ROUTE - December / January 2020

ROUTE THE MAGAZINE THAT CELEBRATES ROAD TRAVEL, VINTAGE AMERICANA AND ROUTE 66

December/January 2020

Magazine

Route 66

America’s Favorite Highway Meets TV

The Start of the Road

The Tale of Lou Mitchell’s

$5.99

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BAZAAR ON 66: THINGS ARE A BIT STRANGE IN ELK CITY THE THRIVING ART SCENE IN WINSLOW ROUTE Magazine i

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.Ž

ii ROUTE Magazine

FROM THE CHISHOLM TRAIL TO THE MOTHER ROAD America’s premier institution of Western history, art and culture

The Museum Store

Shop one of the largest selections of Native American-made jewelry at The Museum Store or online at store.nationalcowboymuseum.org

Open Daily • 1700 NE 63rd St. • 15 minutes north of Downtown OKC, along Route 66 nationalcowboymuseum.org • (405) 478-2250 Oscar E. Berninghaus, Arrival of the Wells Fargo Stage, n.d., Oil on canvas, 2010.17.03, Gift of Miriam S. Hogan Trust ROUTE Magazine 1

15 minutes away — Jenks

Visit the Oklahoma Aquarium, home to a diverse array of habitats, like its shark tunnel and sea turtle exhibit.

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60 minutes away — Pawhuska

This city is known for its vibrant Native American cultural attractions, like the Osage Nation Museum.

20 minutes away — Guthrie

Known for its late 19th century architecture, this charming city was Oklahoma’s first capital.

50 minutes away — Woolaroc Museum & Wildlife Preserve This Bartlesville museum showcases the only surviving plane from the 1927 Dole Air Race, along with a large collection of Western and Native American art.

Discover more delightful destinations and detours just off Route 66 at Travel

15 minutes away — Okarche

Don’t pass up the chance to try the legendary fried chicken at Eischen’s, Oklahoma’s oldest bar.

.com.

70 minutes away — Lawton

Stop by one of Oklahoma’s largest cities and explore the Museum of the Great Plains’ interactive exhibits.

ROUTE Magazine 3

WANDERERS WELCOME Your perfect stop on the Mother Road. Occupying the historic Ford Motor Company assembly plant in Oklahoma City, 21c Museum Hotel is a multi-venue contemporary art museum coupled with boutique hotel and chef-driven restaurant.

Best New Hotels in the World - Travel + Leisure, It List 2017

900 W Main Street Oklahoma City 405.982.6900 | 21cOklahomaCity.com 4 ROUTE Magazine

CONTENTS

Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, AZ. Photograph courtesy of Efren Lopez/Route66Images.

20 Lou Mitchell’s

By Nick Gerlich Opening in 1923 on W. Jackson Blvd, Lou’s predates Route 66 by three years, but the family restaurant was not to miss out on the golden opportunity when it came. Now in its 96th year, this venue is still the starting point for many a traveler’s Mother Road voyage. But the real magic behind the iconic eatery is not simply the tasty food but the families who have created this Chicago gem.

26 Route 66: The True Story

By Cecil Stehelin When the first episode of this iconic show aired on CBS on October 7, 1960, audiences were not certain if they liked what they watched, and after getting rejected by multiple networks, no one was sure that Route 66 was going to be a success. Boy were they wrong. But the series was not without its dramas.

Discover the true tale in this fascinating feature.

34 Bazaar on 66

By Heide Brandes The Main Street of America is graced with an innumerable number of colorful characters who make the old road the memorable experience that it has always been. This is the quirky story of Melody Murray who, with her unique kitschy shop in Elk City, Oklahoma, is doing Route 66 proud.

6 ROUTE Magazine

50 The Largest Antique Ever Sold

By Mary P. Martin Oddly right at home in the lakeside town of Lake Havasu, Arizona, the famous London Bridge has been drawing a myriad of visitors since it was shipped over and reassembled in 1971.

Arizona has many a colorful story to be told, but this one will definitely grab your attention.

64 Winslow Wonderland

By Emily Petrina Tucked away in the tiny desert town of Winslow, Arizona, rests an unusual, unexpected art gallery that is owned and run by talented artist, Daniel Lutzick. Find out how this charming place has been leading the way in the development of Winslow’s growing art scene and meet the man behind the magic.

ON THE COVER Tucumcari, NM. Photograph courtesy of Efren Lopez/Route66Images.

tucumcari

Still a kick.

visittucumcarinm.com ROUTE Magazine 7

EDITORIAL It has been an exciting year. But it has passed so fast. I feel like I blinked and it is over, but what a ride.

We have featured fascinating stories such as the Nelson family and the Old Riverton Store, the closing of the stone age wonderland, Bedrock Village in Arizona, taken you down into the desert of California and visited with Andrea Pruett at The Bagdad Cafe and investigated the unique stories behind historic brands like Burma Shave to name just a few tantalizing tales.

We also had engaging conversations with iconic actors like Richard Dreyfuss, Kevin Hart, Pierce Brosnan and Laura Linney and discovered the backstory to some of your favorite films and television shows, while learning more about their travels and impacting life moments. In many ways, ROUTE interviews remind us that no matter how iconic or successful a celebrity is, they are just like you and me; regular people living extraordinary lives.

It has been quite a whirlwind. And the amazing part, we are just getting started. As ROUTE enters year three we are thrilled to look ahead to some simply terrific stories that demand to be told. We want to thank each of you for your support and passion and for your commitment to Route 66 and vintage Americana. Most of all, we are grateful that in an age where many people are supposedly growing impatient and bored with longer form journalism (so I am told), you guys still love a well-crafted story that takes a deep dive into a fascinating topic. ROUTE readers are by far the best audience and your involvement and support motivates us to dig deeper with every issue.

In this special festive issue of ROUTE, we bring you the wacky, zany Melody Murray and her quirky Bazaar on 66 shop. Located right off of the Mother Road in Elk City, Oklahoma, Melody’s story intrigued us immediately when we discovered her odd little shop. Complete with colorful signs, enormous arrows and stars, Ronald McDonald, a car up on a platform and oversized barbie dolls, this cozy gem is adding something colorful to a Route 66 town that already deserves your attention. Wait until you read her story!

Few eateries along Route 66 can boast of being in business before the historic road was even a thing. But Lou Mitchell’s in Chicago sure can. Located right at the start of Route 66 and the traditional launching spot for motorists heading West, this buzzing hotspot is as much of an experience today as it was 80 years ago, and the food is just as good. But it is the story behind Lou’s that will really pique your interest and motivate you to invest in a visit.

One of our favorite shows of all times, M*A*S*H, will be top of mind in this issue when we spend some time with icon Alan Alda. Humorous, intellectual, kind and sincere, Alda represents an era – the ‘50s – that fits perfectly in with the mood and culture of Route 66. In this personal interview, get to know the man behind the characters and digest some pertinent life lessons and ideas that are more relevant in our lives now than ever before. Alda has some pretty important stuff to say.

How many of you were fans of the CBS drama, Route 66? Who knows how many episodes were actually filmed on the Mother Road? Or why George Maharis was annoyed when Marty Milner was cast on the show? Who knows why Maharis eventually left the series and what became of the beloved but short-lived show? In this Christmas issue, we bring you the real story behind one of television’s most enduring but underrated shows, with tons of real, never heard before, quotes from the actors themselves.

These stories and so much more fill the pages of the December/January issue.

We would like to take the time to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas. Take the time to enjoy that which matters most, your friends and family.

We will see you in the New Year.

Please remember to LIKE and FOLLOW us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (we really count on your online support) and if you want to make sure to never miss a 2020 issue, why not subscribe today?

Blessings, Brennen Matthews Editor 8 ROUTE Magazine

ROUTE PUBLISHER Thin Tread Media EDITOR Brennen Matthews DEPUTY EDITOR Kate Wambui EDITOR-AT-LARGE Nick Gerlich LEAD EDITORIAL PHOTOGRAPHER David J. Schwartz LAYOUT AND DESIGN Tom Heffron EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Theresa Romano DIGITAL Matthew Alves ILLUSTRATOR Jennifer Mallon CONTRIBUTORS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS Alain Define Cecil Stehelin Christine Dulion Dan Lutzick Efren Lopez/ImagesonRoute66 Emily Petrina GoLakeHavasu Heide Brandes Karen Blocher Ken Lund Mary P. Martin Matt Licari

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 staff. ROUTE does not take any responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photography.

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ROUTE 10 ROUTE Magazine

In 1889 a shot rang out.

A land run started.

And El Reno, Oklahoma would become the front door to the American West.

Photo courtesy of Canadian County Museum.

Historic El Reno, Oklahoma, where the glamour of Route 66 meets the Old West drama of the Chisholm Trail. Where the world’s largest fried onion hamburger is celebrated, and where you can ride a rail-based trolley through historic downtown. Nearby Fort Reno is home to the colorful U.S. Cavalry Museum, as well as the graves of Buffalo Soldiers, Indian scouts and World War II prisoners of war. For information, visit www.elrenotourism.com.

ROUTE Magazine 11

THE YEAR OF 1985

FINDING THE “UNSINKABLE” SHIP Mother Road enthusiasts often think of ��85 as the tragic year that marked the final decommission of legendary Route 66. But what else was happening that year?

This series takes a look at the cultural and social milieu from which Route 66 drove its last mile — the famous, the infamous, the inventions, and the scandals that marked ��85 as a pivotal year. In this issue, we bring you the story of the clandestine mission to find the Titanic.

“B

IGGEST LINER, Wonders and Luxuries of the Titanic. On Wednesday next, the largest ship in the world, R.M.S. Titanic, the latest addition to the White Star Line, will leave Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York...” read the announcement in the Manchester Guardian, of 7th April 1912. And on that Wednesday April 10, 1912, at 12 p.m., with much fanfare, pomp and circumstance, the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic, a British luxury passenger liner, set sail on its first voyage with approximately 2,220 passengers and crew. As the biggest passenger ship afloat in the world, and a construction budget of $7.5 million, the ship was believed to be unsinkable. No one could have foreseen that this would be her first and last excursion. Within just four days of being on the open sea, the Titanic hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. And in less than three hours, at about 2:20 a.m., the biggest ship in the world had sank, taking more than 1,500 passengers and crew with her.

Never to be seen again. For years.

Several attempts had been made to find the wreckage of the doomed liner, including a 1977 expedition led by Robert Ballard, an oceanographer and former U.S. Naval Reserve Commander with a passion for finding the Titanic.

However, due to the magnitude of the search area, that spread for hundreds of miles, all of the explorers came up empty. Given the limited technology of the early 20th Century, it would take 73 years before the ‘unsinkable’ ship would be found at the bottom of the Atlantic.

In 1982, for his second attempt at finding the Titanic, Ballard asked the U.S. Navy for help: fund the creation of a submersible unmanned sled with a video camera, named Argo, to find the Titanic. Skeptical at first about the Titanic search, but interested in Argo, the Navy ultimately agreed to Ballard’s proposition, on condition that he first locate and survey the wrecks of the U.S.S. Thresher and Scorpion, two nuclear submarines that had been lost in the Atlantic.

And then, with whatever time he had left, he could look for the Titanic. Remember, this was during the Cold War, and so this mission, to find the two wrecked submarines, was 12 ROUTE Magazine

kept top-secret — until the mission’s military agenda was fully declassified in December 2018 — with the search for the Titanic as the ultimate cover-up story.

After locating the vessels, that left Ballard with just 12 days left to find the sunken Titanic. Fortunately, from his military work on the U.S.S. Thresher and Scorpion, he had noticed that when a vessel sank, the undersea currents carried the wreckage, leaving bits behind in a Hansel and Gretel like chain of debris, as they fell to the seafloor.

To find the vessel, he would drag Argo along the seabed, scouring the bottom for large pieces and follow the trail to the Titanic.

And so it was, that on September 1, 1985, Ballard and his crew followed the trail of debris right to the Titanic itself, with photos of the rusty ‘ship of dreams’, appearing in newspapers around the world. Having succeeded in locating the legendary Titanic, Ballard went on to protest against recovering the remains of the ship, thinking that it should be left undisturbed and memorialized. Despite Ballard’s and other like-minded protests, eight expeditions have gone out to collect remains and artifacts from the wreckage, which have been displayed at various museum exhibits around the world including, recently at the Pontiac Museum Complex in Pontiac, Illinois, during the temporary “Life on the Titanic” exhibit. The exhibit featured contemporary artifacts of those that sank on the famed ship as well as items from the rescued liner. “We do have something from the ocean floor and that is coal. [It] was such an important element because coal was the fuel for these steamships,” said Darlene Agner and Ron Selle, curators of the exhibit. “The interesting thing about the Titanic is that it almost didn’t leave because there was a coal strike going on. They had to borrow coal to make [the ship run].”

The sobering and famous story of the Titanic’s demise still lives strongly today, with scientists still speculating over when the ship will completely disintegrate from the iron-eating bacteria that is slowly making it rust away.

ROUTE Magazine 13

R

oadside attractions come in all shapes and sizes, but one quirky bottle of Ketchup towers above the rest – literally – at 170ft, making it the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle and one of the more bizarre former water towers around. That’s “Catsup,” not “Ketchup,” and while the spelling might be different, the condiment itself is virtually the same, with “Ketchup” being the predominant spelling today. But back in 1949 when Brooks Foods, Inc. finished building their Brooks Catsup water tower it was common to see both names at your local grocery store.

Located near the 1954 alignment of Route 66 in Collinsville, Illinois, this kitschy bottle began its journey out of necessity, as the processing plant for Brooks products in Collinsville needed a water tower for plant operations and fire protection.

At that time, the president of Brooks, Gerhart S. Suppiger, had the fun idea of using their Catsup Bottle shape for the water tower, and the colorful bottle has been pulling people off of the road ever since.

The iconic water tower has just hit its 70th anniversary but reaching the ripe old age of 70 would not have been possible without the restoration efforts of the Catsup Bottle Preservation Group, an effort that was started back in 1993, that saved the old bottle from demolition.

“It was basically a group of people from the [Friends of the Collinsville Historical] Museum and the [Collinsville] Women’s Club. Those were the organizations to go to, so I [went] asking for help,” said Judy DeMoisy, who led the preservation group and is the current co-president of The World’s Largest Catsup Bottle Fan Club Inc. “My background is in historic preservation and architecture, so I knew what to do.” To preserve the bottle from meeting the wrecking ball, DeMoisy and her colleagues had to fundraise and garner donations, most of which were small, in order to raise the needed funds to restore the bottle. “We sold t-shirts... we sold over a $1,000 [worth] every single week.

I would go out to schools and talk to kids in the classrooms, talk to different organizations in the community.”

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The Catsup bottle also had supporters outside of Collinsville, which included artists, architects, and those interested in water towers, with even French and German magazines covering the Catsup bottle overseas. “I felt that the Catsup bottle had a life of its own because every time I turned around the phone was ringing. It was just amazing the number of people that called,” noted DeMoisy. “It’s so large and it’s in the middle of the country. Red, white, and blue and very American. It never caused any controversy.

It resonated with everybody.”

While the preservation group was receiving outside support, some of their local officials were not overly optimistic about restoring the historical structure, but this did not stunt their efforts. “There is always that somebody that objects. If you know what you want to do, don’t let them impact your goal,” notes DeMoisy and Mike Gassmann, who was also a part of the preservation group and is copresident of The World’s Largest Catsup Bottle Fan Club Inc. “People would be negative about it and we would just say, ‘It’s kind of their loss,’ and keep on going.”

The preservation group responded to the negativity with a community petition drive, which garnered 3,000 signatures.

While this didn’t necessarily change people’s minds, it did spread the word in Collinsville about the Catsup bottle preservation efforts and helped get the ball rolling.

In 1995, the Catsup bottle got a new lease on life (and a new coat of paint) that both tourists and Collinsville residents still appreciate to this day. Since its restoration, the Catsup bottle has even been inducted into the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame. “If you drive past the Catsup bottle, on almost any given day, you will see someone pulled over taking pictures,” said DeMoisy and Gassmann.

Today, you can still purchase a bottle of Brooks Catsup, though its spelling has changed to the more common “Ketchup.” Whether you see it as “Catsup” or “Ketchup,” one cannot argue the undeniable charm of a 170-foot condiment bottle. It is so Route 66.

Photograph courtesy of the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle archives.

Unforgettable at 70 Years

ROUTE Magazine 15

ESSENTIALS

FAMILY-FRIENDLY SPOTS ALONG ROUTE 66 When it comes to hitting the road with kids, it helps to be prepared with some ideas of fun and interactive entertainment to capture the attention of even the littlest of sightseers. Make your Route 66 road trip memorable by including these family friendly museums and hands-on attractions where kids are invited to play, touch and to imagine.

HISTORY MUSEUM ON THE SQUARE, SPRINGFIELD, MO Get transported to another place and time at the updated and enhanced History Museum on the Square, right on Springfield’s Route 66. After years of renovations, the Museum recently opened in its new facility with more than 18,000-square-feet of displays and exhibits, across three floors of interactive fun. From the overhead hanging Frisco Railway steam engine that greets you, to the video on Native American history that is streamed on a buffalo hide, each exhibit is geared to make your visit an entertaining, engaging experience. Featuring six permanent exhibits that include a Trains, Trolleys and Transportation gallery, the Birthplace of Route 66 exposition that features a 66-foot-long wall that presents the legendary Chicago to Los Angeles route, iconic neon signs, vintage gas pumps and more and the Pioneer and Founders Gallery, this is one place that you want to take your time and savor the adventure.

CANADIAN COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM, EL RENO, OK For any railroad or train enthusiast, the Canadian County Historical Society Museum, is a must-stop. This gem of a museum, housed in the original Rock Island Railroad Depot, located a few blocks from El Reno’s historic downtown area, is a treasure trove of Oklahoma railroad and land rush history. The museum is packed with artifacts, memorabilia and photographs that take you way back in time. Kids will enjoy seeing the model train as it runs on a track through the museum and if you are lucky, you may just see and hear the actual train as it pulls into the depot. Take your time and explore the grounds dotted with several rescued historical buildings such as the Possum Holler School, the first Red Cross Canteen, and a Mennoville Mennonite Church, each provide a glimpse into decades past.

WONDERS OF WILDLIFE NATIONAL MUSEUM & AQUARIUM, SPRINGFIELD, MO Nearly 10 years in the making, the Wonders of Wildlife (WOW), an architectural masterpiece, is the vision and creation of Bass Pro founder Johnny Morris. Opened in September 2017 and voted “America’s Best Aquarium” in 2018, the 16 ROUTE Magazine

establishment spans 350,000 square feet with more than 1.5 miles of trails to explore. You are guaranteed to be blown away by the attention to detail as you come eye to eye with this amazing other worldly existence.

From the architecture, the design, the audio, lighting and even the controlled temperatures, to each unique display and exhibit, nothing has been left to chance. The 1.5-million-gallon aquarium, which features 35,000 live animals ranging from seahorses, sharks, goliath groupers, anacondas, crocodiles, and even a touch-a-stingray experience, will educate, captivate and thrill both the young and old. If you are in Springfield, Missouri, this is a must-visit destination.

NATIONAL COWBOY & WESTERN HERITAGE MUSEUM, OKLAHOMA CITY, OK If you want to give yourself a taste of the real cowboy experience, you’re going to need to visit the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Created in 1955, the Museum contains several galleries devoted to every facet of the cowboy and western life, including the American Cowboy Gallery which highlights the history of the Wild West with its impressive collection of western art, sculptures, artifacts and historical information. Kids will enjoy touching and feeling the deer hides, glass beds and feathers on display.

For movie enthusiasts, the history of western film and literature at the Williams Companies Western Performers Gallery, which highlights the work of famous stars like John Wayne and Dale Evans will be a treat. Take a trip to the replica of a 19th Century cattle town of Prosperity Junction and explore a sheriff’s office, schoolhouse, church and doctor’s home. Step outside and stroll through the gardens and visit other statues and the larger than life Buffalo Bill statue.

There are always new exhibits on display so be sure to check out the website to find out what is currently showing.

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ROUTE Magazine 17

D

The Desert Wears Prada

riving along U.S. Highway 90, a small, unassuming building comes into view, sitting all alone in the picturesque desert of Valentine, Texas. The walls are white, the lights are on, and as you pull up to the front entrance you are greeted with a display of designer handbags and shoes, the word “Prada” printed across the grey awning. Seeing a Prada store in the middle of nowhere may have you questioning your sanity, but after a quick search on your phone, you’ll realize that this is the famous Prada Marfa, an art sculpture that has a statement to make against the luxury goods industry, a statement that demands tourists to bask in its absurdity, knowing that it won’t make a single dime off of any of its visitors.

The artists responsible for the Prada Marfa are the Scandinavian art duo Elmgreen and Dragset, whose artwork blends both design and architecture, while also addressing social issues with a sense of humor. The pair first conceived of Prada Marfa in 2001, when they were displaced a mile away from SoHo to neighboring Chelsea, or from one artist oasis to the next, as SoHo’s galleries and contemporary art were being replaced with designer brand stores. In response, Elmgreen and Dragset decided to take a jab at these designer brands by placing a sign in one of the windows of the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, which spoke of a new Prada store that would be making its way into Chelsea. The duo chose Prada in particular, due to how a new Prada epicenter was opening in the space where SoHo’s Guggenheim Museum used to be. It didn’t take long for the art scene to catch wind of Elmgreen and Dragset’s act of defiance, including the Art Production Fund (APF), a nonprofit arts organization in New York. They reached out to the artist duo and brought “their Prada store” to light, but instead of placing it in Chelsea, this Prada store found its home in Valentine, Texas, surrounded by Texas desert and not much else.

Valentine was the chosen destination due to its 35-mile proximity to the second nonprofit that supported the project, Ballroom Marfa, which is based in the quirky, historic art hub of Marfa, Texas. Both the APF and Ballroom Marfa worked together to make the unusual sculpture come to life, using interesting fundraising techniques: the APF sold Prada Marfa signs, each one customized to read the length in miles from the patron’s home to Marfa, Texas. “Whatever it took to make the project happen, we were involved,” noted Kathleen Lynch, Director of Operations at APF. Prada Marfa was unveiled to the public on October 1, 2005, and contained merchandise that was handpicked by

18 ROUTE Magazine

Miuccia Prada herself, who also gave them permission to use her famous logo. While this might raise some brows, Elmgreen and Dragset did not receive any compensation from Prada, with Miuccia Prada’s appreciation for contemporary art being the central reason for her cooperation on the project.

Today, the tourist scene of Prada Marfa is alive and well, with thousands of intentional and accidental visitors still stumbling across the sculpture on their drive down U.S. Highway 90. “You’re driving by and it almost appears out of nowhere,” said Kathleen Lynch, who took the three-hour drive from the El Paso airport to see Prada Marfa for herself. “For someone who is not expecting to see it, it’s really surprising.”

Marfa has appreciated the influx of attention and welcomes visitors to their sleepy town. “To this day, people have traveled to Marfa to get a snapshot in front of the storefront,” said Patrick Rivera, Assistant Director of Tourism in Marfa, Texas. “It will forever be recognized after Beyoncé Knowles took a vacation to this part of Texas and took the now famous Prada Marfa pose.” And plenty of tourists have followed in the pop singer’s footsteps, leaping in front of the sculpture to recreate her picture with gusto.

It’s no wonder that Marfa has benefited from the press that celebrities and Instagramming tourists have brought to their area, and this trend doesn’t seem to be ending any time soon.

Elmgreen and Dragset had intended to let the Instagramable sculpture deteriorate over time, but this idea was scrapped shortly after Prada Marfa was revealed, as it was robbed of its expensive merchandise. As a result, APF and Ballroom Marfa have worked together to keep the sculpture preserved, replacing the windows with bullet-resistant polycarbonate glass, adding alarms to the merchandise, and installing security cameras on the property.

People still vandalize the sculpture every now and then, but the extremity of this vandalism reached its peak in 2014 when Prada Marfa received an involuntary makeover by the ‘artist’ 9271977, who covered it in TOMS stickers and blue paint, temporarily turning Prada Marfa into “TOMS Marfa” overnight. The sculpture was ultimately restored and since then, people have begun to place padlocks on the chain link fence that surrounds it, which may be representative of young love or a tourist’s attempt to make their mark on the art installation without painting the walls blue.

While its near-isolation makes it safer than most public arts projects, Prada Marfa isn’t out of the wolf’s den just yet, making its preservation work all the more important in keeping it open to tourists and forever closed to buyers.

Natural Beauty, Ultimate Serenity

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By Nick Gerlich Images courtesy of Efren Lopez/Route66Images

T

he year was 1923. Chicago, characterized by Carl Sandburg as the “City of the Broad Shoulders,” had more than 2.7 million people calling it home, enough to earn it the moniker of Second City. It was a city forever stunted by the tragic fire of 1871, one from which it would take decades to fully recover. And a local confectioner was trying to figure out what to do with the drippings of caramel that slid off the suckers he was making.

But more on that later.

From the ashes arose skyscrapers designed by renowned local architects Daniel Burnham and John Root, as well as “The White City,” a sprawling complex that was home to the 1893’s World’s Columbian Exposition. Only 15 years had passed since the Cubs had won the World Series.

Prohibition had been in effect for only three years, with Al Capone running things on the sly. The City was working hard and growing fast.

It was in this environment that William Mitchell heard opportunity knocking. He quietly opened a small restaurant in a diner car on Jackson Street’s north side, a year before Union Station opened nearby and three years before Route 66 was christened. He originally called it Mitchell’s, then subsequently named it for his son, Lou. That move may have gone unnoticed at the time amid the hustle and bustle

Lou Mitchell.

22 ROUTE Magazine

of a city teeming with activity, but the legacy he spawned has now become the starting point for many a road trip down Route 66.

All in the Family The entire Mitchell family was involved in the operation with young Lou, together with his sisters, Polly and Demi, working in the restaurant. But it was not until 1936 that Lou came on-board to help run the place, after having gained business experience as a shoe salesman. In 1949, the eatery moved directly across the street to 565 West Jackson Street where it stands today. Lou partnered with his father and began turning his namesake into a Chicago tradition, an icon that shines as brightly today as it did then. He remained at the helm until 1988, when he retired at age 79 after 52 years at the restaurant. His nephew, Nick Noble, who was a wellknown pop musician in the 1950s, managed the restaurant from 1988 to 1992. Noble died in 2012 at age 85.

Lou had never married and had no children, perhaps influencing his decision to sell the restaurant to his “niece,” Kathryn Thanas, and her daughter, Heleen, in 1992.

Kathryn treated Lou Mitchell’s as a true family business, bringing in her son, Nick Thanas, to round out the team.

In fact, it was Lou who approached the Thanas family about buying his business, in part because both Kathryn’s father and Heleen had prior restaurant experience, and also because the families were so close that the younger members referred to everyone else as aunts, uncles, and cousins, in spite of not being blood relatives. The Mitchell and Thanas families are like cousins from the same area of Greece, and all immigrated to the US together on the same boat in the late-1800s. “We just called him Uncle Lou. When Uncle Lou wanted to sell the business years ago, he reached out to us,” said Nick. Both families were steeped in the Greek Orthodox faith and have a long track record of involvement in the Hellenic community. “My dad and Uncle Lou’s dad were all restaurateurs in the area, and they knew each other forever and a day. When Uncle Lou was going to retire, he knew that we would carry on. We were very close to him,” Kathryn explained.

Meanwhile, Lou, passed away in 1999 at age 90 with complications arising from pneumonia, knowing his baby was in good hands.

Filling Uncle Lou’s shoes was no small feat. Lou believed in people, and was the driving force behind his restaurant, always giving people more than what they expected. He gave pregnant women a small velvet pouch with a coin in it and urged them to save for their child’s education. Lou treated the common customer as well as or better than the many celebrities who were regulars and knew their names and occupations. If a customer needed something, even a ride to the airport, he would do it. It was his dream to serve others and sow happiness. His success was in no small part the harvest of having done so. And, fortunately for Lou, his restaurant was not among the numerous hangouts of the storied Chicago mobsters.

He was too nice for that kind of element.

Lou Mitchell was also a man of wisdom and learning, committed to acquiring at least one new nugget of knowledge each day. He resisted numerous offers throughout the years to franchise his restaurant, knowing that it would only dilute a good thing, and make managing from afar challenging.

Inside of Lou Mitchell’s.

Heleen had managed an Italian restaurant nearby on Taylor Street, and brought that expertise with her to Lou Mitchell’s, overseeing operations and managing employees.

It was Heleen who was the face of the business, the female personification of Lou, and in some ways, the daughter he never had. Just like Uncle Lou, Heleen welcomed customers with warmth and wit, becoming a fixture at the restaurant, ready to offer a free meal to someone in need. Her outgoing nature and energy made it possible for the Thanas family to carry on Lou’s legacy, from how employees were trained, to how the food was prepared, and customers treated.

If the Thanases felt duty-bound to carry the torch for Uncle Lou, they did so without a whimper. The Greek community is tight like that.

The transition went well that year, so well in fact, that customers did not notice the difference in management. “It went very smoothly. I think our transition was as smooth as can be. We heard that from many, many customers. We hear it from customers who return after many years,” Kathryn said.

The Thanas family has guided the restaurant through the resurgence of interest in Route 66, the result being a diner that has caught the fancy of a market far larger than the Thanas or Mitchell families ever imagined. For a short period, a decade ago, the family ventured into franchising,

but today only the downtown location and a Häagen-Dazs franchise in Rosemont remain. Heleen died unexpectedly at age 63 in 2015, from complications following a stroke, leaving the business still under family control with Kathryn as President and Nick as Vice President. Nick, who had studied at Southern Illinois University, had prior restaurant experience, and was a financial trader for 10 years.

Breaking Fast Mother Road sojourners are just as likely to be seated among Chicagoans as they are other tourists, from the rank and file to Chicago’s mayors, US Presidents, journalists, and stars.

“We’ve had everyone from President Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama and George W. Bush, every governor, every mayor, and senator,” Nick said. In fact, politicians see Lou Mitchell’s as a place to rub shoulders with a cross-section of the voting public, from the common laborer to elite financiers.

Donna Fenton, 91, has been at Lou Mitchell’s for 31 years (“That’s a long time in this business.”), and sees to it that patrons mingle. “I have served several of our governors, and every mayor since Father Daley. They all intertwine. I find the Route 66 people very personable, they want to chat, whereas Chicagoans are on business. But everybody in there is pleasant. We make them that way,” she said. “The people ROUTE Magazine 23

who come here now come in looking for the nostalgia of Lou Mitchells being Route 66.”

Lou Mitchell’s is a place where everyone is treated the same, where coffee is the beverage of choice, not just because it’s the universal picker-upper, but because it is renown there, and standing in line for a seat is part of the experience.

And that’s where the doughnut holes and Milk Duds come in.

Fresh-baked every morning, the warm balls of doughy goodness keep everyone from getting a little “hangry” while waiting for a table. Milk Duds are still given to all women and children before leaving, a tradition started by Lou nearly a century ago.

“Leaf Candy was originally in Chicago. They did the Slow Poke and suckers. How Milk Duds came about is that when they were making the suckers, the caramel they were made from would drip. There would be these little drops of caramel. The owner, who was a regular customer of Uncle Lou’s, used to come in and would say, ‘We’ve got this product that we’re trying out, and it is actually the duds, the milk dud that comes off the caramel when we make the other product. We’re going to chocolate-coat them and see if people like them’,” Nick explained. The rest is restaurant and candy history.

Samples were given to Lou to see how people liked them.

“Uncle Lou started handing them out to the women and

Inside of Lou Mitchell’s.

24 ROUTE Magazine

children. To this day, we still purchase 145-150 cases of Milk Duds each year to give away. It goes back to this. We’re Mediterranean. When you went to someone’s house, they gave you a welcome, something sweet. My grandmother would always open a tin of sweets. It came from the Greek culture of friendliness and hospitality.”

Just the Way You Are Despite Lou being a very creative restaurateur, both he and the Thanases know their limits. “I’ve seen people put themselves out of business trying to keep up with trends. I refused to get too fancy, to try to become something we’re not. That’s not what Lou Mitchell’s is, and we’re never going to be that,” Nick said. “We just try to keep things going.”

The restaurant looks very much the same now, inside and out, as it did on inception, and they still make their own orange marmalade, bake their own bread, and continue to serve a prune and orange slice prior to the meal, and a dollop of ice cream afterwards. “It’s kind of a digestive thing. It’s all part of my roots from being Greek.” Nick explained.

But it’s tough to survive in the restaurant business without budging an inch, so a few “healthy” items have been added.

However, all of the mainstays are still there, calories be damned. “We’ve made a few changes, made a few fun things

like the Chicago deep dish omelet, which is a mushrooms, onions, green peppers and sausage.

It tastes just like a Chicago deep dish pizza,” Nick said with a hint of pride that only a native Chicagoan would understand.

Kathryn echoed their commitment to holding steady. “The whole idea of the hospitality, the prune and orange when you come in, lots of fussing over everybody, we haven’t changed,” she said. There is an understanding that it is not just about eating food, the interaction and the whole experience is just as important. “You can stay home and open up a can of beans. They want the whole experience.”

Location, Location, Location Lou Mitchell’s probably would not have succeeded through the years following the stock market crash of 1929 were it not for it being situated along a transportation hub, one that captured long-distance travelers as well as commuters and job seekers and made the business practically Depression-proof. The confluence of train, bus, and automobile travelers guaranteed a steady flow of hungry customers.

“Ours is unique in that we are not only on Route 66, but across the street is Union Station, and down the street is the Greyhound bus station. People traveled through Chicago since the 20’s. We were like kind of a Mecca in the desert for many travelers,” said Nick.

Although he is proud of their Route 66 connection, Nick has yet to travel all of it.

“I haven’t driven the pure route itself, but I have done parts of it. It is an amazing culture.

I come from a family that [has been] in this country for more than 100 years. We’re very American. I consider myself American over anything. Part of Route 66 and the culture, the fact that so many people are embracing it…

Nick and Shari Thanas.

And Route 66 is certainly one of those things that keeps American culture alive. I see it when But there is also Kathryn to consider, who graciously people come in all the time. Europeans, Asians, people declined to state her age (“If a woman tells her age, she’ll tell from all walks of life, are embracing what America was you anything!” she said with a chuckle.). “I am not interested like in the 1920’s, 1930’s, 1940’s. I don’t want to say when in retiring. You get up in the morning, and you have a sense America was great. America still is great,” he said with of direction.” emphasis.

Kathryn is still a regular at the diner, the matron saint of Lou Mitchell’s. “On Sunday I do my church in the morning, then I To the Future am always at the restaurant after church. During the week, I am Lou Mitchell’s has been a Chicago and Route 66 institution in and out.” She compares daily operations to shooting a movie. for 96 years, and won’t be going away any time soon, even “It’s like show business. Lights, camera, action!” though Nick harbors a few uncertainties about the future.

For Fenton, retirement is barely in her vocabulary. “I think “I have to say I am not sure how that is going to look. I have about it, but that’s about all I do. I don’t have any definite three daughters, and all of them worked in the business all plans.” If anyone ever were to take over the helm, “It has the way up through college, waiting tables or serving iceto be done exactly like the way we do it. That’s what keeps cream out at the airport location. It’s a tough business,” he people coming,” she added. “I have been treated very well, I said, hinting he is unsure about succession. love the people, and there are good people to work with.”

“I don’t know that answer. My kids are the fourth Which is another way of saying that Lou Mitchell’s, after generation to work this business. The good news is I am a 96 years is still on very solid ground for many years to come, healthy 59! I’m the baby of the family,” he joked, implying he and Kathryn, Nick, and Donna will be right there at the has no plans of throwing in the skillet. front door.

ROUTE Magazine 25

THE TRUE STORY

By Cecil Stehelin

S

omewhere in America, a sharp bend in a lonely highway bears a single vehicle across its blacktop. A Blue Corvette winds its way through the Appalachian mountains with its top down, the pine breeze flowing through the hair of its occupants. Piano dances over a cool jazz beat.

A complement of strings carries a sweet melody overtop, and the brass kicks in as the title zooms into view. The date was October 7th, 1960, and America was getting its first glimpse of the new CBS series, Route 66.

Sitting at the wheel with a bemused smirk was Tod Stiles, played by the clean-cut Martin Milner: “Maybe if you turned on the radar we’d find out where we are!” His companion, Buz Murdock, portrayed by the dark and brooding George Maharis, studies the map intently: “Well, you heard the man, he ought to know! Take State 35 he says, cuts across Chickasaw way, he says.” The duo, in many ways, reflected the personalities of the actors who portrayed them, in the same way the premise of the show mirrored the lives of the crew that produced it. Route 66 wasn’t merely a show about travel; it was a traveling show. Every week, primetime on CBS, a different corner of America would come into focus through the eyes of Tod and Buz, our windows into unknown worlds.

26 ROUTE Magazine

Throughout its three and a half year run from 1960 to 1964, Route 66 traveled to twenty-four states throughout the country, as well as one international appearance in Toronto. The show was essentially a traveling studio, as a crew of more than sixty, including the two stars, journeyed by road and air to the most beautiful regions of the country.

“It’s never been done as far as I’m aware. All that extensive location shooting was really exploring different parts of the country at a time when [it] was changing,” mused Karen Funk Bloucher, who interviewed the show’s principals in 1986 and was kind enough to share the transcripts. In her interview with Maharis at a Denny’s in Las Vegas, the actor reminisced, “In those days you could go 70 miles to a new town and it was totally different. People were different. The look was different. The language was different. The style was different. The food was different. Now you go for 3000 miles and there’s a Denny’s. It’s all the same.”

Cinema Verite Herbert Breiter Leonard was born October 8th, 1922, in New York City, the youngest of two sons. Growing up in a poor Jewish household in the Big Apple, Leonard developed

a keen business savvy, mating into a strong-willed and motivated young man. In 1941, Leonard would answer the call to defend his nation, serving as a naval aviator in the Pacific until 1946. Upon his discharge, he left New York for Los Angeles where he worked as a production manager for Sam Katzman Productions until 1954. He then struck out as an independent producer, forming Herbert B. Leonard Productions. He found immediate success with The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin (1954-1959) starring Rin Tin Tin IV, a distant offspring of the famed German Shepard. His next project, Naked City (1958-1963), was his first foray into high drama. Based on the 1948 motion picture of the same name, the show built on the film’s innovative use of real sets and locations. The first season’s thirty-nine episodes were shot all across New York, featuring a revolving cast of fresh talent from the New York stage as they came into the world of Detective Halloran and Lt. Muldoon. Besides its organic and electrifying cinema verite style, the show featured characters from the margins of society, worlds not often seen on television at the time. They were brought to life by the incisive writing of Stirling Silliphant, aka “The 8 Million Story Man,” who wrote thirty-two episodes for the first season.

The Writer Born in Detroit on January 16th, 1918, Silliphant spent his early years on the road traveling with his salesman father Leigh and his mother Ethel, who taught him to read as they drove. His family eventually settled in Glendale, California, where Silliphant attended the University of Southern California and enlisted in the Navy in 1943. After the war, he became publicity director for 20th Century Fox in New York but was unhappy as an executive. He moved back to California and struck out as a professional writer.

His talent was soon recognized, and he began regular work on shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Perry Mason and Schlitz Playhouse.

Naked City was his first gig as a lead writer, and he did not disappoint. Threading themes from literary greats like Tennyson and Goethe into the sharp, earthy musings of his average Joe protagonists, Silliphant was able to conjure poetry that sounded like something you’d overhear in the street, transporting the audience into their world.

Leonard and Silliphant proved to be a perfect team.

Leonard was keen to push the envelope and allowed Silliphant complete creative freedom. They developed a tight

bond and were already discussing their next endeavor as the limited ABC run of Naked City wound to a close. In an interview with Richard Maynard for Emmy Magazine in 1982, Leonard remembered having lunch with Silliphant: “I started reminiscing about how, when I was a poor kid on the New York streets, I would pal around with a very wealthy prep school guy. I began to wonder out loud what it would have been like for a couple of complete opposites like the two of us to go traveling around the country in his sports car. Then I said something like ‘Stirling, that’s our next show,’ and he jumped at it. By the time we stepped outside to get a cab, we were already working on a story for our pilot.

We even knew who we wanted the leads to be. There was this young, outspoken actor we’d used on The Naked City, whom I believed had real star potential. His name was George Maharis.”

Top Billing Born September 1st, 1928, in New York and raised in Queens, Maharis initially nurtured dreams of a career as a singer, before improper training and over-use stripped his chords. He subsequently veered towards acting, honing his natural magnetism under the tutelage of Lee Strasberg, famed teacher of method actors like Marlon Brando and Paul Newman. Maharis developed an anti-intellectual, emotional approach, as he related to Blocher, “If you’re a bull, you’re silly if you think you’re going to fly like an eagle and attack like one. It doesn’t work. And all the training in ROUTE Magazine 27

that had more prominence, then he would get first-star billing - that was okay with me then. But when they told me, Marty Milner, I didn’t know who he was ...”

The pilot episode “Black November” saw Tod and Buz stranded in the remote village of Garth, Alabama, due to a flat tire. The town, accessible only by ferry and suspicious of outsiders, is held under the sway of Caleb Garth, portrayed brilliantly by Everett Sloane. Garth, fearful the travelers might uncover his dark secret, whips the town into a frenzy to lynch the interlopers. The powerful writing and unflinching examination of intolerance impressed CBS who bought the series. Leonard also landed a sponsorship from Chevrolet, who provided all the vehicles for the production.

The show was finally on the road.

The Show that Nobody Wanted

Martin Milner.

the world is not going to make you an eagle. You’ve got to figure out what you are, and you’ve got to use what you have.

That’s what I did.”

Leonard was so impressed that he signed Maharis to a fiveyear exclusive contract and began featuring him on Naked City, casting him in four episodes, including “Four Sweet Corners”, a roundabout pilot for their new series, tentatively titled “The Searchers.”

After Naked City had run its course, Leonard pitched the show, now dubbed “Route 66”, to his distributor Screen Gems Entertainment. They were initially reluctant to greenlight the production until Leonard agreed to finance the pilot personally. As Rick Daily describes, “He refinanced his house, dipped into his savings, came up with $118,000 and financed the pilot episode himself.” Skeptical that the show would succeed, Screen Gems was nonetheless happy to gamble with Leonard’s money, allowing him 80% ownership of the show and complete creative control.

Filming for the pilot was to begin February 1960 in Concord, Kentucky. All that was left was to replace Robert Morris, who had tragically passed soon after “Four Sweet Corners.” Martin Milner, a practiced thespian who’d begun his career at fifteen, was the perfect fit. Born December 28th, 1931, Milner was the exact opposite of Maharis. Filmmaker John Paget, who worked with Milner in the late ’90s, remembered him as humble and self-effacing: “I could have been a big star if I wasn’t so lazy.” He brought a calm, practiced thoroughness that balanced Maharis’ raw energy.

However, Milner’s hiring sparked a budding resentment in Maharis, as the actor expressed in an interview with Rick Daily: “It was in the contract that if they found somebody 28 ROUTE Magazine

The production of an episode of Route 66 began the way the show started, two men in a car arriving in unknown territory. Along with his ex-stuntman friend John Benson, Stirling Silliphant traveled the country in search of his next story, “All I did was travel and write, travel and write.

I would eat; I would sleep; I would write,” he related to Bloucher in 1986. “For four years, I never had any social date, or any outside life [other] than the show. It was as though you were gone into a monastery. It was absolutely the most total commitment I’ve ever made in my life, and it was the only way the show could’ve been done.” The pair explored off the beaten track in search of interesting locales, Silliphant jotting inspiration onto countless legal pads as Benson drove. “I was constantly trying to stay ahead of the deadline, and trying to stay ahead of the

George Maharis.

pursuing location company, with 40 - 50 people coming in, and not getting a script until maybe just before they were ready to shoot.”

Sam Manners, the production manager, was in charge of the circus on the road. Once an episode was approved, the crew would make their way to the host city, guest actors would fly in from the casting offices in New York and L.A., and filming would begin. The vast distances between the teams called for ad hoc solutions, with scripts often being flown cross country when mail proved too slow. Curiously, Route 66 is only referred to vaguely in a handful of episodes.

America’s Main Street was in those days much too busy for filming.

The crew worked long hours to make the show’s tight deadlines; often pulling seven day weeks. They spent the whole year on the road with only August off. Camaraderie was high despite the strain, and Leonard’s dynamic leadership kept the whole operation on track. Milner and his wife Judith had just begun raising a family, and so he brought them on the road with him. As he related to Bloucher, “Just the logistics of it were difficult because oftentimes the whole company would be staying in a hotel where there were no kitchen facilities, and I’m suddenly there with three kids and a maid and a dog and we’d really need a kitchen. So oftentimes we had to stay someplace [other] than where the company would stay. And then when the rest of the company would be flying from Portland, Oregon, to Chicago, we would drive along with the equipment, because we’d have so much stuff with us; we had to carry all the things you need with children to survive.”

Maharis by contrast hewed much more to the independent audacity of his character. He tended to have a polarizing effect on those who met him. “You either like me or you don’t. I’m not the kind of person who is… well, what should I say? I stand for something I believe in. You like it? Fine. You don’t... [shrugs],” Maharis revealed to Bloucher, “I’m always in the crack of things, in the middle of it, and I enjoy it. I’d rather be in the middle of [a] fire than stoking it. I think it’s more fun; more challenging.”

The show’s popularity turned Maharis into a star almost overnight. His rebellious and energetic demeanor, combined with his good looks, made him a hit with the younger audiences. Crowds of young girls would gather around the set in every town they went, and fan mail inundated Maharis. In addition to his newfound status as a ‘dreamboat,’ Maharis was also starting to receive lucrative film offers from Hollywood, as well as a recording contract with Epic Records. His career having taken off, Maharis was keen to expand his horizons beyond Route 66 but found his efforts stymied by the show’s relentless shooting schedule.

Echo-Virus Near the end of season two, during the filming of episode fifty-four “Even Stones Have Eyes,” Maharis began to get sick. The script called for him to save guest star Barbara Barrie from a river outside of Austin, Texas. As usual, the team was behind schedule and filming ran until 4 am. The water was freezing. Barrie was able to wear a wetsuit underneath her coat, but Maharis’ jacket and trousers couldn’t accommodate the extra layer. He went in unprotected, with only a Vitamin B12 shot from the on-site doctor as a guard against sickness.

Stirling Silliphant.

Maharis later speculated that this shot, given with a non-disposable needle, had something to do with the illness he would contract. After the grueling shoot, the crew immediately moved to Catalina Island, where the script once again had Maharis in and out of the water. Not long after, he woke up one morning to find that the whites of his eyes had gone yellow. He went to the hospital and was diagnosed with hepatitis; he was hospitalized immediately.

The show was down its biggest star, with four episodes left to shoot in the season. Silliphant quickly churned out four new stories featuring only Milner, while the crew stayed in L.A. Buz’s absence was officially explained as his being waylaid by a bout of “echo-virus.” The episodes without Maharis would see a significant dip in the ratings.

Maharis would return to the show as it began its third season. Leonard had promised a soft shooting schedule and told Maharis that he would only be working three to four hours a day. Of course, once he got back on the road, the old break-neck schedule resumed. Frustrated, the actor began to lash out at his co-star. As Rick Daily explains, “There were always the stories about how they didn’t get along on the job. George just absolutely denies that. He says ‘Marty and I were great friends,’ but then you go back and read interviews with George at the time, and he’s just trashing Marty and everybody else left and right.”

In one fiery interview, published by TV Guide in 1963, Maharis attacked Milner at length before summarizing, “He has no concern for anybody. Shall I say he’s lacking in the human qualities and let it go at that?”

ROUTE Magazine 29

Stunned by this outburst, Milner responded calmly in the November 22nd, and its similar subject matter. It never ran same article, “I’m sorry. We never had any trouble during on the network, and aired only during reruns. the first years of the show. I guess this illness has sort of gotten to him, which is understandable.”

After the Series By the time they were filming episode seventy-three “Hey Route 66 was more than a television show, it was a cultural Moth Come Eat The Flame,” Maharis had run out of gas. moment. “The stories were fashioned out of the locations.

He went to a doctor who warned him that if he continued They weren’t dictated out of some Hollywood swimming pool. working he would get cirrhosis of the liver. On January They truly reflected the feelings, the emotions, the attitudes, 18th, 1963, George Maharis made his final appearance on and the prejudices of mainstream America from 1960 to Route 66.

1964,” Silliphant reminisced. He continued to work in film, Leonard, however, didn’t believe that Maharis was sick. writing hits like In the Heat of the Night and The Towering In fact, he suspected Maharis of faking the illness to wiggle Inferno. He also produced the series Longstreet, featuring out of the show and into a movie deal. He then sued the his friend and martial arts teacher Bruce Lee. He eventually actor for breach of contract and threatened to blacklist became fed up with Hollywood and moved to Thailand in him. The case was eventually settled out of court, with each 1988, passing away in side bitterly maintaining Bangkok in 1996. their version of events for Herbert Leonard was decades. never able to achieve the The show was in crisis. same level of success as James Aubrey, President he did with Route 66. of CBS and long-time His many conflicts with critic of the series, called a studio moguls bought meeting with Screen Gems him a lot of enemies, and and Leonard. Despite he struggled to secure the show’s success, it had financing for various been a financial drain on failed pitches. He passed both companies. Adding away from throat cancer to their woes was pressure in 2006. from their advertisers who Martin Milner objected to the sometimes continued working in violent subject matter of television, landing a the series. “The show was co-starring role on the never a smash. It always popular cop show hovered around the ‘danger Adam-12 (1968-1975). of being canceled’ point.”

One of his final projects Silliphant explained to was the documentary Bloucher, “The show Route 66: Return to The had no, what we call Road (1998), revisiting ‘franchise,’ no reason for the highway with a being. It isn’t a show about classic Corvette. Filmed a nurse, a doctor, a cop.

by John Paget, it became What is the show? Two a big hit with Mother guys who are roaming Road enthusiasts. Milner around the country in a passed aged 83 in 2015.

Corvette is not a show.

Martin Milner and Glenn Corbett with guest star George Maharis went Because it had no center, Joan Crawford from an episode of Route 66. 1964. on to have a successful a lot of people in network singing career, producing programming were very six albums and touring extensively. He worked continuously anxious about it.” on-screen, but nothing that reached the success of Route 66.

Nine episodes were shot with Milner alone while Leonard After an arrest for lewd conduct in 1976, roles became hard to scrambled to replace Maharis and keep the show alive. come by. At age 91, he is one of the last surviving members of He settled on Glenn Corbett, casting him as Linc Case, the cast. a recently returned Vietnam veteran. This was early in Perhaps symbolically, as Route 66 went off the air, the America’s involvement in Vietnam, and the show broke new highway it was named after also began to disintegrate. The ground with its frank exploration of subjects like PTSD. show was a historical document, capturing America on But Corbett’s character didn’t connect to audiences like the the cusp of social revolution. Yet, for all that has changed, affably rebellious Buz, and the ratings once again began to pieces of the old America are still out there. Scattered drop. The show was renewed for a shortened fourth season, across the Mother Road, local communities continue to containing what some fans consider its finest episodes, preserve what makes them unique. They are waiting to but despite plans to continue the series in Europe, CBS share their stories with travelers like Tod and Buz, those decided to pull the plug. The final episode, “I’m Here to willing to make their way off the beaten track and down Kill a King” was scheduled to air November 29th, 1963, fabled Route 66. but was postponed because of the Kennedy assassination on 30 ROUTE Magazine

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

Old Capitol Holiday Walk

Discover Springfield, Illinois – one of the most iconic stops on the legendary Route 66. There’s so much to explore all year round in the state capital.

During the holiday season, attractions all around the city deck their halls with festive décor. Take a stroll downtown with carols and Christmas trees on the Old Capitol Holiday Walk. Then, stride through Lincoln’s life in an immersive experience like no other at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. It’s all right here on Route 66.

#VisitSpringfield

PLAN YOUR JOURNEY AT WWW.VISITSPRINGFIELDILLINOIS.COM ROUTE Magazine 31

u

Warhol’s Love of the West

u

k

32 ROUTE Magazine

Photograph courtesy of The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

A

ndy Warhol has figures and imagery like been immortalized the Mother and Child, a as one of the print that depicts a Native world’s most American mother carrying a influential artists of the child on her back. “[General pop art movement. While Custer] represents, in Warhol’s artistic prowess many ways, all the villains extended into other creative represented by the U.S. realms, such as film making, government, channeled photography, and as an author toward him. He became a and a sculptor, he is best lightning rod for all that stuff known for his pop artwork and ultimately retribution using screen printing, a style came to him,” said Grauer. that utilizes mesh screens “Showing Mother and Child to transfer ink onto canvas is a juxtaposition of villain and effectively produce mass and victim. There’s a tension prints. His body of work, between victim, villain, and intertwining commercialism the things they use, which and celebrity culture, makes them more human, introduced an interesting new ultimately. There’s a lot of form of artistic expression and tension in Cowboys and made a profound impact on Indians, and… [it] circles the world of art as we know around to the West being a Andy Warhol, Cowboys and Indians: Sitting Bull, 1986. it today. Some of his most layered story.” celebrated work include the For the first time, Warhol’s 1967 Marilyn Monroe screen print portraits and his 1962 full appreciation of the West will finally receive attention Campbell’s Soup Cans prints which became the most iconic, with Warhol and the West, an extensive traveling exhibition signature pieces of his career. However, what most people that will feature his entire Cowboys and Indians portfolio, don’t realise is that Warhol had a lifelong obsession with along with four additional prints that didn’t make the America’s Wild West culture, an enthrallment that greatly original cut, including an image of Sitting Bull. Also influenced some of his work. included in the exhibition are items from Warhol’s expansive “He grew up in a time when westerns really dominated the collection of western and Native American artifacts, such as silver screen, particularly the 30s and 40s,” notes Michael R. movie stills and clips from his western movies, to a sample Grauer, McCasland Chair of Cowboy Culture and Curator from his Lucchese cowboy boots collection. of Cowboy Collections and Western Art at the National While Warhol does highlight this tension between villain Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. “We know he was and victim in Cowboys and Indians, his appreciation for fascinated with these kinds of films, by the B western.” the romanticized West still shines through these silkscreens, Warhol’s captivation with the American West first emerged as seen in the celebrity figures of the series, such as actor in his 1963 Elvis artwork, where, rather than a guitar in John Wayne and President Teddy Roosevelt. This ultimately hand, Warhol depicted Elvis Presley as a gunslinging cowboy, goes hand-in-hand with the dual messaging that Warhol’s inspired by the role that Elvis played in the 1960 western artwork usually contains: to criticize the popularized Wild movie, Flaming Star. The West’s influence on Warhol’s West, while also celebrating it. “A Dennis Hopper portrait is artistic expression was also evident in the creation of his two [also] in the exhibition, one of [Warhol’s] celebrity paintings. movies: Horse (1965) and Lonesome Cowboys (1968), and They would visit [Hopper’s] house in New Mexico,” explains even into his affinity to wearing cowboy boots; his archives Grauer, who will be curating the exhibit at the National contain 27 pairs!

Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Warhol’s last body of work before he passed away in from January 31, 2020 to May 10, 2020. Warhol and 1987 was the 1986 series, Cowboys and Indians, which Hopper had also owned a Native American artifact shop in provides the most comprehensive look into his examination the state, and while this was a short-lived endeavor, it speaks of the American West. The portfolio satirizes the popular volumes to how the West held sway over Warhol. “Warhol romanticized version of the West by juxtaposing famous played an interpreter, an interpreter mythologizing the western figures like General Custer and Native American West,” notes Grauer.

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34 ROUTE Magazine

By Heide Brandes Images courtesy of Efren Lopez/Route66Images

W

hen Melody Murray was told her eclectic collection of neon signs, fullsized Barbie mannequins and oversized red arrows were “bringing down the property values at their trailer park,” she did the only rational thing she could think of. She opened a boutique shop on historic Route 66 in Elk City, Oklahoma.

Now, America’s most beloved highway has always been known to embrace the unexpected: Catoosa’s Big Blue Whale or larger than life Muffler Men that dot the old road, the bedazzling: the fantastic neon signs that light up the night at places like The Blue Swallow Motel, Munger Moss Motel and downtown strip in Gallup, New Mexico, to the downright odd like the Uranus complex in St Robert’s, Missouri and Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch in the desert of California, but few boutiques along the fabled highway are quite able to rival Murray’s vision for quirky.

In a word, it’s hard to miss Bazaar on 66 in the heart of Elk City’s downtown. Giant old-fashioned light-up marquee letters in red and gold spell out the shop’s name, and the same red arrow that her trailer park neighbors hated points boldly toward the front door.

A life-sized jaunty and smiling Ronald McDonald statue waves at passers-by from the front porch of the building tucked neatly on the corner of Randall Street and W. 3rd, and a red and white race car sits upon a post in front of the store.

Inside, the shop is just as weird and wonderful as the outside. The full-sized Barbie that started Murray’s fascination with all things unusual has an honored place in the shop that sells fun and pithy signs that spout sayings like “Howdy!” or “Where the Heck is Easy Street?”, Route 66 clothing and country collectibles. A giant black cat glares down from the ceiling.

The truly unique part of the store – and Melody’s favorite section – is stuffed with unicorns.

“Oh golly, I always wanted a store. We literally got stuck with this building, and its a pretty good property, so we thought, ‘Let’s make a store and, we’ll see what happens,’ Murray said. “I wanted something different, something to set myself apart as just not another boutique. So, we just kinda went with it and I don’t really know what happened. Here we are. That’s the real truth.”

As Route 66 in Elk City’s newest boutique, Murray and her Bazaar on 66 have created something magical, but it all started with the lake house.

Marching to Her Own Drum In many ways, Murray is the human equivalent to her shop.

She bubbles with energy through her thin frame and big round eyes. Conversations go into tangents about funny people in her life, she has a rat rod she drives occasionally in the back (complete with a beer keg gas tank and a radiator overflow made from a Jaegermeister bottle), she is best 36 ROUTE Magazine

friends with the notorious Sand Hill Curiosity Shop owner Harley Russell III, and she once (temporarily) tattooed “grateful” on the arm of an elderly woman who had an epilepsy attack in her store - after getting her help, of course.

She grew up on a farm in east Texas, and while admittedly being a girl who danced to her own beat, her obsession with collecting didn’t hit until later. “I grew up on 600 acres, and I didn’t have any friends to play with. I had a horse and I rode him every day,” she said.

Murray graduated from Hallsville High School in East Texas, and was three hours shy of earning her teaching accreditation from The University of Texas in Tyler.

“I thought I wanted to be a teacher until they put me in a classroom for my student teaching. I knew right that moment that teaching wasn’t for me.”

Instead, she left college and worked in her father’s health store. One day, a football coach from one of the schools wandered in to try to sell an ad for the school football team.

“Cute little Jarrod comes into the store, but we had a rule that we didn’t buy anything from the schools because there were so many of them,” said Murray. “But he was so cute, and I wanted him to come back, so I told him to come the next day to talk to my dad.”

Jarrod climbed back into the truck with his other football pals, but already had a plan. “I told them I was going to marry that girl,” he said.

He returned the next day and returned again and again.

After just two months of dating, he proposed to Murray on her birthday, and the two tied the knot a mere 10 days after she said “yes.”

But coaching doesn’t pay much, so when Jarrod was offered a significant pay raise to work in the oilfield business, the young couple jumped at the chance. Melody and Jarrod Murray moved to Elk City in 2006 with their three children in tow, and while a small-town girl, she didn’t know much about the Oklahoma town or its Route 66 history.

“I didn’t know anything about Elk City, but we went to the Route 66 Museum here a couple of times. Just because, you know, there’s not a whole lot to do here,” she said.

Although they lived in Elk City, Murray and her family set their sights on a vacation “lake house,”—a brand-new double-wide trailer—at Lake Texoma in south Oklahoma near Ardmore. Murray’s mother and her in-laws had lake homes on Lake Texoma, and they wanted their vacation home to be fun and unforgettable.

“So, I get this lake house, and we just make it fun with all that stuff you want to really put in your house, but you’re normal and you can’t,” she said. “I was a stay-at-home mom, but it was really boring. There’s only so much house you can clean. So we got a fun lake house.”

The couple collected random neon signs for the back porch of the trailer. The signs came from flea markets and online so Jarrod could create “his back porch hangout.”

There were so many neon signs that motorists accidentally mistook the trailer home for a store, she said.

“It was interesting because people would come in and try to buy milk or beer because we had this circle driveway, and I can see where they think it looks kind of like a store,” Murray admits. “But we also had Barbie in the window.”

The blazing neon signs and the life-like Barbie peeking out from the front of the trailer with the “No Vacancy”

Melody Murray outside of the shop.

sign was bad enough for the neighbors, but add in random mannequin legs sticking out of the bathtub and giant Ronald McDonald and Captain Morgan statues waving to visitors, and the neighbors had enough.

“They complained to my mom, who also had a lake house, that we were bringing down the value of the trailer park,” Murray laughed. “That kind of hurt my feelings. I just had all this weird stuff and people didn’t like it. I really think they were jealous.”

Melody’s mom, Carla Salmon, blamed the complaints on a few stuck-up neighbors.

“It was cute, and all lit up with the signs. Every once in a while, people would pull up and want to order a drink, and she’d tell them, ‘We’re not serving right now’,” Salmon laughed. “Most of the neighbors loved it, but you always have a few in the crowd that frown at everything. There were a few snooty ones down there.”

Jarrod thought the place was perfect too.

“We were trying to create a party. It was a fun place that people wanted to come and sit in and enjoy a beer,” he said. “We had one of the nicest places. No one else had an 8- foot-tall Captain Morgan sitting on their back porch.”

In 2016, Murray started moving her beloved treasures out of the lake house, but still didn’t think about opening a store.

How Bazaar on 66 came to be is another story altogether.

Lemons Out of Lemonade While Murray was freaking out her neighbors at Lake Texoma, her husband had an opportunity to open a car shop in Elk City. He bought the building to eliminate rent, but the venture fell through.

“It was a business deal gone wrong,” said Jarrod. “Me and the other guy were headed in different directions, and I opened Jughead’s Garage and he opened up another shop.

I ended up with the building. [Melody] always wanted to open a shop, and that’s what she did.”

She ordered the light-up marquee letters and, because the property was along Route 66, decided to pay homage to The Mother Road. But she didn’t realize how popular Route 66 was until travelers came in from all over the world.

Bazaar on 66 opened in September 2017, making it one of the newest boutique businesses on Elk City’s stretch of Route 66.

“When she opened Bazaar on 66, Melody created a great asset. It’s a fun, unique place, and she is a fun and unique ROUTE Magazine 37

person. She really played up the decorations on the outside, and I think that was very smart of her,” said Susie Cupp, Executive Director of the Elk City Chamber of Commerce.

But despite the sparkling marquee, giant arrow and waving Ronald McDonald, the grand opening wasn’t what Murray had hoped for. “I stood here for days and nobody would come. People would come in, but they wanted me to fix their car because this was a car shop before.”

These days, Murray has her regulars, many of whom come in just for the unicorns, which take up a big part of the shop.

Unicorn stuffed animals, stickers, toys and figurines adorn the center counter because, simply, Murray loves them.

Nicole Thiessen of Elk City is one of those regulars. She and her two daughters Taytum and Murray getting the shop ready.

Taylee are frequent shoppers at Bazaar on 66.

More than 40,000-60,000 vehicles per day whiz around “We go in at least once a week,” Thiessen said. “There is Elk City along I-40, which was built in 1957 and heralded just an atmosphere to her shop that [we] love. It even has a the end of Route 66’s reign. special smell. She comes to the door to greet every person who walks in. My daughters are in it for the unicorns. Most of the unicorns we have are from her store.”

Inking the Deal Murray also has her own items, the odd and weird Murray now loves her adopted town and is still surprised collectibles, for sale, but they have a higher price. The giant by the visitors who pass through Bazaar on 66. unicorn head that looms over the cash register, she actively “Taiwan, Germany, Canada, Italy, Belgium—they come tries to talk people out of buying, because she wants to keep from all over. One couple from Italy was traveling Route 66 him. The massive black cat – easily the size of a young calf – for their honeymoon,” said Murray. “That’s when I realized used to climb up the side of her lake house, but now lounges what a special thing Route 66 is.” on a ladder from the ceiling.

Murray wants to do away with the soft-paper guest sign-in “That big black cat was fun,” said her mother. “You don’t book. She has a mannequin torso she wants visitors to sign see things like that every day.” instead.

“Don’t you think that’ll be fun?” she asked. An odd idea to As the Crowe Flies many, perhaps, but that is just the way that Murray sees the Elk City is a quiet town located along Interstate 40 near the world, and her enthusiasm is contagious. western Oklahoma border. With a population of 11,555, it’s Melody and Jarrod Murray have since sold their controverhome to the National Route 66 Museum and embraces its sial lake house and today, the trailer with the giant black cat Mother Road history with growing pride. climbing up the side and the glow of neon signs is just a plain Originally called Crowe, the name changed to Busch when trailer again. the townspeople thought the name would attract Adolphus “Most of her stuff is gone,” said her mother. “Melody is Busch to put a brewery in the budding city. capable of doing whatever she puts her mind to. Truthfully, Alas, Busch wasn’t impressed enough to build a brewery, so I can’t see any reason for her not doing the shop and being the town officially changed its name to Elk City in 1901, after great at it. She has the personality for it.”

Indian Chief Elk River who lived in the area years before.

Jarrod agrees, “When she decides she wants to do someRoute 66 cuts through the heart of the western Oklahoma thing, she does it to the fullest. It’s one of the most amazing town, and like other small towns along the fabled road, places I’ve seen.”

Elk City has seen a resurgence of interest in Route 66.

And to note a point, the property values along 66 haven’t “All communities that have Route 66 through them see an plummeted. The impact of her new boutique seems to be economic impact. The road draws people to the community, having just the opposite effect on would-be consumers. They and Elk City is one of the places you absolutely must visit if are more than enthralled to soak in a little bit of bizarre, at you’ve never been here,” said Cupp. the Bazaar on 66.

38 ROUTE Magazine

DISCOVER CLINTON, OKLAHOMA

WHERE ROUTE 66 TRULY COMES ALIVE!

• HIS TORI C HOTE L S• D IV E RS E D INING• •M OHAW K LOD G E IND IAN S TORE• •THE WATE R ZOO•

www.clintonokla.org

Route 66 and the

W I L D E Y T H E AT R E

A

mongst the many unique theatres that dot the diverse Mother Road landscape, there is one Illinois venue that continues to stand out today, reinventing itself as it goes. The Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville has been welcoming travelers off of Route 66 for more than a century, with the promise of a quality show and some exceptional popcorn. At a respectable age of 110-yearsold, the theatre’s journey from 1 to 110 years has been filled with plenty of fun characters, colorful renovations, and even a temporary close that had left many wondering if the theatre’s lights would ever shine again. But they did.

Created back in 1909, the theatre was built by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a national organization that helped create civic projects in the U.S. The Odd Fellows used the third floor of the Wildey as a meeting room while the first floor served as a 1,150-seat theatre, all done up in Victorian style.

Back then, one could see vaudeville shows and musicals, along with more community-based events, such as school plays and band concerts.

Since its inception, the Wildey has been renovated extensively, with its initial look getting a facelift in 1937 to give it the more popular art deco style.

Besides its physical appearance, the number of seats in the theatre also shrank. “It went down to 826 [seats] when it became a movie theatre [in 1937],” noted Al Canal, the general manager and talent buyer of the Wildey Theatre. Since then, the number of seats at the Wildey has continued to reduce to a cozy 325. “I joke that when they redo the theatre again, [there will] only be 25 seats in the place.”

Beyond the entertainment and atmosphere, perhaps the most memorable aspect of the Wildey is the colorful characters who were once connected to the venue, including Verna Duffy, who was the manager of the theatre in the 60’s and 70’s. “Verna was well known for being tough in the place. She always checked the balcony with a flashlight [and] you better not be trying to kiss your date because she would come back there and flash the light on you,” said Canal.

“She didn’t put up with any nonsense in the place.”

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Another former Wildey employee, Joan Evers, is a local Wildey historian with an impressive collection of Wildey artifacts. “She always had a deep love for the theatre,” said Canal. “I’ve been here with the theatre for 5 ½ years. Joan told me the history of the theatre. She showed me her deep love and passion for the building, and it rubbed off on me.”

Evers also shared her knowledge of the Wildey by giving tours of the theatre, and while she has retired from this job, she is still known to pop into the Wildey every once in a while.

Despite its vintage appeal, cozy ambiance, and charming personalities, the Wildey closed its doors as a full-time theatre in 1984 — their last movie seating over 400 people for a showing of the The Big Chill. The theatre remained relatively untouched for more than a decade until the city of Edwardsville purchased it in 1999 and began renovations.

But this was met with some local criticism. “There was some pushback,” noted Canal.

“It was expensive, it was an expensive proposition for the city.” Despite the criticism, the Wildey was able to proudly reopen its doors to the public in 2011.

Today, the Wildey has reciprocated the love it has received by doing acts of charity. “We raise money for [the] Special Olympics, help the [local] food pantry, [and] other places. I always say, if you want the community to support you, you’ve got to support the community.”

And that support has come back in leaps and bounds as the Wildey continues to attract visitors, whether they are from the area or travelers along Route 66. Local businesses also feel the love when the Wildey has a show going on. “When we have a show the restaurant on Main Street [tells] me that they are so much busier. The theatre has definitely brought in tourism,” noted Canal. “It’s a beacon for the community, it’s a beacon for the city.”

From blues and country music concerts to classic films on the Big Screen, the Wildey always has something going on to bring people through its doors, and its rich history of 110 years only heightens its appeal. The Wildey is yet another great reason to spend some time in the quaint Route 66 town of Edwardsville.

ROUTE Magazine 41

THE COMM 42 ROUTE Magazine

A CONVERSATION WITH

ALAN ALDA

By Brennen Matthews Photographs by Matt Licari

UNICATOR ROUTE Magazine 43

B

orn on January 28, 1936, in the Bronx, New York, to Robert Alda, himself a successful actor, and Joan Browne, Alan Alda is a name that rings familiar to most in America, at least to those who were fortunate enough to be children of the 70s and/or 80s.

A winner of six Emmy Awards (he was nominated for 21), six Golden Globes, three Director Guild of America awards, two Tony awards, and an Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actor, there is a reason why Alda is an icon.

The actor has worked on major television series such as The West Wing, ER, 30 Rock and Blacklist. He has also worked with major players in films such as Bridge of Spies with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and The Aviator with Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese, but the main reason that Alan Alda is a household name is largely due to his 11 unforgettable seasons on one of America’s most beloved shows, M*A*S*H. Starring as the witty, comical, somewhat cynical Dr. Hawkeye Pierce, Alda developed into one of the most respected, soughtafter thespians of his generation, and when the show ended in 1983 (over 106 million people tuned-in to say good-bye to the 4077th), he was just getting started.

However, before all that, after a unique childhood of getting to live and travel across the country with his show business father, Alda decided to stick close to home and attend school in New York. In 1956, he graduated from Fordham University, walking away with a degree in English and a wide-open landscape. More importantly perhaps, Alda met the love of his

life while in Fordham – Ms. Arlene Weiss – a fun attractive girl who was studying at Hunter College. The pair met at a mutual friend’s diner party, married after Alda graduated, and went on to have three daughters. That was 62 years ago!

Alda is somewhat of an imposing character. He is confident and outspoken, hardworking and not overly in the public eye these days. I am a little nervous to meet him but excited at the same time. I am not generally overly starstruck, but I do have enormous respect for his work and for what the actor has been able to accomplish. He has written no less than four books, two of them memoirs, and has gone on to create the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science. Alda has a passion for helping scientists and health professionals find ways to communicate complex topics in a more clear and engaging manner. In 2018, he launched his own podcast – Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda. I listened to a number of his shows and quickly became enamored with his ease in communicating with his guests. It is an interesting, entertaining podcast that showcases discussions with a wide variety of personalities from Carol Burnett and Melinda Gates to Yo-Yo Ma. Alda is also involved in charity work and continues to work in film and television. This month he stars in Marriage Story opposite Scarlett Johansson, Ray Liotta, Laura Dern and Adam Driver.

As I discovered Alan Alda of 2019, my appreciation for the man, not merely the actor, grew and my interest widened. But it was still surreal when that unmistakable voice softly rang out in a totally unassuming manner, “Hi, I’m Alan.”

When you look back to 1972, when you first arrived on the set of the 4077th, do you remember what stood out to you most or what your thoughts or feelings were when you were first beginning M*A*S*H?

This is the first time I’ve heard McLean Stevenson ever connected with the word “normal.” (Laughs) He was a very funny guy, but he had very offbeat humor and we all loved him for that.

I remember it pretty well, even though it was a long time ago. I was doing the show because I had the assurance from the producer and the head writer that we wouldn’t just do hi-jinks at the ‘Front’; that we would confront the reality of the war as a bad place to be. In spite of the fact that it was basically a comedy. But, none of us wanted to do a thoroughly silly comedy, which most shows that took place during war had done up until then. I guess networks felt that they couldn’t mix comedy with the reality of the pain of war, and we all worked on that. It took us a while to get outside writers to realize that we weren’t doing a standard service comedy. Progressively, show after show, it found its balance of comedy and different kinds of comedy. I mean, we were free to do a lot of different kinds of shows. But, the balance between comedy and a more serious approach was one that we were aiming for from the beginning.

What did you think when he chose to leave the show? Loretta Swit said that McLean had told her that he was leaving, after Season 3, because he wanted to be the star of a show and did not want to remain part of an ensemble cast anymore.

Did you have natural synergy with the rest of the cast, especially the leads, when you first joined?

Yeah, as colleagues and collaborators, we worked really hard to be a unit and to think of ourselves as a group dedicated to something that was larger than any one of us. So, there was no hierarchy on the show that I was aware of.

A lot of our readers are very passionate about Route 66, the historic highway. One of your co-stars, McLean Stevenson, came from Normal, Illinois, which is a great Route 66 town.

44 ROUTE Magazine

Well, I was certainly aware that McLean had an offer that he thought was very enticing and it would put him as the lead of a show. But we all felt, I thought it was universal, that we all realized we were part of an ensemble that was able, due to the power of the ensemble, to do things that were extraordinary in television. But McLean made a career decision that I think he regretted afterwards because it didn’t work out the way it seemed it would originally. To be part of an ensemble on a groundbreaking show is, to me, more interesting than being the lead in a show that’s more ordinary.

Do you think that there was a lot of pressure on Mike Farrell when he joined the show in the role of B. J. Hunnicutt? Were people on pins and needles waiting to see how the chemistry would be?

No. no, not at all. When you replace characters, of course there’s a concern that the characters will be appreciated by the audience. But the producers made very good decisions, I thought, in not trying to repeat the relationships for the character that the departing actors were playing. But to bring in totally new people and to add the effect of reviving the relationships because they were different people, so we got

different stories out of them. And it would turn out to be a really good decision on their part, not to try to follow a formula, but to strike out in new directions.

You were mainly asking about professional tensions, but there were personal tensions, because we’re all different people, and each of us had a different way of relating to everybody else. And we dealt with that consciously by, every Friday night, one of us would send out for pizza and beer and we’d sit around for a few hours together in a circle of chairs and complain to each other about the previous week. It was almost like group therapy, but we got to be very close in the process and, beyond that, the way we approached the day’s work was similar. We didn’t go back to our dressing rooms between shots. We stayed together and kidded each other and laughed. Sometimes we’d go over our lines together, but mainly there was relating to one another in a personal way which we were able to bring to the set, on camera, when it came time to play the scene, because we had achieved a personal connection that would work in the scene and give the scene more life than it might otherwise have had if we had just walked in and started acting cold.

The ending of M*A*S*H was a real tear-jerker, especially when Hawkeye took off and B. J. wrote the message in stones “goodbye.” Was the cast happy with the ending?

Was it really difficult after all those years together to no longer show up on-set the next day?

It was very difficult. The last show we did was not the two-hour show that ended the series, because that was a long piece that had to be filmed before, so that I had time to edit it. But the last show we did was the show that was broadcast, I think next to last, or one of the final shows where we buried a time capsule. That was the last show we shot, and there was a lot of crying during the whole week.

Who were you closest with on the show?

Interestingly, when Wayne [Rogers] was on the show, I was closest to him. And when Mike [Farrell] was on the show, I was closest to him. They played the close friends of the character.

What do you think are some of the bigger stumbling blocks to people communicating?

Not listening. When you’re communicating, if you’re not listening to the person you’re trying to communicate with, you’re pretty much out of luck, because you’re just spraying your thoughts at them, spraying information at them. You don’t know if it’s landing in their head, you don’t know what they really care about. What are you telling them? Are you telling them about what you care about or what they care about? In the process of trying to make a point with someone or convey information to them, of course you have to be true to what you’re saying, I’m not suggesting that you only tell people what they want to hear, but you have to engage them.

You have to find out what part of them is listening and speak to that part of them.

You talk in your book Never Have Your Dog Stuffed and Other Things I’ve Learned, about when your dad guest-starred on M*A*S*H and how when you were rehearsing together, you sort

of took control, offering suggestions on how he should say his lines. He jokingly asked if you were directing the episode. In the book you shared, “No matter what progress I made in my work, no matter how smart I thought I was, in many ways, I was still an adolescent boy with a father I needed to best.” Why do you think that sons historically have that feeling of competitiveness towards their fathers, especially once they’re in adolescence and young adulthood?

A lot of people have tried to figure that out. Freud, Sapolsky.

A lot of people have come up with different theories, so I don’t think I’m qualified to answer the question. But I know that I felt a competitive stance toward my father, which, the older I get, [the more] I realize was kind of unwarranted, because he was a very gentle person and very forgiving and very kind. But for some reason, I felt competitive toward him. So, a lot of my adult life was devoted to trying to understand that and reconcile my feelings toward him as a person, with how I felt as a son.

What lessons do you think you learned from your dad, and if any, how did that impact your own parenting of your daughters?

I don’t remember trying to learn a lesson about parenting from my parents. I learned more about most things from my wife. I think she’s a very smart and wise person and I’m lucky to have had her in my life.

You’ve been married for a long time now.

62 years.

You belong to a generation that valued relationships and commitment. What is the key to a successful relationship?

How do you stay married for 62 years?

I don’t think anybody knows. Our secret is that we love each other, so you might try that. Arlene’s joke is that the secret ROUTE Magazine 45

to adjust. I had seen my father be famous when I was a little boy. He was a very famous movie star in the forties, Broadway star in the fifties. And, even though I had seen that and seen the pressures on him, I wasn’t prepared for the pressures on me. It’s very difficult to be out in public and have a crowd grabbing at you, physically grabbing at you. A lot of people think it would be great if only they were famous, but it’s not so great. It’s a job to cope with.

It’s a job to cope with it and it took me at least… I was very uncomfortable for about six months, and [had] nightmares and that kind of thing. But, I’m more comfortable with it now, partly because a lot of the pressure is off because I’m not in prime time every week.

You played Senator Arnold Vinick on the final two seasons of The West Wing. What was your experience like joining an already successful show with an already established cast?

to a long marriage is a short memory. I think you have to remember that when the inevitable disagreement comes up, and it will, that the person you’re arguing with is someone you love more than anything in the world. And if you remember that, it kind of changes the tone of voice.

How did you maintain a strong and healthy marriage, especially during the M*A*S*H years, when you were onset for so long and so often?

No, we adapted to it. We worked on it. When I’d be landing at the airport at 5am in the morning, I’d remind myself that I wasn’t on the movie set anymore. I was with my family.

We would use the hour, Arlene would meet me at the airport and would drive me to our house in New Jersey, and we’d have that hour together. It was a ritual that we benefitted from a lot.

How did fame impact you and has it changed over the years?

I don’t know if it’s any different now. There were plenty of paparazzi at the time, and it was very difficult for me

It wasn’t difficult, in fact, I loved the writing on that show.

That’s always the most interesting thing to me about deciding whether or not to do something. They called me up and asked if I wanted to run for president on the show.

And that’s all I knew about it. But I trusted them because they were doing such extraordinarily good work, and I was very glad that I did. I had a great time and I learned a lot doing The West Wing. It was written by people who had actual experience in politics, and it was an inside look at the political world. And as a result, I saw things that I didn’t get from the newspapers or television reports. The way they’d sit and take apart every word in a press release and make sure that they were covering all their bases. It was something I hadn’t thought about before. Every word that they said publicly had an effect on some aspect of their political lives and that was very interesting to see.

As an actor, do you feed into a lot of the writing and character development?

No, on shows like ER, or The West Wing, I just tried to find out what they had in mind for the character and try to play that. The only effect I had on M*A*S*H, in terms of the character, or any of the characters, was when I was writing the show. All in all, I wrote about ten percent of M*A*S*H. I directed about thirty-five of the shows. But I never, I never… it’s a myth that I was somehow guiding the show.

The show was always guided by the producers. I was not a producer. I would make suggestions once in a great while, and unless it was something I was writing, it was up to them whether they wanted to take the suggestion or not.

“AS ROUTE 66 SPED PAST THE WINDOW, IT WAS MORE LIKE ROUTE SIXTY-TWOAND-A-HALF. BUT I STILL HAVE PLEASANT MEMORIES OF THAT BRIEF GLIMPSE” 46 ROUTE Magazine

You’ve mentioned in past conversations that numerous times people have asked you if it was difficult to play a Republican senator, presidential candidate. But nobody has ever really asked if it was difficult to play some of your darker roles. That’s interesting.

For me, my job is to find that part of me that is just like the character. We all have a lot of parts to us, and it’s the fun of it too. To dig into your imagination, to dig into your, into the different attitudes you have and don’t always act on, and don’t always express, and find out how you’re just like the person, even if he’s a serial killer. There’s nothing… I always thought it would be interesting to play Hitler.

So, why do you think people have asked you that question, if it was difficult playing a Republican?

I guess they assume that there’s some checkpoint beyond which a person won’t go to see the humanity of another person that they’re trying to portray. I don’t think of Republicans as being people who are only defined by one attribute, any more than I think that Democrats are. I know plenty of Democrats who are lousy people. That’s such a small, short-sighted way of looking at people.

We’re not our jobs, we’re not the mistakes we make.

We’re not the regrettable behavior we engage in, in fact, you wouldn’t have drama if everybody avoided regrettable behavior and only wrote about or played people who were saccharinely sweet and lovely.

We live in a world right now, especially in America, where things are extremely polarized and where people are actually breaking off key relationships based on political and worldviews. Do you have any thoughts on the current situation? How do we come together, how do we start to heal the nation?

Well, that’s a pretty tall order. But I think some baby steps we can take include relating to one another as people and not as the signals that we respond to with disgust. We all have children, we all value life, we all want to avoid pain, we all have someone we love, we’re all Americans, we all want the country to do well and be well regarded. There are a lot of things that we share as people, and if we keep reminding ourselves of that, we have a better chance of getting together than if we keep diminishing one another. We have to appeal to one another as people in the same boat, trying to row in the same direction.

You appeared on the CBS television show Route 66 in 1963.

Was that opportunity a memorable experience?

When I was starting out as an actor, I was getting jobs on maybe two television shows a year. One year, I was hired for the small part of a lab assistant on Route 66. I flew out from New York to one of the towns along the great Route 66 and spent the night in my hotel room thinking about how I’d play my part.

This shouldn’t have taken all night, because the whole part was only about five lines long. But I was young and not overloaded with experience and I got wrought up emotionally about the whole thing — a little bit of overkill, since all I was supposed to do was give the two leading actors the lab results. One of them listened to my indignation at what the results showed

and looked at me with surprise and said a line not in the script: “Hey, don’t blame us, we’re just asking.” It was an early acting lesson in relating to the person who was actually standing in front of me, instead of to something entirely in my head.

That is a great story. Have you traveled on Route 66, otherwise?

My first trip along Route 66 was when my father had packed us up in the family car [in 1950] to drive from Los Angeles to New York. He was leaving behind seven years in the movies to start rehearsal a few days later for Guys and Dolls on Broadway. He only had about three days to make the trip and we pretty much went 90 miles an hour the whole way.

As Route 66 sped past the window, it was more like Route sixty-two-and-a-half. But I still have pleasant memories of that brief glimpse.

You told Carol Burnett that you get nervous talking on the telephone.

Yeah, I don’t like the telephone.

What makes you nervous about it?

I have no idea. When the phone rings, I wait for somebody else to answer it. I don’t think I’ve ever liked talking on the phone.

I love your podcast, Clear+Vivid. Are there any particular conversations that you’ve had on the show that have left a lasting impact on you, more than the others?

You know, we’ve done almost seventy conversations so far on Clear+Vivid. I can’t think of one that hasn’t been a revelation to me and really enjoyable to have. There’s one that came on the air on October 8th, that I really connected with deeply. It’s not a conversation with one person but with about a dozen women scientists from three different generations [who] talked about how things once were for women in science, how they’ve changed, how they haven’t changed, and what can be done about that. It’s very moving because it’s very personal and very telling in their conversations about what women in science have to go through to make their contribution in [the field].

Do you ever get nervous when you first start talking to a guest?

No, because I’m curious about them and I want to know as much as I can about them. The things that I ask them are based on my curiosity. I don’t go in with a list of questions, I’m aware of maybe ten things I’m curious about that I want to hear from them. I don’t have an agenda.

Have you ever had anyone that you’ve invited on take a pass on the show?

We tried to get Michelle Obama when she was very busy promoting her book, so it’s very often [that] you’re in competition with other people who want to talk to the same person. But pretty much, surprisingly, a surprising number of people are making themselves available. Tom Hanks is going to be on the show, Spike Lee, some amazing scientists, musicians, Yo-Yo Ma… ROUTE Magazine 47

If you could choose anyone to sit down and have a chat with on the podcast, do you have a dream guest?

No, I can’t say I do. People occur to us, some of them are famous, some are not so well known, but they all have something really interesting to say about relating and communicating. One of the most striking is the first show with Sarah Silverman. Her story is extraordinary. She was on her Twitter feed when she saw a response to her from a man who had a one-word tweet, which was [perhaps] the most insulting thing you can say to a woman. And, instead of blocking him or going into a tirade toward him, she looked up his profile, found out a little bit about him and said, “You sound like you’re in a lot of pain and it seems to me that anger arises from that much pain.” She [spoke] from a place of love, and he answered her back and said, “I don’t have any love, that was torn out of me by a man who abused me when I was a child.” She answered him with the address of a place where he could go to get therapy and found a place where I think he was treated for free. He took the therapy, his life is on the mend, and they exchange friendly messages all the time now.

That’s an extraordinary example of what can happen when somebody reaches back with love rather than anger.

Yeah, and she took a real chance because she could have exposed herself to even more vitriol and hatred.

How do you get guests on the show to open-up with you and communicate more clearly and honestly?

Well, my own personality, I think, keeps me from being invasive. I wouldn’t try to get somebody to say something that they felt was too personal. But I am curious enough about them to ask, sometimes I ask if I can ask. And I try to convey to them that I’m not going to put them in a bad light.

One of the rules in improvising is that you try to make your partner look good. The people that I try to communicate with I think of as my communication partners and not the objects of my communication. That’s especially true in the conversation where I’m trying to learn about the person I’m talking with. I try to be a good partner.

A friend once said an interesting thing. He said that he thought there was a difference between being personal and private. Some things are personal, and some things are private. Part of the work of an artist, certainly an actor, is to be personal. But that doesn’t mean you have to make private things public.

One thing that you’ve made public, somewhat recently, is your diagnosis of Parkinson’s. You told CBS that it all stemmed from a dream you had. In the dream, someone was attacking you and you threw a sack of potatoes at them, and you said, “but what I was really doing was throwing a pillow at my wife.” And then you went in and got checked by the doctor, and even the doctor was puzzled that you wanted to get checked for any type of illness like Parkinson’s. What was so alarming to you about that dream that caused you to say, “Wow, I think I better go get checked out?”

I had read an article in the New York Times, by Jane Brody, who writes about health. She reported that two doctors who 48 ROUTE Magazine

specialize in Parkinson’s had told her that a high percentage of their patients who acted out their dreams like that turned out to have Parkinson’s. So, I wanted to take a scan to see if I had it, because I didn’t have any other physical signs that I was aware of. The first doctor I saw examined me and said, “I don’t see any signs that you have Parkinson’s, why do you want a scan?” I said, “I think I’ve got it and if I have it, I want to start therapy immediately while there’s still time to hold off the progress of the disease.” That’s why I eventually spoke publicly about it, because I wanted other people to know [that] if you’ve just got a diagnosis, don’t retreat into the myth that your life is over. There’s plenty you can do to hold off the progress of the worst of it. Not to say that when it gets really bad that life is rosy, it’s a terrible disease at its worst. But you can hold that off for some time.

What does Parkinson’s mean practically for you then?

Well, it personally means I have to spend a lot of time each day doing exercises. Vocal exercises, physical exercises, I box, I juggle, I march to Sousa music, I do a lot of different kinds of stretches, I do a whole lot of things. It takes a lot of time.

It takes me two or three times as long to get dressed because it’s harder to button shirts. There are subtle changes. Picture wearing woolen mittens and then [try to] set your watch back three hours. It’s kinda hard to do.

But I’m working on it and I’m happy I’m still working as an actor. I’m doing Ray Donovan, the movie Marriage Story is coming out next month. It’s a brilliant movie and I’m very proud to be in it with these gorgeous actors. Scarlett Johansson really deserves an Academy Award for those performances because they’re extraordinary.

You’ll be 84 years old in January? Does getting older bother you?

I don’t think of eighty-four as much of a milestone. I don’t look to the year, even the big ones, as meaning too much.

By big ones, I mean the round numbers. I’m just trying to get as much done as I can in the time I have. None of us knows how much time we have. And, we’ve all got to go.

The experience I had in Chile, sixteen years ago, really introduced me to the concept of dying, because I didn’t know if I was going to wake up from the operation*. It really, to a great extent, cured me of being afraid of dying. I know it’s going to happen… the lights will go out and that will be it. But that happens every night when I go to sleep. So, the difference is I wake up alive, usually. *In the fall of 2003, Alda was in Chile recording a segment for Scientific American Frontiers. While there he came down with incredible cramps in his abdomen. The pain got worse, his stomach swelled considerably, and he was rushed to a local emergency room. The doctor diagnosed Alda with a potentially deadly intestinal obstruction. Alda was advised that the medical team could either operate there and then or he could be transferred to a larger hospital in the capital city, Santiago. Alda let them operate where they were.

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ROUTE Magazine 49

50 ROUTE Magazine

THE LARGEST ANTIQUE EVER SOLD

By Mary P. Martin ROUTE Magazine 51

“T

he London Bridge is a testament to the indomitable American spirit of innovation,” Terence Concannon, President/CEO of Go Lake Havasu said of Lake Havasu City’s oldest antique. “We are proud to have this iconic landmark in our city. The London Bridge not only honors the American spirit of innovation and creativity, but also the historic relationship between the United States and Great Britain.”

Bearing battle scars, bullet holes and inscriptions from World War II soldiers, the famed London Bridge, the very same bridge that spanned the Thames River for 137 years, has manifold stories to tell. It survived the Battle of Britain and has felt the footsteps of British royalty.

This bridge was not the first iteration; there have actually been several bridges bearing the name “London Bridge” over the Thames. On July 4, 1823, architect John Rennie’s design was accepted for a new bridge; it opened in London on August 1, 1831.

It is Rennie’s bridge that now spans Lake Havasu in sunny Arizona. Some say it is haunted, regularly visited by friendly spirits. Whatever the case, this 188-year-old structure is Lake Havasu City’s largest and oldest antique.

So how did London’s most famous bridge come to be located in the middle of the Arizona desert? We must travel back centuries, and over 5400 miles for the answers.

History and Legend For nearly 2000 years, beginning with a wooden crossing believed to have existed in the first century A.D., London had a bridge that crossed the River Thames. In 53 A.D., Roman Legions built a pontoon bridge of timbers from nearby woodlands.

There is little further mention of a London Bridge until the reign of King Edgar (959-975 A.D.), when there is reference to a bridge that was so broad, two wagons could pass on it. That bridge stood until 1014, when Danish pirates seized London.

Sir John Rennie.

The British then enlisted the help of Viking chieftain Olaf Haralsen.

Olaf and his men covered their longships to protect themselves from spears and rocks being hurled from London Bridge, rowed up to the pilings and tossed stout ropes around them. They then rowed downstream, pulling the bridge and everything on it, into the water.

Olaf’s minstrel composed new verses for his master’s saga, beginning “Stridsdjerv Brot Du Londonsbro”. That phrase later translated into English as “London Bridge is broken down”, and from this, the nursery rhyme evolved. By 1176, a successor to that bridge had been twice destroyed and twice rebuilt; Londoners chanted the English version of Olaf’s saga, revising the lyrics to include “Build it up with stone so strong.”

The first stone London Bridge was completed in 1209 during the reign of King John. For over 600 years, this bridge was the key crossing point of the Thames, carrying people, goods and livestock across the river. With its many 52 ROUTE Magazine

shops, houses, churches and gatehouse built onto the bridge, it was an iconic feature of the city of London. Large numbers of people traversed the bridge, passing beneath the Drawbridge Gate, otherwise known as Traitor’s Gate.

Ed Walker, Vice President of Lake Havasu’s Museum of History, tells of the grisly practice of displaying severed heads of traitors atop the gate.

“The practice of beheading was a fairly common form of execution in Great Britain during the time when capital punishment was legal,” Walker said. “Displaying the heads of traitors gave both locals and visitors to the city of London a persuasive message about the consequences of plotting against the King or Queen. Records are scarce, but all told, there are 11 spirits that visit the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City.”

How did they get to Arizona? “Blood from the severed heads, now resting atop spikes along the Drawbridge Gate, had seeped into the stones of the old bridge. Many of those same stones were used to construct the new stone bridge, which now spans Lake Havasu in Arizona. The spirits appear to be friendly, considering their macabre past.”

The bridge in Lake Havasu City was designed by a Scotsman, Sir John Rennie. His London Bridge is an outstanding example of 19th Century skill in masonry design and construction, and was the second, and last, stone bridge built over the Thames. Rennie’s bridge was dedicated in London on August 1, 1831, during the reign of King William IV. It is a fivearch bridge constructed of granite stonework quarried at Dartmoor, Devon, England. For seven years, daily employment of 800 men was required to build the structure.

Robert McCulloch, Sr. In 1958, Robert P. McCulloch, Sr., American entrepreneur, flew over the Arizona desert in search of a test site for his outboard motor business. Spotting an abandoned U.S. Army Air Corps site that fronted Lake Havasu, McCulloch envisioned a planned community that would support his business ventures. C.V. Wood, mastermind behind the original Disneyland, joined the enterprise, and together they created Lake Havasu City in 1963.

In 1964, McCulloch purchased 26-square-miles and was soon building his new city. With no roads or buildings, McCulloch was the true motivator behind development; creatively, he saw the London Bridge as a way to attract visitors as well as permanent residents.

The famed bridge was offered for sale in 1967, with McCulloch placing the winning bid of $2,460,000 on April 18, 1968 (over $17 million in today’s dollars). McCulloch competed with several other bidders for the bridge, including entertainer Red Skelton.

Terms of the sale required the new owner to pick up the bridge pieces in London and transport them at the buyer’s

London Bridge at Night.

Statue of Lake Havasu City founders Robert P. McCulloch, Sr. & C.V. Wood.

formerly unknown desert oasis an instant cultural identity and conferring immortality on a historic but structurally ordinary bridge.

Reconstruction in the Arizona Desert The morning of July 9, 1968, brought the first truckload of bridge stones to Lake Havasu City. More than 850 tons of granite blocks dismantled in London had been shipped to Long Beach, California, via the Panama Canal, and then trucked the rest of the way. A total of 10,276 numbered stones, together weighing 22 million pounds, was sorted and reassembled in the desert, from 1968 to 1971, utilizing a crew of 40 men.

Robert Beresford was the architect that supervised reconstruction of the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, using copies of Rennie’s original plans, dated 1824. Each piece of granite was marked with four numbers: the first indicated which arch span, the second noted which row of stones and the last two indicated which position, in which row.

On September 23, 1968, the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Gilbert Inglefield, along with Arizona Governor Jack Williams, ceremoniously laid the 8900 pound cornerstone.

Reconstructing the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City was done in the same manner as the Egyptians were thought to have built pyramids. Sand mounds beneath each arch were carefully formed to the profile of the original bridge arches, serving the same function as molds.

The core structure, built of hollow steel-reinforced concrete, serves several purposes. At 33,000 tons, it was both lighter and stronger than the 130,000 tons of Rennie’s solid granite design. This structure serves as a conduit for utility lines between the mainland and the island. The inside of the bridge is rarely seen by visitors for a number of reasons.

Perhaps it is just as well, as it is home to a very large colony of bats, which have found a perfect cave for their needs.

ROUTE Magazine 53

Photograph courtesy of Ken Lund.

expense to its new location. This added $7 million to the overall costs involved, not including the land that McCulloch had already purchased in Lake Havasu City.

To avoid paying a tariff on top of the purchase price, U.S. Customs & Border protection declared the bridge an antique.

In 1968, London Bridge entered into the Guinness Book of Records as the largest antique ever sold!

Although it has been said that McCulloch bought a bridge that he didn’t need, for a river that he didn’t have, the relocation of the London Bridge was ingenious, granting a

Battle Scars Although repeatedly a target during warfare, the bridge never actually sustained heavy damage from German air attacks and bombing raids. It does, however, still bear scars from machine gun fire and a remembrance of soldiers trying to survive those attacks.

Jan Kassies, Director of Visitor Services at Go Lake Havasu, leads 90-minute tours across the famed London Bridge. Tours take visitors on a stroll along and across the bridge, allowing them to see first-hand the scars and graffiti 54 ROUTE Magazine

from WWII soldiers that permanently mar the historic bridge.

On his tours, Kassies tells the story of Sergeant Merrill Wayne Fitzwater: “When Infantry Squad Sergeant Fitzwater was stationed in England in 1942, his unit, with the First Infantry Division, participated in a demanding field maneuver. Sgt. Fitzwater’s squad was rewarded with a weekend pass. They went to the London Bridge, where Sgt. Fitzwater immortalized his and his scout’s name, Pfc. Smith, along with the date, August 1942, on one side of the bridge’s stone blocks. In 1978, and again in 2011, Fitzwater visited the bridge in Arizona, noting that the names and date had weathered quite significantly, now making the markings marginally distinguishable.”

A Lasting Legacy McCulloch died at age 65 on February 25, 1977, 10 years shy of Lake Havasu City becoming a legal municipality. The city stands today as McCulloch’s legacy and a vivid example of his imagination, passion and tenacity. The most visible effect McCulloch had on Lake Havasu City was the London Bridge, the world’s largest and most expensive antique.

McCulloch had great vision in turning a spot in the desert into a bustling city and holiday resort. Now one of the most popular attractions in Arizona, second only to the Grand Canyon, year-round events draw visitors from around the globe. “In 2018, nearly 3.8 million people traversed the London Bridge, making it by far the most visited man-made attraction in Arizona.” said Concannon.

McCulloch purchased more than just a bridge; he moved an enormous piece of enduring history to the Arizona desert.

While Lake Havasu City has continued to grow since its humble beginning, the Bridge remains the lakeside town’s most special centerpiece.

London Bridge images courtesy of Go Lake Havasu.

A mile-long ‘bridgewater’ channel was dredged after all the sand was removed, so that water flowed under the bridge from the main body of Lake Havasu into Thompson Bay. The man-made channel created an island from what had been a peninsula known as Pittsburg Point, projecting out into Lake Havasu.

Adorned along the London Bridge, intricate lamp posts were crafted from cannons seized in the 1815 Battle of Waterloo. Cannons were melted and forged into the unique lamps, gracing the bridge and lighting the way for tens of thousands of residents and visitors. Symbols of protection and guidance among sailors, dolphins decorate the lamp posts. Some say that the lamp post construction was the earliest recycling project in London.

In total, it took three years to reconstruct the bridge, from the laying of the cornerstone in September 1968, to the dedication on October 10, 1971. Many British and Arizona officials were guests at the grand event, which included close to 100,000 participants. Buried in the near abutment is a time capsule containing tribal tokens from the Indians who lived there, the same people who made McCulloch an honorary chief while they invoked good fortune on the massive undertaking.

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ROUTE Magazine 55

DOWN T

56 ROUTE Magazine

THE ROAD Photographs courtesy of Alain Define

ROUTE Magazine 57

R

oute 66 has been attracting international visitors since the fabled highway began its iconic journey across America at the turn of the 20th Century.

They came for fun and adventure and they came to discover America. They still do. There is an awe that continues to rest over America for many not of this land, and Route 66 presents the epitome of what many global visitors still consider the United States. The old road represents an unbridled freedom, a lust for adventure and

the unknown. It stands for a period in our history when non-generic, unpredictable road travel was the norm and one simply hit the empty road to experience life, to chase after dreams and to pursue opportunities. This way of life, manner of living, has disappeared in much of the world, but not along this tiny vestige of Americana that still draws tens of thousands of visitors a year. In this issue we feature the work of Alain Define, a talented photographer from France and showcase the Mother Road through his eyes and lens.

PREVIOUS SPREAD:

BELOW:

Motel Safari, Tucumcari, NM.

Cadlillac Ranch, Amarillo, TX.

RIGHT: Chain of Rocks Bridge, IL and MO.

58 ROUTE Magazine

RIGHT: Hackberry General Store, Hackberry, AZ.

BELOW: Munger Moss Motel, Lebanon, MO.

ROUTE Magazine 59

ABOVE: Dick’s Towing (Dick’s on 66), Joliet, IL.

RIGHT: Midpoint Cafe, Adrian, TX.

60 ROUTE Magazine

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62 ROUTE Magazine

ROUTE Magazine 63

WINSLOW W 64 ROUTE Magazine

ONDERLAND

By Emily Petrina Opening image courtesy of David Schwartz — Pics on Route 66

F

rom the past, we learn not only about structures, highways, early inhabitants and town growth, but also about our place within that history. As places, structures and things evolve, so to do the people within them. Hidden within the very fabric of old buildings are remnants of those that dwelled or worked within them at one time: the people, the objects, and the very building materials themselves. Artist Dan Lutzick is the embodiment of someone who is well versed in embracing a decaying structure and bringing it back to life, restoring its very soul.

From Winslow’s historic La Posada Hotel, to the town’s old post office, to his current home and gallery, Snowdrift Art Space, Lutzick has the talent and passion that is needed to lead the way in the revitalizing of Winslow’s increasingly vibrant arts scene.

Where It is Happening Winslow, Arizona, is perhaps best known for its famous corner and a girl in a flatbed Ford truck who appears as if out of nowhere to gaze at a lonely traveler. It is a romantic notion, but the welcoming town also embodies so much more: deep history, natural beauty, and a lively, growing arts scene, all in one friendly place. But the southwestern town has always had a big heart and even bigger aspirations.

With its beginning as a railroad town in 1880, Winslow quickly became an important hub for the Santa Fe Railroad, and drew in large numbers of visitors who were drawn to the town for trading and shopping. The southwest was in a period of constant expansion at the time and towns like Winslow attracted an abundance of investment and development. But of all the buildings and businesses that once called Winslow home, there is one stately structure in downtown Winslow, built in 1914, that still stands out. Its walls hold a plethora of memories from its multiple transitions during its 65-year run as a retail establishment and its story is not yet over.

Babbitt Brothers Mercantile In 1886, four brothers began operating what was to become one of the most influential and respected corporations in

Daniel and Ann-Mary Lutzick.

66 ROUTE Magazine

Northern Arizona for over a century. The flagship store in Flagstaff thrived and led to multiple branches across the state, including Winslow. Due to its proximity to Route 66, its status as the regional hub for the Santa Fe Railroad, and its location along a major business corridor, Winslow became the premier branch.

The 22,000 square-foot business operated as Babbitt Brothers Mercantile in Winslow from 1914 until 1979; the store itself went through many transitions along with its merchandise offerings. Raw inventory evolved from a mercantile atmosphere to a more polished department store, and even a grocery store. After selling the business in 1979, it evolved into a collection of other businesses, including an ice cream parlor, hardware store, and a tire and auto parts store.

Now proudly titled Snowdrift Art Space, named after an old shortening ad featured on a ghost sign on the building, the building is as much a part of Winslow’s storied history as it is a part of its future. This is thanks to one creative mind who saw potential in the early 20th Century structure.

The Creator Artist Dan Lutzick spent his early years in rural New Hampshire, before attending high school in urban southern California. Graduating from the University of California-Irvine with a Fine Arts degree, he moved to Winslow in 1994.

It was La Posada that brought Lutzick to the small southwest town. He met soon-to-be owners Allan Affeldt and artist and wife Tina Mion in a student-housing trailer park complex back in California, near the University of California-Irvine, where they were all students. Their common interest in historic preservation and fine arts brought them together. When the opportunity to purchase and renovate La Posada came about, they traveled together to assess the situation. As history shares, they ended up purchasing and restoring the iconic hotel after much effort and headache. But that is a different story.

Lutzick originally had part ownership of La Posada, later returning as its General Manager. As of 2010, no longer an owner of La Posada, due to his involvement with the nonprofit Winslow Arts Trust (WAT), Lutzick’s mailbox simply identifies him as Expert. WAT is integral in keeping Winslow’s art spaces open to the public.

In 1994, Dan moved into Winslow’s old post office, a space that gave him 4000 square feet of living room, and ultimately, after some renovations, became his first studio.

Eight years later, Lutzick sold the building and purchased the Mercantile building for an unbelievable $2. This was not the first time the building was offered to him, however.

Two years earlier, it was offered at a throw-away price of $1; Lutzick turned it down because of its extensive water damage.

“It was a mess on a grand scale,” said Lutzick. “Pigeons had taken over the entire building. It was on life support.

The aged roof had allowed water to infiltrate the entire building, and the basement was flooded with standing water. It was hard to envision this structure as a studio and living space. Spending time in the space helped formulate some vision of its potential. Many people were perplexed why someone would want to buy a blighted building in Winslow, let alone live in it!” But Lutzick has always been able to see beyond the curtain.

Visitors in Snowdrift.

Snowdrift is Born So, in 2002, Lutzick took a five-year break from La Posada that would allow him the space and time to refurbish the building that he now owned and inhabited. While renovating the structure, Lutzick began incorporating industrial construction materials to create his artwork.

He has spent over two decades developing a collection of sculptures using plywood, roofing tar, corrugated tin, wall patch, bailing wire, and rebar. He emphasizes the unique space that his sculptures inhabit, as well as their relationships to one another. Lutzick is continually adding to and rearranging communities of sculptures in the main gallery, where new works are formed from smaller pieces interacting with one another and being absorbed into larger pieces. Snowdrift Art Space ultimately presents a community of objects that tell a story on a grand scale.

“I’m a process artist, which means I’m mainly interested in three things,” explains Lutzick. “First, I’m interested in the general concept of a piece, then the material I’ll be using to create that object, and lastly how I’ll be working with that material. Materials available to me are mainly building materials that come with restoring very old buildings. I’m not working with material such as fine marble; rather, it’s plywood from old concrete flooring. It may sound boring,

but it actually has a really wonderful patina and there’s a lot going on with it. All of these things blend together to give me inspiration to create art.”

Things Get More Personal In 2006, four years after plunging into the major project, Lutzick met his wife Ann-Mary while she was coordinating a statewide tour of a Smithsonian exhibition, which was hosted at Snowdrift. Ann-Mary coordinated grants and traveling exhibitions for Arizona Humanities, before becoming involved in Winslow’s Old Trails Museum. Their mutual love of animals, history and art ultimately brought Dan and Ann-Mary together. Dan already had two rescued dogs, which were joined by several other strays throughout their courtship. One in particular had resided on the grounds of La Posada, making its way into their hearts and eventually their home.

Ann-Mary moved to Winslow in 2008 and became Director of the Old Trails Museum in 2010, becoming entrenched in Winslow’s rich Route 66 history.

“From 2008 on, changes in Winslow have been nothing short of remarkable. We’ve seen the rebirth of Route 66,” notes Ann-Mary, “with its historic downtown being a tourist destination; yet there is so much more. Winslow

is very slowly, but very surely, coming back to life. With tourism, retail, restaurants, a variety of arts spaces to serve residents and visitors, the downtown area still remains a very civic location.”

At Snowdrift Art Space, the 7000-square foot main gallery was originally the main floor of the mercantile store.

This space, which still boasts the original 14-foot high pressed tin ceiling and large skylights, now houses Lutzick’s permanent large-scale sculptures as well as rotating groups of his smaller ones.

The Lutzicks maintain living spaces, an office, and a library in a 5000-square foot area at the north end of the building, all of which is filled with his sculptures. Half of that area is a 2300-square foot loft that overlooks the main gallery. In the 1920s, the loft housed Native American jewelry and a weaving department; it still features a walk-in vault.

“Snowdrift is a wonderful, challenging place to live in. It’s wonderful because of the amount of space and the fact that it’s filled up with our lives together,” said Ann-Mary. “The challenging parts are that it’s a 100-year-old building with a 10,000-square foot roof that sometimes has issues. Dan had done all of the hard work in renovating the building by the time we met. It is so much a part of Winslow’s past. I’m so fortunate that I found my life partner and was able to continue working in my field in Winslow. With my training as historian, I researched the building as well as the town. It is such an opportunity to work on the history of Winslow, its Route 66 heritage, its connection to the arts.”

Renaissance of a Town Rebirth of the Snowdrift building is symbolic for the rebirth of Route 66 and Winslow’s art scene. Growth and 68 ROUTE Magazine

intentional development in the town began in the late 80s and early 90s but has had its ebbs and flows. Now peaking again, the long process to revitalization and renaissance, along with Route 66, has seen people increasingly getting onboard and appreciating the history and anticipating a positive future.

A model arts community is well underway in Winslow.

Plans include a neighborhood museum, where people can stroll the streets of Route 66 Winslow and visit several properties, including La Posada and Snowdrift. There is much opportunity for artists, visitors and the community to get involved and help this evolve on a grand scale. Some tours are already in progress, with many more planned; there is a wealth of opportunity and much work to be done to expand this mission.

Hard work, passion, drive, and collaboration are all building blocks to revitalization. “Allan, Tina and I will never stop working until we’re literally dead,” quips Lutzick. “Even though the work is constantly stressful and challenging and exhausting. We are driven to it. It’s an odd way to live, yet the public generally respects Ann-Mary’s and my passion in how we live, and in what we do with the enormous amount of material on site. From our perspective, it’s not time and energy spent, it’s our lives lived with passion for the space and for the work. I’ve been at this for over 20 years now, and it’s not difficult to create a space like this if you’re focused.”

Next time that you visit little Winslow for a Standin’ on The Corner experience, make sure to make some time to pay homage to La Posada and plan to experience an art scene that you will not soon forget at Snowdrift Art Space. Both are yet another reminder that life is indeed magical.

Photographs courtesy of Daniel Lutzick.

Daniel at work.

Welcome to architect Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter’s Southwest Masterpiece, La Posada (the resting place), Fred Harvey’s last great railroad hotel.

E XPLORE

TURQUOISE R OOM , CONSIDERED BY MANY TO BE THE FINEST RESTAURANT IN THE FOUR C ORNERS REGION , AND EXPLORE HISTORIC WINSLOW, HOME OF ICONIC R OUTE 66’S STANDIN ’ ON THE C ORNER .

OUR EXPANSIVE

12-ACRES

OF LUSH GROUNDS , DINE IN THE

303 East 2nd Street (Route 66), Winslow, Arizona 86047 928 289 4366 ~ info@laposada.org

70 ROUTE Magazine

The Winslow Arts Trust is a nonprofit organization that works with historians, artists and performers to create programs that celebrate the culture of Winslow, Arizona; Las Vegas, New Mexico; and the Historic Route 66/Santa Fe Railroad corridor that connects them. Open 7 days a week – call for gallery viewing times.

333 E 2nd St, Winslow, AZ 86047 • 928.289.4366 (Located at the Historic La Posada Hotel)

winslowartstrust.org

legal tender H OT E L • D I N I N G • S A LO O N

The beautifully restored Plaza Hotel has presided in Victorian splendor over Plaza Park since 1882, when Las Vegas was the richest and biggest city in New Mexico.

Just one hour from Santa Fe, come discover Las Vegas —one of the most beautiful small towns in the Southwest!

230 Plaza Street • Las Vegas, New Mexico 505.425.3591 • www.plazahotellvnm.com Dining/events: 505.434.0022

LAS VEGAS, NEW MEXICO

L A M Y, N E W M E X I CO

HOTEL • DINING • SALOON

DIIN NIIN NG G •• SSAALO LOO ON N D

This was Fred Harvey and the Santa Fe Railroad’s first trackside hotel— the beginning of an empire!

The Legal Tender is the oldest operating saloon in New Mexico, and surely one of the most beautiful!

Closed for 70 years, the Castañeda was lovingly restored and reopened in 2019.

Join us for one of the finest dining and historic hotel experiences in New Mexico!

Just 15 miles from Santa Fe, come discover Lamy and the Legal Tender —an oasis of authenticity and fine, old-fashioned hospitality.

524 Railroad Ave. • Las Vegas, New Mexico 505.425.3591 • www.castanedahotel.org Dining/events: 505.434.1005

151 Old Lamy Trail • Lamy, New Mexico www.thelegaltendersaloon.com 505.466.1650

ROUTE Magazine 71

PARTING SHOT

Suzanne WALLIS What is your favorite place to visit on Route 66 in Oklahoma?

The Rock Cafe in Stroud, OK. Outside of Oklahoma? St. Louis, Missouri. What’s the most memorable site you have visited on Route 66? The Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, NM. Biggest fear or phobia? Wasps. Guilty pleasure? Chocolate.

Who has been the most influential person in your life? Michael Wallis and Jim Fitzgerald. What is your favorite book that your husband Michael Wallis has written? Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride. What’s your favorite film? Giant. Do you have any hobbies? Reading. What did you want to be when you grew up? Teacher. Most famous or noteworthy person you have ever met?

Gloria Steinem. What’s the best piece of Route 66 travel memorabilia you own?

A gold Harley-Davidson motorcycle charm. What characteristic do you respect the most in others? Truth and loyalty. What characteristic do you detest? Lying. Most romantic spot on the Mother Road? La Posada, Winslow, AZ. Who is the funniest person on Route 66? Harley Russell, Erick, OK. Who would you want to play you in a film on your life? Glenn Close. What would the title of your memoir be? Road-Tripping. Who – historical or alive – would you most like to meet? Bruce Goff.

Talent that only those close to you would know?

Humor. Talent that you WISH you had? Play the guitar. Best piece of advice you’ve ever received? Do it! If you could do your life over again, is there anything you would change? No. Best part about getting 72 ROUTE Magazine

older? Time with family and friends. Worst part of aging?

Loss of energy. What makes you laugh? Michael’s humor.

What makes a great picture? People. First music concert ever attended? Bob Dylan. Wine or beer? Beer. Favorite Christmas movie? Bad Santa. Best gift you have ever received? A tiny wooden monkey split in half. What phrase or word do you overuse? Wonderful. Where would you love to retire? Tulsa.

What is your idea of perfect happiness? A gathering of family and friends, all happy to be together. What is your greatest extravagance? Locating and writing about Tulsa’s Art Deco treasures. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Prepare and file taxes in a timely manner. What do you consider your greatest achievement? Launching a successful public relations agency.

Most memorable gift Michael ever gave you? Agree to reside in Sophian Plaza in Tulsa. What is the secret to a happy marriage? Understanding your partner’s strengths and weaknesses.

What breaks your heart? Illness that debilitates a person’s life. What is the last TV show you binge watched?

Country Music. What is still on your bucket list? Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. What should every woman try at least once in their lifetime? Live alone. Describe your perfect day. A day with no obligations, just time to read and cuddle with my two cats, Juniper and Martini.

Illustration: Jenny Mallon.

Undeniably one of the loveliest people on the Mother Road, Suzanne Wallis is the quiet strength and wisdom behind literary giant Michael Wallis. In this issue, we spend some time with Suzanne and discover a little more about what she values in others, what gives her drive and focus and what makes her one of the most unforgettable women on Route 66.

HOTEL Va c a n c y

Some folks say it’s all about the journey.

We think the stops along the way can be pretty great, too.

The call of the open road, it’s almost magical, and very American. Yet this is no ordinary road trip. This is the Mother Road—the highway that’s the best. A page torn from American history when cars were bigger and life was simpler. We know when you get off the road, you want to feel like you’re home. We’ll have a warm chocolate chip DoubleTree Cookie waiting for you.

The Doubletree by Hilton has all the amenities you’ve come to expect from modern life, including wi-fi, fitness room, pool, and hot tub. If you want to stay in for the evening, we have an on-property bar and restaurant. (And local shuttle service if you decide you don’t.) Since your four-legged friends may be with you for your journey, we’re a pet-friendly hotel, too.

Get a great night’s rest on our Sweet Dreams bedding and fuel up on our breakfast before cruising out.

BLOOMINGTON

(309) 664 6446 www.Bloomington.DoubleTree.com 10 Brickyard Drive, Bloomington, IL 61701 ROUTE Magazine 73

Some people reminisce

About the past.

Some people get out and

iT! Relive it!

Find out more at

SpringfieldMo.org 74 ROUTE Magazine

(On Old Route 66 in Downtown SpringďŹ eld) Open Mon. - Fri., 8am - 5pm