’s most important shops shining bright through the difficult years of WWII, when Emma’s brother, Roscoe E. Schuirmann, served in Europe as Admiral and deputy commander of the naval forces.

Chenoa’s RX Pharmacy’s former glory is its current one too: From the “original” Schuirmanns, the dapper dispensary was taken over by a man named Wes Harris who then sold it, in 1978, to Dan Boian, now 70-something years old, long-time pharmacist, and a man of prominence within McLean County. Then, quite unexpectedly, the pharmacy wound up in the careful hands of yet another caretaker.

Rob Taveggia, a Chicago native, was playing golf one day, a short reprieve from the high-ranking corporate position that he held in the pharmaceutical industry. That day, on the green grass of an Indiana golf course, Taveggia,

who had been tired of starched suits and ties for a while, unexpectedly met Boian, and serendipity stepped in.

“It was complete chance, but it felt like divine intervention. It was 2015 and Dan and his wife were looking to sell,” said Taveggia. “They felt that the time had come for them to retire, they felt that they had given everything they could to the space. Me? I was just looking forward to leaving the demands and race of the corporate environment.”

Taveggia and Boian shook hands, and just like that, the deal was sealed between the two pharmacists, and the independent historic business on America’s most famous highway had a new owner.

“I am the fourth owner since the place first opened as a drug store over 100 years ago,” said Taveggia, who turned to former owner, and by then, friend, Boian for direction and support. “The decision to acquire the pharmacy, in all honesty, was about the business side of it, but we have preserved this building which is over 134 years old this year, and we do our best to keep it standing in the original condition as a great landmark on Route 66. It is the care that all owners have put into the building and business that has made it possible for the place to thrive for all these years. We don’t turn much profit, but our people keep offering us patronage; we keep serving our people. It’s a good community. When folks walk through this door, they’re greeted by name, we’re proud to have a friendly, personal relationship with each of them.”

Though many decades have passed, and many moons have altered its shape since the RX Pharmacy first started off as a simple drug store, the original dark-tinted wooden flooring has been kept intact, with all its flaws, and history of people’s passings; the wooden shelves still adorn the room on its sides, with skillfully carved framed cabinetry, all under the original milk-white embellished plaster ceiling where the only thing missing from the turn-of-the-century layout is the collection of hanging brass chandeliers.

Inducted into the Illinois Route 66 Association Hall of Fame in 2005, the pharmacy attracts anybody from locals in need of prescription drugs or, just a friendly chat, to travelers from all over the country or indeed, the world. With elated crowds coming and going, passing through, smiling, taking pictures, and best of all, leaving notes in the signature book right at the entrance, it feels like this historical cornerstone may have another 100 years of luminous future ahead.

“At the end of each day, there’s new messages from new people, and it always amazes us how many countries are represented that come through here,” said Taveggia. “They come from all over to admire our shop. They tell me how beautiful this place is every day.”

With over half a million souls heading out to experience Route 66 annually, many end up trampling on Chenoa’s rich soil and breathing in its tantalizing air of history. Route 66 represents many things to many people, but next time that you are out on the highway, take a moment to pause and make note of the unassuming, but no less vital stops along America’s Main Street.

WHERE THE MOTHER ROAD BEGINS

Hayes Family Shoe

The dawn of the 20 th Century had risen over in Cuba, Missouri, a town whose streets increasingly buzzed as it grew past its 1857 founding.

Townsfolk and travelers convened at H.H. Tieman’s General Merchandise store on an unsuspecting street corner to discuss business, run errands, or to simply pass the time. This corner became a footstone down the path of optimism and fortune for many people passing through and was coined Prosperity Corner for its gleaming ideals. These ideals defied the erosive passage of time, with the Frisco Railroad reaching Cuba in 1858 and Route 66 passing through in 1926, emphasizing the town’s tenacity.

Since 1857, Prosperity Corner underwent a tide of change; the general merchandise store closed in 1912 and, in the 1930s, the building fell victim to a fire before being rebuilt into a different store soon after. In 1950, Henry and Audrey Hayes, parents of two, moved their shoe store from down the street into the building that would be known today as Hayes Shoe Store. Yet, an unusual item came with the building. The Hayes snagged a major score: a left shoe sized at 35AA, once worn by Robert Wadlow—the world’s tallest man.

Wadlow, who experienced hypertrophy of his pituitary gland, traveled with the International Shoe Company (ISC) after inking a contract in 1938 that earned him customized shoes in return. The ISC began a promotion that shipped one of Wadlow’s newer shoes, a left measured at 37AA, out to stores across the country, where it was filled with shelled corn for customers to guess the number of corn inside. The ISC sent the shoe to Hayes in the 1950s, where they were asked to either purchase or return it once the promotion ended. Given the high-profile nature of the shoe, the Hayes reportedly took out a bank loan to buy the 37AA, rounding off their collection to two giant sized shoes on display.

Operating into the 1990s, the Hayes were finally ready to retire and decided to sell the business. Fate arose in 1994 when word of the sale traveled to Jeff Bouse, a Cuba native who managed several Endicott Johnson shoe stores in larger Missouri cities like Jefferson City, Joplin, and Columbia.

“It was that time in their life. They were in their 70s and

they didn’t want to sell the store out,” said Bouse. “They wanted it to go on, and that’s why they chose to sell it as an operating shoe store instead of having it go in a ‘going out of business sale’ and selling the building. The Hayes family was ready to sell when I was ready to move back home and buy, and it worked out.”

Running Hayes proved to be a unique experience for Bouse, as he serviced customers and oversaw the artifacts.

“There are websites that pertain to traveling Route 66, and we’re on several of those with Wadlow’s shoes,” said Bouse. “It’s well-advertised that the shoes are here, and we get a regular amount of people stopping by and taking pictures. I’m certainly glad to have them, because it’s an interesting conversation piece and they’re a piece of history. People enjoy stopping in. They’re amazed when they see how big his shoes are and how they fit the guy.”

The 21st Century sauntered into Prosperity Corner, and with it, a focus on celebrating Cuba’s fascinating past. Viva Cuba, the town’s beautification organization, approached Bouse in the early 2000s with a proposal: to paint a wraparound mural depicting Prosperity Corner’s infancy.

“My initial thought was, ‘No way,’” said Bouse. “We had a nice brick building, and I wasn’t keen on painting over this perfectly fine brick. But when they showed me the photo they had of this corner, which was taken around 1900, and they wanted to depict that photo on the building, I thought, ‘You know, that’s a neat idea. Let’s do it.’”

In 2003, artist Kelly Polling rolled up his sleeves and got to work on the mural, which showcases period-appropriate characters engaged in the leisure of people-watching and exchanging pleasantries. Today, Cuba is adorned with 13 murals that continue to attract travelers.

Since Prosperity Corner’s emergence in 1857, its road to the present was winding, peppered with unfortunate and serendipitous events alike. Seventy years since Hayes Shoe Store launched, its doors still welcome a tight-knit community to purchase footwear. Those same walls offer visitors an opportunity to catch a glimpse of the soles belonging to a soulful giant—an experience inherent to the everlasting Hayes Shoe Store.

Image by Brennen Mathews.

FROZEN IN TIME

By Mia Goulart

One could say that the story of Mesalands Dinosaur Museum started 250 million years ago when much of the Southwest was submerged by a warm, shallow sea that would become home to creatures like Tyrannosauruses, Brachiosauruses and Velociraptors. But, very slowly, as the water receded and the region transformed over time from sea to sand, these primeval giants were left behind, buried under layers of ash and mud for future settlers to uncover hundreds of centuries later.

Since the founding of Tucumcari, New Mexico, in 1901, its community of ranchers and farmers have been finding reliquiae scattered about the land. Not just the odd rib or tailbone, but whole skeletons, frozen in time like a time capsule of prehistory. As the years passed, the town’s wagon yards and blacksmith shops were replaced with modern day gas stations, gift shops and cafés, but as the metaphorical “bones” of the community evolved, the fossils remained, found and passed down from generation to generation.

By the late 1990s, Tucumcari residents had collected hundreds, if not thousands, of fossils, and they wanted to share their treasured discoveries with others. But how? Residents didn’t want herds of sightseers trekking about their property every day to view the fossils, disrupting the complete skeletons that had been kept in pristine condition for so long. What if they were ruined? Stolen for profit? So, the question became how to display them in a way that was beneficial and safe for the community members, visitors and the fossils themselves. After much deliberation, the idea for the museum was born, but it wouldn’t be an easy feat.

Luckily, in 1997, a passionate man by the name of Craig Currell, who owned the local lumber yard, stepped up to the plate to spearhead the effort. Parents and children organized old fashioned bake sales and funds were donated by Citizens Bank, the New Mexico Legislature, the City of Tucumcari Lodgers Tax Advisory Board, and figures like Jonathan and Jakie Nunn, until $1.5 million was raised to purchase the 10,000-square-foot former military surplus warehouse building at 222 E. Laughlin Avenue , and turned it into what opened to the public in May of 2000 as the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum and Natural Sciences Laboratory with Currell as its first director.

“Craig was the extraordinary force behind the museum,” recalled Loni Monahan, Mesaland’s current Executive Director. “He was so knowledgeable and had a story about each and every item that he chose to display.”

The building’s structure is fairly plain, but easily identified by its blue roof and two handcrafted wrought iron statues marking the entrance, allowing what’s inside to speak for itself—proven by the 14,000 folks that visit annually.

Monahan has led the museum since 2018 and has since helped coordinate many new exhibits from residents of the region, including a lifetime collection of fossils donated by Iowa native Dr. Howard Shanks, a friend of Currell’s.

“It was important to Shanks to donate his collection to a place that would keep and honor it,” said Monahan. “He chose Mesalands Dinosaur Museum after being assured that nothing would be sold off.”

The museum does not resell exhibits for profit.

What began as a passion project has transformed into something much larger, and it continues to evolve.

The museum is home to the country’s largest privatelyowned full-scale dinosaur bronze collection and a dinosaur-themed gift shop that’s become a go-to yearround. As for the fossils, there’s been no shortage of new findings, and Monahan gets frequent requests to go check out a fossil—or five—found in a neighbor’s garden, in addition to those uncovered in the museum’s four ongoing dig sites in Quay County.

Currell passed away in 2020, but his legacy lives on through his handmade displays, still used from its opening twenty years earlier, and through those who travel to see the relics they contain. “Visitors come in skeptical but leave overwhelmed in the best way,” Monahan added. “No one can replace Craig’s love of the museum.”

This year, if you find yourself seeking a blast from the prehistoric past, you might be lucky enough to catch the hanging of a shiny bronze plaque in dedication to the man who started it all.

This attraction might be relatively new compared to others along Route 66, but it’s safe to say its bones have stood the test of time for millions of years, and we’re hopeful they’ll be around for a few million more, kept safe in the little town of Tucumcari.

Image by Rob Whitmore.

With more than 300 days of sunshine a year – and a unique mix of tranquil waters, rugged mountains, and tons of fun – it’s hard to stay inside. Discover Lake Havasu City – just a short drive from Route 66 – and play like you mean it.®