At the River’s Edge

By Cheryl Eichar Jett Photographs by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66

AT THE RIVER’S EDGE

Tall bluffs and a verdant tree line form a backdrop for the nearly 100-year-old wooden building.

Just below and behind the old inn flows the temperamental

Big Piney River, bending and twisting into the shape for which it was named by lumberjacks attempting to float logs around the “devil’s bend.” The river has raged here, more than once, but more often, it gurgles peacefully under the historic iron bridge, setting the scene for the old sandwich shop with roots about as deep as the trees behind it that grasp at the river’s bank. Although the earlier name of the place—the Munger-

Moss Sandwich Shop—still resonates with travelers, the name of the family that has hung onto it since the late 1940s is actually Thompson.

Through floods, hand-offs in operation, and its complete bypass by the highway through the iconic Hooker Cut, the original building and its later add-ons have mostly stood fast, enduring what fate doles out. Members of the Thompson family are determined to shore it up, open it up, and make it last another 90-plus years. This is the inn’s story, with enough twists and turns to match the river’s course.

The Munger-Moss Sandwich Shop

In 1929, Howard Munger and his wife, the former Nelle Draper, built and opened a tavern and sandwich shop with the river flowing behind them and a young U.S. Highway 66 running in front of them at Devils Elbow, near the small resort they owned. It was an exciting time. However, Howard unexpectedly died the following year, leaving Nelle to operate their business without her husband. But not for long. Nelle Munger remarried in May 1936 to Dixon resident Emmett Moss; she was 59 and he was 56. The couple made their home at the resort and renamed the eatery the Munger-Moss Sandwich Shop. The eatery became famous for its delicious barbecue and attracted not only locals, but also travelers on old Route 66, and the business prospered. About 1940, a wing was added to the northwest end of the building, nearly doubling their space. Life was good again.

But then came World War II and the uptick in U.S. military build-up, manufacturing, and transport. In June 1941, nearby Fort Leonard Wood was completed and opened. The dramatic increase in traffic during the early 1940s necessitated the construction of a four-lane highway—without the quaint but difficult twists and winding turns of early Highway 66 through Devils Elbow. The resulting construction produced Hooker Cut—a 91-foot slice down through Hooker Ridge, at that time the biggest road cut in the country. The smooth, straight new four-lane road through the cut facilitated traffic and avoided Devils Elbow, preserving the little community’s primitive charm, but of course, it also mainstreamed travelers away from its businesses.

With both their through traffic and youth gone, Nelle and Emmett sold the Munger-Moss Sandwich Shop business to Pete and Jessie Hudson in 1945. Business clearly turned out to be no better for the Hudsons, and just a few months later, they packed it up and moved it to Lebanon, nearly 40 miles away down 66, carrying the Munger-Moss name along with them. There, they purchased the former Chicken Shanty site and set up their sandwich shop. The next year, they began to expand the business by constructing a 14-room cabin court, which later became enclosed as a modern motel branded with the now-iconic MungerMoss neon sign. In 1971, the Hudsons sold out to the now-legendary Bob and Ramona Lehman, a young couple from Iowa with four children. The Munger-Moss business name stayed in Lebanon, touted to this day on the splendidly restored neon sign in front of the still-operating Munger-Moss Motel.

But back to the bypassed Devils Elbow—in the late 1940s, a new owner arrived on the scene, whose family members would hang on to the property up to the present day.

The Thompsons Arrive

Missouri native Paul Cecil Thompson was born in 1895, served in World War I, met Gussie Clements while he was stationed in Minnesota, and married her in 1919 after the war was over. They moved to Springfield, Missouri, for over 20 years before Paul and Gussie’s marriage ended and Paul moved to Pulaski County, where he met Nadean, his second wife. Paul actually moved into the old sandwich shop building for somewhere to live, before purchasing the 45-acre property for $3,500 and opening the cafe back up as the Elbow Inn. He and Nadean would run it, accompanied by her son Ernie and his son Harold, both in their teens.

“It was my great-grandfather Paul Cecil Thompson that purchased it back in the ‘40s,” Amanda Thompson-Miles, current owner of the Elbow Inn, said proudly. “A pretty interesting character. He was kind of a jack-of-all-trades as a lot of men were back then. He was in World War I and went to France. And he actually played the French horn. Unfortunately, I never got to meet him.”

Nelle and Emmett Moss, with their Devils Elbow property sold, their former business name doing just fine down in Lebanon, and old age looming, left Devils Elbow. By 1950, they had moved 20 miles east to Rolla, where they had gotten married 14 years earlier. Nelle soon suffered from health problems and died in 1957; Emmett sadly followed in 1966.

Back at the Elbow Inn, Paul is remembered as a jokester, setting water glasses in front of customers along with a quip that “the river had cleared up.” Sometime in the 1960s, they added the second wing on the other side of the original building and Paul’s son Harold began to help out at the inn as Paul aged. By this time, with the two wings added on and with the lower level tucked under the building and accessible on the river side, it had become an accepted residence as well as business and would continue to serve on and off in that way for years to come.

The Thompson family — (L to R) Amanda Thompson-Miles, Pamela Thompson, Clark Thompson, and Brandt Miles.

“When Paul passed in 1973, the property passed on to my grandfather, Harold, who we called ‘Jug.’ He got that from his mom because when he was [a toddler he] kind of wobbled around on the floor like a jug,” said Amanda. “And then when he was in the Navy during Korea, he liked to make hooch on the ships, so the nickname stuck.”

After his father’s passing, Harold and his wife, Carol, operated the restaurant and bar until 1978, when it all got to be too much, and they simply closed it to the public for nearly 20 years.

“They had their own careers, so they ran it as a side business. Then it wasn’t operated anymore, and basically, [that was] the end of what we call the tavern. That’s just our family name for it. It served as a residence for different family members over the years; my own father lived there for quite a while before he passed away,” Amanda recalled.

The Business is Farmed Out—Twice

In 1997, the Thompsons agreed to sell the business—but not the property—to retired Army veteran Chris Leaverton and his wife Nicki. “They were really successful. They ran it very well,” Amanda complimented them. “And they were good friends of our family, [but] then they decided that they wanted to move on and open their own place across town.”

Next, after the Leavertons reopened elsewhere, Terry and Susie Roberson were interested. In 2006, they opened as the Elbow Inn and BBQ Pit. “That’s, I think, what people are most familiar with now, their version, which became kind of known for the bras [pinned to the ceiling] and biker culture. And, you know, everyone had a great time there and they kind of did their own thing,” said Amanda. “I wasn’t in the state at the time and my family was kind of scattered here and there. My grandma passed away. My grandfather got sick, and he went to live with my aunt in Kentucky, and Terry and Susie had kind of free rein during that time.”

A Hundred-Year Flood

In late April into the first few days of May 2017, torrential rains hit Missouri and the state’s rivers began to rise to record levels not seen in a hundred years. The Big Piney River (the largest tributary of the Gasconade) running through Devils Elbow was no exception, and the Thompsons’ picturesque plank-sided eatery—at that time still under the management of the Robersons—sat in water nearly to its roofline. Ironically, portions of Devils Elbow had been listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places shortly before the flood.

The Elbow Inn awaits further restoration.

“The community did come together and do a lot of work to get the tavern open. It was done really quickly and so some things, you know, were just kind of overlooked. [The water] was up to the roof. I hadn’t [ever] seen a flood like that,” said Beth Wiles, Executive Director of Pulaski County Tourism Bureau, has been following the ups and downs of the Elbow Inn for a couple of decades now, while keeping its iconic status in the minds of both domestic and international tourists.

“The terrible flooding almost covered the entire building, which, if you go on a normal day, you would never dream the river could get that high. So, it’s sustained considerable damage,” said Wiles. “Terry [Roberson] tried to work through that process at least a good year and a half, just trying to do whatever he could, and they had a lot of volunteers that came together to help with cleanup. But I think damage was so severe to some of the basic parts of the structure that they had to go in a different direction.”

It’s a Family Thing

After Harold passed away in 2017 (ironically just before the flood), Amanda’s desire to run the Elbow Inn as a family again resurfaced and only grew stronger after talking it over with her Aunt Pamela Thompson—the only surviving child of her grandparents and now the family matriarch. She too found that she wanted to try her hand at restoring her family’s historic eatery.

“So, after Grandpa passed away, we decided that we would part ways with Terry and Susie and try to rehab and renovate the [business] and reopen it and run it as a family business. October of 2018 is when we parted ways. We shut the doors and our intention was to reopen as quickly as possible, but we’ve discovered that that’s easier said than done,” mused Amanda. “The tavern was built in 1929 and it’s been through many floods. And back when folks were building things in the ‘20s, it’s not like everything was level and plumb. So of course, we’re running into interesting challenges and trying to figure out creative ways to address them. It’s definitely gone a lot slower than we had anticipated.”

After the Thompsons alerted the Robersons that they would be taking over the Elbow to renovate and operate it themselves, public statements were issued by both parties to address hurt feelings and conflicting viewpoints. But for Amanda Thompson, the Elbow Inn isn’t just a business that they happen to own. It represents family interaction in all its ramifications—life events, celebrations, stints using the building as a residence. All those memories are woven through the old boards of the inn, creating a strong family desire to inhabit it themselves. “My grandmother had her first baby shower there when she was pregnant with my Aunt Pam. My mother had her wedding reception there. My father… my sister’s been married there; we’ve had family wakes there. And many friends and family and community members have had really special events at the tavern,” Amanda explained. “The Elbow Inn is not just some motorcycle bar, it’s more than that. So, when people come to see it, we want to give them that experience that they’re coming to eat and have drinks at my house.” But for all that, the question that is most asked on social media is about all the brassieres hung up in the Elbow Inn’s most recent iteration. “I get it. It was all in good fun,” Amanda commented. “One day, a woman from Germany traveling through stopped in with a bra and a note, and I’ve kept it, but that’s going to be the last one. I have it in a shadow box and it will be displayed with her note inside the tavern.”

Into the Future

In recent years, as the Thompson family has contended with the loss of older family members, the pandemic, their business tenants, the flood, and the resulting damage to their nearly-acentury-old inn, they’ve had a lot to think about. Amanda has emerged as a strong voice for the family and a generational leader, with matriarch Aunt Pamela right behind her.

Amanda and Pamela have given thought to making their new version of the Elbow Inn more approachable and more familyfriendly, while keeping the original look of it—maybe during great-grandpa Paul’s time—intact. Cognizant of it being one of the oldest bar and barbecue places still standing on Route 66, their intention is to preserve it to pass on to their children.

Other family members stepping up to contribute their talents are Pamela’s son Clark Thompson, a trained chef; Amanda’s younger sister and bartender Jayme Thompson Burns; and Amanda’s husband Brandt Miles, a writer who enjoys smoking and barbecuing meat. Amanda herself, although with a long career in health services, also very much enjoys cooking. However, they still must get past the hurdle of the long list of necessary renovations to be able to be open on a regular basis.

“From what I have seen, they have started from the ground up to restore it and secure it… the foundation, and all of that,” said Wiles. “I think that it’s been a tremendous undertaking for them, and they’ve had this ongoing renovation for a period of time. And then, of course, we had COVID with us all going through the restoration process.”

This spot of unmistakably Ozark scenic beauty holds a colorful and storied century full of history. The Thompson family’s painfully slow rebuilding process might just insure another hundred years for the old sandwich shop. There may be more raucous and risqué times with bikers and babes. Undoubtedly, there’ll be more family gatherings with sweet and sentimental memories. But one thing is for sure— there will be more family stories told, more precious visits recounted, and more glasses raised to good times on the bank of the Devils Elbow.