ROUTE - February / March 2021

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

THE DREAM, THE DECLINE, AND THE RESURGENCE

THE ROUTE 66 STORY

Magazine

ICON JAMES WOODS TAKES US ON A JOURNEY THROUGH HIS LIFE AND DOWN THE MOTHER ROAD February/March 2021 $5.99

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A FAMILY TRADITION: FUNKS GROVE MOTEL SAFARI: HOSPITALITY NEW MEXICAN STYLE

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Let’s Hit the Road!

The Heart of Historic Route 66 VisitAmarillo.com

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Oklahoma State Capitol — Explore this newly renovated, Greco-Roman masterpiece and check out its vast art collection. It’s right on Route 66 in Oklahoma City.

Order a free Oklahoma Route 66 Passport at TravelOK.com!

Mother Road Market — Browse

boutique shops, sample eclectic cuisine or sip craft cocktails at Tulsa’s celebrated food hall and emporium.

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Woody Guthrie Center — Marvel at

instruments strummed by the father of folk music. Peruse original artwork, notebooks & lyrics at this Tulsa museum.

Let the Oklahoma Route 66 Passport be your guide as you discover these must-see gems. Order your FREE copy at Travel

The Chicken Shack — Gobble down gizzards and broasted pork chops in Luther as you rock to live music on the banks of the Deep Fork River.

.com.

Bazaar on 66 — From retro furniture to clothes to Route 66 gear, you never know what you’ll find at this Elk City curiosity shop!

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r e h t o M of A l l The

d a o R Fests!

Coming this June, AAA Oklahoma has created the first annual AAA Route 66 Road Fest, a weeklong celebration beginning in Tulsa and ending in Oklahoma City. If you are a Route 66 enthusiast and are interested in mapping out the perfect road trip, marveling at vintage cars, discovering new local and regional music, and exploring America’s rich history in an environment fun for the whole family, then plan your summer vacation around the AAA Route 66 Road Fest. Included along the way are opportunities to experience all the towns, attractions and activities that The Mother Road has to offer.

TULSA June 18 -19, 2021

OKC June 25 -26, 2021

TM

The travel team at AAA is offering three custom Route 66 motor coach packages in conjunction with the Road Fest including: 8-Day package: Chicago to Oklahoma City

9-Day package: Oklahoma City to LA

13-Day package: Chicago to LA

All packages will include a AAA travel escort, a professional travel director, all overnight accommodations, select meals, and custom VIP admission to OKC Road Fest.

Visit Route66RoadFest.com for details The health and safety of all Road Fest participants will be our top priority as we adhere to the recommended COVID-19 guidelines in June of 2021. We will provide updated safety information as we get closer to the start of the event.

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CONTENTS

Glen Rio, Texas. 1960. Image courtesy of Joe Sonderman.

22 America’s Highway

By Nick Gerlich What started off as a means to get from one end of the country to another soon blossomed into an icon of the Land of the Free.

Inspiring songs, literature, commerce, and tourism from every corner of the world, Route 66 has a legacy that has surpassed its own lifetime and given people reason to come back to a highway that offers less predictability and more adventure and romance. In this issue, we paint the full story of the Mother Road in broad strokes.

32 Tucumcari Tonight!

By Jim Hinckley This quaint New Mexican town has a penchant for attracting the ambitious and audacious, which is a good thing, or else vintage motels like the Motel Safari wouldn’t exist today.

Born from a desire for affordable lodging on Route 66 and maintained throughout the years by a string of dedicated owners, this motel has an important story to tell and is the definition of roadside Americana.

40 The Ra66it Ranch

Springfield, Missouri’s explosion into the public arts, the people behind its revival, and the myriad of events and artwork that flock to it. If you have a thing for art and flare, this is your town.

60 A Conversation with James Woods

By Brennen Matthews A decorated Hollywood veteran with a passion for patriotism and open communication, James Woods is fantastic as he weaves story after story in this personal interview that dives into his career, family, politics, and love of Route 66 and small-town America.

72 Steeped in History

By Jimmy Pack Jr. With thousands of acres of maple trees just on the cusp of McLean, Illinois, Funks Grove may be best known for its production of tasty maple sirup, but it has given rise to much more than its delicious condiment. This story takes a drive into the tale of a beloved roadside destination, and the large, dedicated family that unobtrusively calls America’s Main Street home.

By Phoebe Billups When being (just) another souvenir shop on the Mother Road wasn’t eye-catching enough, owner Rich Henry stumbled upon a motherload of hare-raising attractions. No roadie or animal lover can pass up a visit to Henry’s Ra66it Ranch, where they’ll be met by rabbits of both the Volkswagen and mammal variety, as well as one of the most warm, genuine folks on Route 66 today. Take a gander at the life and legacy of this Illinois stop.

ON THE COVER

52 An Ozark Renaissance

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

By Eliza McKinnon Artistic endeavors are big up and down the historic highway, but one town is working to outdo them all! This issue covers 8 ROUTE Magazine

Route 66 California.

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EDITORIAL Well, it’s here. 2021 is now a reality, and with it lots of beautiful opportunities.

As with every new year, we are excited to see what is in store for us and are hopeful that the year will bring much-needed blessings. 2020 negatively impacted Route 66 towns and destinations to an enormous degree and many folks were tremendously affected. It is my prayer that 2021 will witness a period of safe road travel unparalleled in recent years. I would love to see Mother Road businesses prosper and travelers be able to confidently soak in the joy of hitting the tarmac while exploring America’s blue highways. In this spirit, we decided that the time was right to tell the Route 66 story. It is one of desperation, opportunity, prosperity, tragic decline, and finally, a virtual disappearance. But not a full one. Discover the history of America’s most famous highway and the impact that the iconic road has had on film, television, music, literature, commerce, and so much more.

This issue has a very special interview with one of film’s most respected figures.

James Woods has a plethora of film, stage, and television credits to his name, but what makes him most interesting is his unconventional upbringing and undeniably colorful life journey. Woods has traveled Route 66 twice and both times have left a deep impact on his heart and worldview. In this interview, we delve into these topics and so much more.

Route 66 has attracted people from different walks of life since its inception, but most of these folks share two key traits in common: they are looking for a change in life and an opportunity. Many of the motels and restaurants, roadside attractions, and odd little shops on the road are owned by such people—places like the Motel Safari in little Tucumcari, New Mexico. America’s Main Street has always offered those in need of a fresh start a chance to redefine their lives. The February/March 2021 issue shares the story of a number of these much-loved businesses and the unique people behind them. It is always amazing to me how folks find themselves owning a Route 66 business.

On the other hand, the old road has many families who have been on the highway for decades and generations. These are people like the Funk family in Illinois who have become famous for their delicious maple sirup and preservation of the natural habitat under their care. There are many such families who keep Route 66 alive and thriving, and are always there to meet motorists and locals when they come knocking. Ask anyone who has traveled the highway and they will immediately tell you that it is the people on the road that truly make the trip so magical and memorable.

This season, please make sure to get out and visit with Mother Road businesses and help them bounce back after a difficult period. If you live along Route 66, please make sure to take advantage of using online and take-out services. Every little bit does count. We have lost a fair number of small businesses in 2020, but the exciting thing is that many new destinations will likely open in 2021, and the wheel will keep turning. That is the thing about Route 66: it’s not simply a road or an isolated amusement park that stretches across the country, it is a living, breathing organism that is always in flux and change. Route 66 as such perfectly represents the state of America at any given time.

I hope that you enjoy this first issue of the year and that you will continue to support us throughout 2021. If you have not subscribed, please consider doing so.

Also, please remember to like and follow us on social media. We always have lots of fresh content and information there, too, and we would love for you to join us.

Have a happy and safe 2021, everyone!

Brennen Matthews Editor

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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 ASSISTANTS Bret Kauppila Megan Marshall Theresa Romano DIGITAL Matheus Alves ILLUSTRATOR Jennifer Mallon CONTRIBUTORS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS Efren Lopez/Route66Images Eliza McKinnon Jim Hinckley Jimmy Pack Jr. Joe Sonderman John Smith Jorge Ortiz Ken Aldridge Mike Helbing Phoebe Billups Russ RuBert Terrence Moore Visit Edmond

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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THE FA BULOUS oute 66 is no stranger to kitsch. In Oklahoma alone, roadies encounter Ed Galloway’s towering totem pole in Foyil, and 31 miles further southwest, the Blue Whale of Catoosa famously greets visitors with an open smile. But in Edmond, Oklahoma, at 1129 S. Broadway, a somewhat flamboyant sitting blue hippopotamus joins the ranks of these colorful attractions. Known by many names— “Buddy,” “Big Blue,” or, most officially, “Happy”—this fiberglass hippo led a curious and active life prior to being filled with concrete to prevent further escapades. Recently refurbished in November 2020, he now sits contentedly in front of a store called Glass Solutions with a fresh coat of paint and a smile that’s as whimsical as he is.

Happy’s known story begins, not with his creation, but with the end of his previous life. In 1991, Bud Fisher—now former member of the Edmond Board of Adjustment and Appeals—purchased an old construction company and found a myriad of tools and structures in the company’s backyard. This included the hippo in a couple of pieces, which Fisher decided to put back together, as well as a similar-looking elephant, which, unfortunately, was in too many pieces to save. He then brought the hippo, whom he affectionately called “Happy”, to Edmond and placed him in front of his glass installation store on Broadway, then named AAA Edmond Glass & Mirror.

Though Happy was happily restored, sadly, no one has been able to piece together the full story behind the hippo’s creation. The box that he holds between his front legs—a small, featureless box except for a white circle on the front side that disappeared after 2009, leaving a round hole—has long been a clue as to his original purpose, but even that was subject to much debate.

“I heard theories that [the hippo] was a slushie machine at the zoo, and [the box] was where you reached in and pulled out the slushie,” said Amy Stephens, Executive Director of Edmond Historical Society & Museum.

“I heard that [the hippo] was a fast food [installment]—that you could order your fast food through his stomach,” said Jennifer Seaton, Director of Visit Edmond.

But Fisher’s expertise with the sculpture revealed something else—that there used to be a device in the hippo’s stomach that pumped water.

“I was told that he once belonged to an aquatic center that 12 ROUTE Magazine

went out of business,” Fisher claimed. “Water used to shoot out of the box that the hippo’s holding.”

But what was the aquatic center, and where was it located?

Those details remain a mystery.

Throughout the ‘90s, Happy’s innocent mystique, along with his light weight, made him the victim of many a prank. High school students stole him and placed him atop their gym before a big game, and college students at Oklahoma Christian University once dropped him into their entry pond. During a time when Fisher actually gave his permission for a school to borrow the hippo for a teacher’s birthday party, Happy was kidnapped during the party by a rival high school. Fisher embarked on many rescue missions and repaired damage to the hippo enough times that he finally decided to fill the interior with concrete, and Happy has remained on the corner of the glass shop’s parking lot ever since.

In the early 2000s, Visit Edmond added Happy to their list of public art in Edmond, and the hippo has since become an official Route 66 landmark.

“Edmond has 235 [pieces of] public art,” explained Seaton, “and a lot of them are bronze, or they’re interactive chalkboards or art pieces, but this is one of the few that’s just iconic and silly. We want more people to know about Happy the Blue Hippo, because once they see him, there’s a lot of happy experiences for them to have in Edmond, because it’s right by our downtown, [which] is on Route 66 as well.”

By 2011, ownership of both the hippo and the glass shop changed hands from father to son, and Patrick Fisher has been proud to keep Happy’s legacy alive and well, having overseen his most recent refurbishing. The name of the shop may have changed to Glass Solutions, but the workers still consider themselves to be a part of the “Big Hippo Family”.

Today, Happy the Hippo still attracts many sightseers, from countless families to even squads of cheerleaders. What made the sculpture so appealing to mischievous schoolkids has now lent itself to a fun photo opportunity for any road tripper.

“We’ve always known that our job is to celebrate and share history, because it touches people’s hearts through storytelling,” said Stephens, “but we’re seeing it more than ever—people want to know the reasons behind things, and the fact that Happy is a little bit of a mystery is not such a terrible thing. There’s a little bit of scratching your head about it, and I think that makes it fun, too.”

Image courtesy of Visit Edmond.

R

BLU E H I PP O OF E DMON D

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MOTHER OF

T

he Mother Road boasts countless wonders from the Blue Whale of Catoosa to the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, but its biggest attraction has always been the quirky characters that populate the highway. In the history of Route 66, there have been more than a few mother hens—women famous for their ability to put weary travelers at ease with a joke and smile. But only Lucille Hammons bears the title Mother of the Mother Road.

Born to cotton farmers in Abingdon, Illinois, in 1915, Lucille was the only one of her ten siblings to graduate high school. In the late 1930s, she married a trucker named Carl Hammons. In 1941, a few months before World War II broke out, the couple bought the Provine Service Station, a halfmile south of Hydro, Oklahoma, from Carl Ditmore, who built it in 1929. Lucille, Carl, and their three children—Cheryl, Delphia Dene, and Carl Junior—moved in above the porch-style station and set to work. They opened a cluster of cabins next door and called it Hammons Court.

Running the station was never easy, especially in the midst of the Great Depression and World War II, but Lucille was incredibly resilient. “There was a lot of gasoline and tire rationing [because] everything went to the war effort,” said Route 66 historian and bestselling author, Michael Wallis. “So, to make ends meet and supplement any income they could get out of the station, Carl hauled hay to different places. Lucille kept pumping gas.

She could fix flats. She said she could replace a headlight faster than Carl could. She and those three kids maintained the cabins… and they held on.”

For the GIs that hitchhiked up and down Route 66 and families that journeyed west in search of work, Lucille was an angel of the road. When a customer did not have money, she simply asked, “Well, do you have anything you can swap me for gas?” This continued long after World War II ended.

Lucille traded gas for broke-down cars, coolers, and, in one case, the shirt off a man’s back. “One time a hitchhiker came in and he had on a tie-dyed T-shirt that she really liked,” said Wallis. “She said, ‘I like that shirt.’ He said, ‘I like that shirt you got there.’ She said, ‘Well, take off that shirt and I’ll give you this one.’ So, he stripped off his shirt and they traded.”

In the 1960s, Lucille’s—as the station was often called by that point—was a must-see stop. Lucille always had piping

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hot coffee and cookies or donuts in the station to offer cold and tired travelers. Few could resist chatting with her in the snug station for a few hours before retiring to one of the cabins in Hammons Court. Lucille endured her share of hardships, like the death of her son in 1962, and a rocky marriage, running the station more or less alone, but she was always a bedrock of support for the Route 66 community that became her family.

In 1971, Lucille’s husband passed away and Interstate 40 officially bypassed her little station. However, people still visited Lucille out on old Route 66. Even interstate travelers found excuses to detour through nearby Weatherford and stop by. And Lucille found more and more creative ways to lure people off the highway.

“Weatherford is a college town and it was also a dry town at that time,” Wallis said. “Lucille sold beer out where she was. It was famous for being ice cold.

I had some of those beers and they hurt your teeth, they were so cold.”

In 1986, Lucille stopped selling gas. The Hammons Court cabins closed a few years later. Lucille always sold T-shirts, but as Route 66 entered the early stages of a renaissance around 1990, she relied more and more on kitschy Route 66 knick-knacks and souvenirs. In the literature that emerged during that period, the Mother of the Mother Road—a nickname Lucille gave herself and which people who met her quickly agreed she deserved— loomed large. The tender, toughas-nails matriarch ran the station right up until she passed away on August 18, 2000.

Without leaving her corner of Oklahoma, Lucille came to know and be known by people from every corner of the world, bolstering Route 66’s serendipitous reputation. Like so many who live along Route 66, her legacy lies in the connections she made. “[People like Lucille] said, ‘We’ve been around the world because the world has come to us,’” Wallis said. “You talk to a guy [who says], ‘’I’ve pumped gas for Bob Hope, Elvis Presley, convicts, priests, wizards, you name it.’ Because it’s a road of humanity, it’s a road for bluebloods and rednecks.”

Today, the Hammons Motor Court sign shines in a permanent Route 66 display at the Smithsonian Museum. The old station itself is preserved exactly as it once stood. Lucille would like that.

Image by John Smith.

T H E MO T H E R ROA D

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.

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www.clintonokla.org ROUTE Magazine 17

The

H

umble Illinois village Odell is perhaps better known for its past than its present. From the abandoned Mobil gas station dating back to the 1950s, to the now-filled subway tunnel that traveled under a very busy Route 66 from the late ‘30s to early ‘40s, a great deal speaks of the settlement’s long life. But none is more recognizable or in as pristine a condition as the Standard Oil Gas Station that appears like an apparition from the quiet winding road. This is the Odell Station.

When U.S. Route 66 was six years into its lifespan, in 1932, a contractor named Patrick Henry O’Donnell saw an opportunity to set his family for life from the constant influx of traffic. He purchased a spot of land along the Odell street and, with the blessing of Standard Oil Company of Ohio, began constructing the Station. O’Donnell even adopted the company’s architectural style for its 1916 stations: a domestic “house with a canopy” look that struck a chord with most customers.

Within the year, the building was completed and leased to O’Donnell’s oldest son, Patrick Joseph O’Donnell, starting the family business. However, the O’Donnells were not alone in their prospects, and by the ‘40s at least nine other gas stations had popped up along Odell’s stretch of Route 66. Patrick Joseph failed to compete with them and instead leased the Station to multiple tenants throughout the years. Finally, a gentleman who ran a Phillips 66 gas station just north of Standard Oil was coerced into taking over the dying Station, on his condition that he could add bays to the structure. “[The previous owner] put [the bays] together himself with anything he could find, and nothing matches,” explained John Weiss, the Illinois Preservation Committee Chairman. “The doors don’t match, the windows don’t match, the ceiling tiles don’t match. You’ve got scraps of this and that, but he put bays in there and nobody else did. This gave [the new owner] the opportunity to do auto repairs, and that’s why [the Station] still exists and the other ones all faded away.”

Indeed, with the construction of a bypass in 1944, much traffic was directed away from the busy strip. The Odell Station outlived the other stations by the niche of its body shop.

But the facility would change hands again in 1952, this time to those of Robert Close, the owner of the café next door. Close went on to purchase the property outright two 18 ROUTE Magazine

years later when the original Patrick O’Donnell passed away.

He faithfully worked both aspects of the Station until 1967, when he decided to remove the gas tanks and focus only on auto repairs.

Throughout the next two decades, Close continued to service vehicles in the Station, though he failed to keep up with the building’s maintenance. By the time Weiss and the soon-to-be Illinois Preservation Committee entered the picture in 1996, the facility was ready to be toppled.

“So the six of us got together and said, ‘Well, this is a good project,’ so we went to the mayor at the time and talked to him,” Weiss recalled. “People didn’t understand tourism [at the time], they didn’t understand why we would [restore it], and it was so deteriorated, everybody said, ‘You’re crazy! It’s falling down! Tear it down, burn it down!’ And we were so naïve that we did it anyhow.”

While the community at large didn’t support the Committee at first, one man, Ed Seal, who would go on to become the next mayor of Odell, saw the value in their work. He loaned them the money they needed to purchase the Station from the Close family in 1999, and from there they turned the property over to the village. It was no small boon that earlier, in 1997, the Committee managed to add the Odell Station to the National Register of Historic Places.

The Committee held fundraisers and poker runs to pay off their loan to Seal, increasing the Station’s publicity. Before long, sponsors such as Hampton Inn jumped on the bandwagon to help pay for the project in return for some publicity of their own.

“You’ve seen the roadside attraction signs that go up and down the road?” asked Weiss. “Well, they started because of the Odell Station.”

With its growing army of volunteers, the Committee restored the Station to such a state that it won the National Historic Route 66 Federation Cyrus Avery Award in 2002.

Now, kept up in its white paint, blue roof, and swinging Standard Oil sign, the Odell Station welcomes travelers from across the world. Souvenirs and audio recordings are available to visitors, and the store also holds a car show once a year. While its gas-supplying days are long over, the innocuous business has grown into an icon reflecting the times of the open road, and against all odds, will remain so for decades to come.

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

ODELL STATION

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“¡V I VA M ÉX ICO!”

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Public domain image.

O

ne Sunday morning in September of 1810, in independence, and Kansas City became a major trading the town of Dolores, New Spain (now Mexico), hub between Mexico and America. 1821 is also the year Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo sounded the church European settlers began to make their way to Texas (which bell used to call local laborers to mass. They came was, at that point, still a part of Mexico), mingling with flooding in from nearby fields, where they were paid meager and marrying into established Mexican ranching families. wages for tough ranch work by Spanish-born aristocrats. Most Goods and services were exchanged, but more importantly, of these workers were native (los Indios) or of mixed Spanish the people transporting them exchanged wisdom, recipes, and native descent (los Mestizos), and most were angry at ranching tips, and ways of life. This merging of cultures set their poor working conditions. They would soon be able to the foundation for the American West. put this anger to use – Father Hidalgo was not actually calling One of the main focal points of the exhibition is the them to mass, after all. He was calling them to revolt against evolution of the cowboy. “The very first cowboys in the Spanish crown. This ragtag army’s battle was short-lived Mexico, called vaqueros, of course, were Indians,” said and brutal, but their message resonated with many Mexicans Grauer. “In terms of cowboys and ranching traditions, of varying backgrounds and economic interests. And thus, a the vaquero tradition makes its way up [into] south revolution was born.

Texas … And then there’s a Although the battle for sort of swing to the west, up Mexican Independence began into California.” with this peasant army, it The exhibition takes on would be decisively finished history from a new perspective by the Royalists–conservative that breaks down the timeMexicans of Spanish descent– honored American distinction ten years later. By the time the between “Cowboy” and war concluded, it had already “Indian” – most people don’t begun a tidal wave of change know that they were once one that had far-reaching cultural and the same. Although there consequences, especially are plenty of regional differences for what would become the between cowboys in America, American West, which was just parts of the vaquero tradition beginning to take shape. So are still alive in all of them. many cultural aspects of the Rodeos, chaps, and the use of West – from food, to clothing, lassos all come from vaqueros. to ranching techniques, to the Because the American cowboy quintessential symbol of the was heavily influenced by West, the American cowboy – mestizo traditions, it’s only were heavily influenced by the logical that those Mexican traditions of Mexican mestizos influences would also make who were at the forefront of the their way into Western movies Mexican fight for independence. and TV shows, which have been The “¡Viva México!” exhibit essential in shaping modern at the Cowboy and Western ideas of life in the so-called A portrait of Don Miguel Hidalgo. 1880.

Heritage Museum, beginning Wild West.

July 9, 2021, seeks to tell that “Mexican culture makes story using cultural artifacts from Mexico and America. its way into U.S. culture by way of film and TV, and that’s “It’s a great opportunity to expand the awareness of our actually all part of a huge tidal wave of interest in things visitors to the role of Mexico in the lifeways of the American Spanish in the 1890s, all the way up into the late 1920s,” West,” said Michael Grauer, Chair of Cowboy Culture at the said Gauer. museum. “After the Mexican independence in 1821, dominoes Of course, the exhibition doesn’t stop with the cowboy. It start to fall through the system in subsequent decades. And also explores Mexican influences on the food, clothing, and the American West really kind of takes shape because of that art of the American West, influence that can be traced back to independence.”

Mexican independence. “¡Viva México!” demonstrates that The reasons for this domino effect are complex, but history is never cut-and-dried, and that some things we might they mostly involve “the common language of goods and have viewed as quintessentially American aren’t so purely services,” as Gauer puts it. Mexican independence opened up American after all. pathways for trade between Mexico and America. Missouri, “When we look back at history, we all want [it] to be real at times regarded as the jumping off point for the American clean. We want it to be all unified. What I like people to come West, became a state the same year that Mexico gained away with from one of these exhibitions is, ‘I had no idea.’”

ANCIENT

MYSTERIES

REVEALED

FEBRUARY 12 – MAY 9, 2021 NATIONALCOWBOYMUSEUM.ORG

Open Daily • 1700 NE 63rd St. 15 minutes north of Downtown OKC nationalcowboymuseum.org • (405) 478-2250 @ncwhm

@nationalcowboymuseum

#HashtagTheCowboy Exhibition support provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, the Kirkpatrick Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities; Top: Figure 9.20 – Human face effigy with deer antlers. Leflore County, Oklahoma, Spiro Site. 1200 – 1450 AD. Wood. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (189306).; Bottom: Figure 8.16 - Raptor with human head effigy pipe. Plaquemine. Issaquena County, Mississippi, Esperanza Place, AD 1200–1400. Stone. Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma. GM 61.1206.

ROUTE Magazine 21

AMERICA’S

By Nick Gerlich Opening photograph by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66 22 ROUTE Magazine

HIGHWAY ROUTE Magazine 23

B

orn on November 11, 1926 by virtue of federal law creating numbered U.S. highways, Route 66 found itself immediately thrust into an unprecedented economic depression. It was conceived and designed to connect U.S. cities from Chicago to Los Angeles, facilitating travel and commerce. Instead, it wound up becoming, for a time at least, a channel of human migration, a highway of hope, and an avenue for adventure and soul searching. And that is just the start.

And it’s likely that the road’s champion and patron saint, Cyrus Stevens Avery, never dreamed that the passageway that he conceded to be called 66 would evolve as it did, from desperate straits to boulevard of dreams, and ultimately weave itself into the pop culture psyche of a nation that would one day yearn nostalgically for those good old days.

The Road Behind It was in 1896 that the first gasoline-powered car was sold in the U.S.A. But a car was only as good as the roads available upon which to drive it, and there were scant few improved roads outside city limits. By 1912, there was

movement afoot by cities and private developers to create highways, a decision that resulted that year in the creation of the National Old Trails Road, followed by the Lincoln Highway’s dedication in 1913, and the Dixie Highway and Jefferson Highway in subsequent years. All told, more than 250 of these named highways comprised the National Auto Trail system.

The rapid growth of demand for the automobile caused the need for federal oversight, planning, and funding. Several federal highway acts came into law in the late 1910s and into the next decade, culminating with AASHO (the American Association of State Highway Officials) approving the numbering of the federally funded highways. It went into law on November 11, 1926.

Cy of Relief It was into this arena that Cyrus Avery found himself. Avery, a Tulsa businessman, and perhaps no more in tune than anyone else regarding the practical aspect of driving—quite literally— local commerce via this national highway network, set out to make sure that his hometown was not overlooked.

“The National Highway System was put in place at the edge of the Depression,” said Susan Croce Kelly, Avery’s biographer in Father of Route 66. “The geography between Chicago and Los Angeles is one of small towns, farms, mines and open space. During those years—1926 until 1938, when the whole

Roads before the highway system. 1920s. Image courtesy of Joe Sonderman.

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By the Decade It is in retrospect that the importance of this highway can be seen in whole, as well as within context of significant events. The optimism of the Roaring 20s, in which the automobile became increasingly affordable and highways allowed for mobility, found early tourists doing the Charleston and singing Sweet Georgia Brown as they hit the road. But life ran into an abrupt speed bump in 1929 with the stock market crash, a harbinger of things to come.

With an economy on the skids, discretionary activities were put on hold. A year later, a seven-year drought and dust storms of epic proportions crippled farmers in the nation’s midsection, giving rise to an enormous William H. Murray Bridge, the longest bridge in Oklahoma, being constructed. 1934. westward human migration.

Image courtesy of Joe Sonderman.

While the fluidity of humans was witnessed on all corners, highway was paved—times were tough. Farmers were leaving it was Route 66 that became a primary conduit of desperate their land. Fully a quarter of the population was out of work,” people seeking a new start in California. The exodus was Kelly added. “Cy Avery was a big community booster, and he significant, with 210,000 refugees heading west to escape was very interested in Tulsa’s success.” their despair.

Avery’s proposal, like most other highways under Times were tough, and the roads even tougher. Long dirt consideration at the time, relied on simply connecting—on sections tempted some to create mud bogs, as the Jericho, paper, at least—previously existing roads, many of which Texas, story goes, and then demanded travelers pay up to were still dirt and at times hardly drivable. AASHO had laid get towed out. But others were more forgiving, sometimes out the basics of the numbering system, with even numbers letting travelers barter or work off their debt for lodging. The running east-west, and odd numbers running north-south. desert, too, was tough, with stations few and far between, Routes ending in “0” for east-west, and “1” or “5” for northand cars drinking both water and oil in such large quantities south, were considered primary corridors and were to be that motorists had to carry supplies of both. It was still a used for transcontinental highways. With that in mind, Avery time, though, when mom and pop could hang their hopes on went after Highway 60 for his road stretching from Chicago the roadside, building modest courts with only a handful of to Los Angeles. rooms, and tiny cafés for travelers to take advantage of as “Cy was on the committee that determined which roads they motored west. would be the cross-country or national highways. That is, he No sooner had the Depression ended than the U.S. found helped draw the map,” Kelly continued. “Later, he was on a itself in a world war, and vast improvements were made five-man committee to number the roads. Avery knew that to 66 and other roads to facilitate troop movements west. the trade route from the middle-west went north to Chicago, Civilian travel in the western states dropped to only 100 not across the Appalachians to the East Coast. [His route] people per day at the Arizona inspection station, replaced by followed the main trade route.” military convoys moving assets around the country on the Still, Avery was vulnerable, and Governor William J. newly improved roads. It was these improvements, such as Fields of Kentucky protested, arguing that a Highway 60 the widening of the road, that would fuel civilian travel after should indeed traverse the country, and specifically his the war, setting the stage for the glory days of Route 66. state. Because Fields had more clout and a more reasoned “Those improvements came just in time for the beginning argument, he prevailed, and Highway 62 was offered as an of the Golden Era of family road trips in the 1950s, when olive branch to Avery.

Route 66 really hit its peak in popularity,” said Richard To Avery’s great credit, he was so displeased with Highway Ratay, author of Don’t Make Me Pull Over! “It was during 62 that he went looking for other unused numbers and found this time that the sides of the highway blossomed with all the that 66 was available. He named it and claimed it in perhaps diners, drive-throughs, souvenir shops, quirky motels, and one of the most opportunistic name grabs ever. It was a roadside attractions that we tend to associate with Route 66.” bloodless coup.

Destinations like the Grand Canyon and Disneyland were ROUTE Magazine 25

The Red Brick Road of Auburn, Illinois. 1940. Image courtesy of Joe Sonderman.

now within reach, and just a road trip away. The ‘50s also silently marked a transition from independent motels to the new chains, like Holiday Inn, Howard Johnson, and Ramada Inn. As it always was, the road was changing.

This new optimism produced a cultural epoch that is still that of legends. With the troops back on familiar soil, it was time to get on with creating families. The American Dream meant owning a house in the suburbs, a car in the garage, and a television in every living room. The family vacation became a heralded component of our existence, and Route 66 was the beneficiary of this desire to see the country.

In Print and Beyond Although America’s Main Street was but a youngster at the time, the significance of the road was not lost on screenwriters, poets, and musicians, and authors like John Steinbeck. The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck’s tenth book, captured the difficulties of the Dirty Thirties, even if dressed as a novel. Released in book form in 1939, and adapted for the silver screen in 1940, it was here that the phrase “Mother Road” was coined, a metaphor perhaps of a mother’s love, a lullaby to cradle the economic victims.

In 1946, Route 66 was once again heralded in both book and song. Jack Rittenhouse’s A Guide Book To Highway 66 provided travelers with basic information about highway amenities at a time when information was scarce. But it was Bobby Troup’s snappy tune that caught people’s fancy.

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While some U.S. highways have inspired songwriters and lyricists to wax poetic about a slab of pavement, none have come close to the popularity of (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66, a tune and lyrics Troup perfected in 1946 while traveling on a cross-country road trip with his wife to the west coast.

The infectious number, which had more hooks than a tackle box, went on to become the unintended theme song for generations of two-lane highway travelers.

Although Nat King Cole recorded the track initially, more than 200 versions have been recorded since, by artists as diverse as the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Manhattan Transfer, and Depeche Mode. The song spent eight weeks on the pop charts, and by the time Troup died in 1999, he had earned more than $4 million in royalties from this song alone.

Troup’s tune became a cultural touchstone for generations.

While musicians were busy adding their own flourishes to the song, Hollywood was readying the television debut of Route 66 the series, which chronicled the adventures of Tod and Buz (and later, Linc) as they traversed America in search of discovery. The CBS show would air 116 episodes from 1960-1964. Although the series had only a handful of minor scenes actually filmed on 66, it was the metanarrative of road trips and adventure that sold it to viewers.

And what if Route 66 had been awarded the coveted Route 60 or Avery had accepted Route 62? “It’s hard to say how differently we might perceive the Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway had it been numbered 60 or 62. Maybe Bobby Troup

would have never written that song, or the CBS television show would never have aired. But even without the songs or TV shows, I think the road would have developed a cultural significance,” said historian Brian Ingrassia.

The timing was perfect for the Mother Road. “Route 66 came along at a time when popular culture got a boost from media innovations like radio, phonograph records, and television. It was nearly inevitable that these modern technologies would make some American roads legendary,” Ingrassia added.

Preoccupied with 1985 Route 66 was probably never intended to last forever. It was a work in progress, an idea in motion. The ink had hardly dried on the original alignment before new paths were already carved out that effectively bypassed the very towns that the road was intended to link, such as tiny Depew in northeastern Oklahoma, Odell and a slew of other Illinois towns, and Amarillo in Texas.

The Main Street of America had become a bottleneck. In fact, the Route 66 maps were in a state of flux, as engineers were always trying to improve it. In Illinois, the original alignment southwest from Springfield along what is now IL Route 4 was moved in 1930 to where the modern freeway is.

The nine-foot-wide “sidewalk highway” between Miami and

Afton, Oklahoma, was moved and widened considerably in the process. And the politics of dancing loomed large in New Mexico when outgoing Governor Arthur Hannett decided to exact his revenge for losing re-election by simply re-routing 66 directly across the state and away from Santa Fe. Perhaps the biggest sign of this change came in 1953 with the opening of the Turner Turnpike, linking Tulsa with Oklahoma City, and completely sidestepping the earlier version of 66. It was a taste of things to come, notably the Interstates being signed into law in 1956. Four-lane superslabs became the de facto mode of ground transportation across the U.S., and by 1970, all original segments of Route 66 had been bypassed by either a new freeway or standard four-lane high-speed. Lifestyles had become fast-paced. Gas was still cheap, and our love affair with the automobile continued unabated. People became less interested in the journey, and more concerned with the destination.

Roadside attractions like the 1974 Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, the product of the late Stanley Marsh III, gave motorists even more reason to stick to the freeway, if only to view one man’s quirk. Marsh sought to entertain tourists with his public art installation, albeit with the undercurrent of a marketing critique of tail fins. The original location was never on Route 66, but instead along I-40 on the city’s west side.

Although it took more than a decade longer to come close to completing the Interstate project, Williams, Arizona,

The Hooker Cut, Missouri. 1953. Image courtesy of Joe Sonderman.

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Villa de Cubero Cafe, Cubero, NM. 1971. Image by Terrence Moore.

famously became the last Route 66 town to be bypassed in 1984. A year later, on October 13, 1985, Route 66 was formally decommissioned at the federal level, and its number forever removed from the federal inventory of highways.

Suddenly, there was nothing but memories.

All the while, the ravages of progress were being witnessed along the Route. Tucumcari, which once proudly advertised having 2000 rooms, saw its total cut in half, and even that amount accounted for, in large part, new properties near the freeway. Cafes were replaced by fast food and formulaic chain restaurants, and gas stations were replaced by sprawling travel centers. Everyone from Afton to Ash Fork and elsewhere along 66 was affected. Glenrio, Texas, Cuervo, New Mexico, and others became ghost towns in plain view of the interstate.

And once incredibly popular attractions like the Blue Whale of Catoosa, Oklahoma, and the Gemini Giant in Wilmington, Illinois, languished in solitude.

Refusing to Die The small towns that dot the Will Rogers Highway could have accepted their fate and closed shop like many a community during the economic depression. No one would have blamed them for moving on to greener pastures. But they didn’t.

Soon there was a moment afoot and a vision was being formed. It only took a couple of years before a friendly barber from Seligman, Arizona—Angel Delgadillo—recognized the void that had been created and he became angry, frustrated that his once bustling town and Route 66 were seemingly being forgotten. He decided to act. Thanks to him and the town’s leaders, a revival was started, and in 1987, the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona was formed. Soon Missouri 28 ROUTE Magazine

followed suit and within a few years, each of the other seven states through which Route 66 had passed, formed their own associations.

This set the wheels in motion, and it was only a matter of time before a cottage industry of authors sprang up to tell the story of this old road that represented the history and very essence of America, one that was increasingly finding new life as a vector of nostalgia.

Quinta Scott, co-author with Susan Croce Kelly of Route 66: The Highway And Its People (1988), and later sole author of Along Route 66 (2001), was an early voice to chronicle this fabled road. Motivated by the urgency of collecting oral histories while people of the Route were still alive, she set out to discover what it was like living and doing business along 66. After all, as she quickly learned, “Something important happened on it during every decade of the Twentieth Century.”

By limiting the project to people who came to the highway between 1926 and 1956, Scott was guaranteed a historical perspective. In so doing, she and Kelly produced a seminal work that is still highly regarded today, capturing the ethos of the road before anyone else thought to do so.

Within a couple of years, author, historian and voiceover artist Michael Wallis had released the national best-seller Route 66: The Mother Road, which, along with Scott and Kelly, created critical mass for a movement looking back at what the nation had summarily dismissed.

Wallis, too, felt the need to set the story straight. “My motivation in writing the book was quite simple. It was the fact that I grew quite weary of people talking about the road in the past tense. I knew that the majority of the Mother Road was still there,” he said. More importantly, though, “The best

resource the road had to offer was still there, and that is the people.”

Before he wrote his book, he took a lengthy exploratory trip along 66. “We found so many different situations. There were people who were quite down about the road, and I’m talking about business owners. A lot of them were really down.”

But Wallis saw hope and tried to reignite the flame. “Even the majority of those people who were feeling blue always had a little flickering light of hope. Like blowing on a fire, that little tinder to get that blaze going again, that’s what I tried to do.”

Wallis continued, “I did that several times, even with somebody who guffawed at me. ‘Why would somebody read a book about this old road?’ And I would turn it right back on them and say, ‘Alright, you tell me about the road.’ And then they would tell me about the road. ‘This is the road I grew up on. I own this business. My grandfather owned it.’

And they would keep talking and talking, and after they went

through this whole litany of their connection to the road and its importance to their life, they would fall silent. Oftentimes I would see tears in their eyes. And then they would say, ‘Thanks. I’m really glad you’re doing this’.”

Over the next 30 years, more than 200 books on Route 66 would be written, not to mention the 2006 release of Pixar’s hugely successful film, Cars, which told the story of the fictional Route 66 Radiator Springs and introduced an entirely new generation to America’s Main Street. Wallis, as the voice of the Sherriff as well as consultant to Pixar, made certain to remind people that Route 66 was not life in the past lane.

The Road Ahead Cyrus Avery died in 1963, just shy of his 92nd birthday, but at the time of the road’s inception, when he was 55, he could never have imagined the cultural touchstone that his highway would one day become. His vision was based merely on

Buck Atom’s Cosmic Curios on 66, Tulsa, OK. 2020. Image by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66.

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“Route 66 has had such an impact on the American imagination because it was a well-traveled road at the very time when American road culture was being invented between the 1920s and the 1950s,” said Ingrassia. “This was the era when Americans were traveling west, moving to places like Los Angeles or heading to Las Vegas or taking their families on roadtrip vacations to national parks or other historic sites.”

The federal designation may be gone, replaced by the brown or blue signs (depending on the state) denoting historic highway status. States like California have proudly painted the Route 66 shield on the pavement to show the way, while individual cities have championed mural projects and other elements to showcase their Route 66 status.

Traveling Route 66 today has never been easier. While Rittenhouse’s book was certainly helpful for 40s-era motorists, it lacked detail and required users to mentally keep track of miles between vaguely described roadside amenities. Today, we have artist Jerry McClanahan’s EZ Guide and multiple mobile apps to provide turn-by-turn directions. All we have to do is show up.

Better yet, Route 66 has become big business. With as many as a half-million visitors each year, and countless others who are not counted, if only because they are day-tripping or seeing 66 in bits and pieces, commerce along the Route is more important than ever.

The resilience of the road and its people is made manifest in the examples of those who kept going in the face of adversity.

“It’s kind of in the DNA of Route 66,” Wallis added. “They knew they had to have some element to attract the people and to lure them off the interstate. That’s why Lillian Redman [late innkeeper at the Blue Swallow] kept clicking on those blue swallows every night.”

Tee Pee Curios, Tucumcari, NM. 2018. Image by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Visionary entrepreneurs have stepped up Route 66. to the plate to restore and relaunch once popular icons of the road, including many transportation and commerce, not the desperate drive of Dust of the historic motels along the road. Kitschy gift shops Bowl refugees, the movement westward by men in uniform, are common again. Roadside attractions and museums are the cure for wanderlust that post-war families discovered, and alive and well and welcoming visitors. Route 66 has new certainly not the modern yearnings of young and old alike to attractions coming up constantly, and the magical U.S. experience an America now largely in the rearview mirror. artery is finding new ways to celebrate the American Dream No, it was all about dollars and cents. regularly.

Much more than the conduit for travel and business that he The bulk of travel and commerce is now conducted via the envisioned, it became something much larger, something that freeway. But the old road is still alive, just serving a different became part of the very fabric of America. clientele. “I needed to write a love letter to this highway, and It was a road of hope, a passage to adventure. It carried let people know it is there,” Wallis added. troops in time of war, and a Troup who would wax poetically Scott painted a similar picture. As she aptly opened in melodic about it. And today it carries people away from the Along Route 66 and its long look back in order to look ahead, present to an ever-distant past, paving the way to a future “It was the way out.” based on the business of nostalgia and history seekers.

And it still is.

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WHERE T HE MO T HER ROAD BEGINS

Route 66 defined a remarkable era in our nation’s history – and it lives on today in Illinois’ Route 66’s many roadside attractions, museums, and restaurants – it’s the shining ribbon of blacktop we call ‘The Mother Road’.

SPE N D SOME T IME ON T HE I L L I N O I S R O U T E 6 6 S C E N I C B Y WA Y A N D DI S C OV E R ROU T E 6 6 Start planning your trip now at www.illinoisroute66.org. Request a visitor’s guide by emailing info@illinoisroute66.org and make sure to check out our mobile app by searching for ‘Explore Illinois Route 66’ in the App Store and Google Play, to help with all of your Route 66 Illinois planning.

Tel: (217)-414-9331 • www.illinoisroute66.org ROUTE Magazine 31

TUCUMCARI 32 ROUTE Magazine

TONIGHT!

By Jim Hinckley Photographs by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66 ROUTE Magazine 33

S

ixty years ago, colorful billboards along U.S. 54 and U.S. 66 enticed the weary traveler with the tag line “Tucumcari Tonight” and the number of motel rooms available in the desert crossroads. The 1959 edition of the AAA Western Accommodations Directory listed an array of motels with modern amenities that included the Blue Swallow Motel, Circle S Motel with radios in every room, Cactus Motor Lodge—“an unusually attractive court”—Buckaroo Motel with cribs and radios available upon request, and the “all new and modern” Travelers Paradise Motor Lodge.

The endless flow of traffic following Route 66 east and west through town ensured that there was enough business to provide motel owners with a steady and secure income In 1960, Motel Safari was just one motel in a long string of venues with brightly lit signs that lined Tucumcari Boulevard in the small New Mexican town. Today, in the era of the highway’s renaissance, the Motel Safari is a rarity. It is a time capsule from the years when the interstate highway was just beginning to eclipse the Main Street of America. It is also a seamless blend of the past, present, and even the future.

First built in 1959 by Chester Dohrer and his wife Mildred, the venue represented an attribute that was not unique to it, but that defined its purpose: the pair sought to open a venue that offered warm hospitality and a memorable experience.

Compared to today’s reality of generic brands and the general ability to always know what you are going to experience when checking into a motel, 1959 road travel was quite different, and the Dohrers were keen to ensure that road travelers received their money’s worth.

Chester and Mildred were an ambitious team. They met in April of 1940 at a local dance in Herman, Missouri, and were married on September 21. During the war she worked as a welder in a shipyard and saved money for their future. After the war, in search of opportunity, Chester began perusing the advertisements in the Saint Louis Post. Amazed by the high price for motels that were for sale on Route 66, they decided to build one of their own in Sullivan, Missouri. That first endeavor, the El Rancho, has survived into the modern era as an apartment complex, but the pair were quite quick to sell it and set out in search of new opportunities.

“The only thing they knew for certain was that they wanted to stay on Route 66,” said Phyllis Grey, Chester and Mildred’s niece. “So, they headed west, would stop in promising looking communities, and do what Chester called a nose count. He would find a prominent location near a service station and would see how many cars with out-of-state license plates passed by as well as how many stopped and how many just drove through.” Miami, Oklahoma, looked promising. Then Chester learned about the forthcoming turnpike, and so they continued their westward trek.

“When Mildred said, ‘I was just thinking’, Chester knew that she had an idea. After driving through Flagstaff, Arizona, Mildred said, ‘I was just thinking’,” continued Grey. And the

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family came to call that southwest community home and built the Amber Sky Motel.

That motel was taken through eminent domain when the road was realigned, and razed.

Next, Chester built The Spur Motel. The name had a western feel but was actually derived from the motel’s location on a spur. With a series of remodels, the motel lost its identity, but it has survived into the modern era as the Knights Inn. Every year the couple would return home to Missouri to visit with family for Christmas. The first day of the annual trip would usually end in Tucumcari. “On one of the trips Chester and Mildred noticed a ‘for sale’ sign on a vacant property in Tucumcari.

The sign also noted a lease-to-buy option. Then Mildred said to Chester, ‘I was just thinking’,” said Grey. It was on that empty lot that Chester built the Motel Safari in 1959. “When the family lived in Flagstaff, they used to enjoy going down to Phoenix. A place called the Motel Safari caught Chester’s eye and he took some photos. When building the motel in Tucumcari he used the name as it was different.

He thought it would help set his property apart from others on the boulevard. He even borrowed design elements from the Phoenix motel sign as he felt that Tucumcari was far enough away that no one would complain about conflict or get confused.”

Lots of New Blood The Motel Safari was sold to Ronald and Arlene Frey a few years after opening. The Dohrers, however, continued their association with Route 66 and Tucumcari by building several houses as well as the Aruba Motel. It was later renamed Tucumcari Inn. As with many Route 66 motels, with the passing of years, the owners of the Motel Safari increasingly faced challenges from newer, more modern chain motels. Then, with the completion of the I-40 bypass in 1981, business owners in Tucumcari faced a new challenge. The precipitous drop in the flow of traffic along Tucumcari Boulevard was almost immediate. Businesses closed—many of them. The population declined from 6,765

Larry Smith standing in front of the iconic sign.

people in 1980 to 6,008 in 2000, and then 5,051 in 2014.

Resultant of the decline in business, a string of indifferent owners, and neglected maintenance, the Motel Safari, like many motels on Tucumcari Boulevard, was on the cusp of closure when it was purchased by Richard and Gail Talley in 2007.

With attention to detail, they applied their experience in hotel management and interior design and initiated a renovation of the property that integrated original architectural elements with modern amenities. This included refurbishment of original furniture that had been customcreated onsite during the motel’s construction, hiring of local artist Doug Quarles to create eye-catching retro murals, and the addition of a boomerang pattern for the doors and drive-up. The long-neglected swimming pool was filled and transformed into a patio that encouraged guests to mingle and share stories of their Route 66 adventures. There was new life at the historic venue.

The Talleys also developed innovative promotional and marketing initiatives that tapped into international fascination with Route 66. Though it was often overshadowed by the iconic Blue Swallow Motel, the Motel Safari developed

a reputation as a destination for Route 66 enthusiasts.

Refurbishment of the motel was but one manifestation of the evolving Route 66 renaissance. In communities all along the highway corridor, people were renovating old diners and motels, harnessing the resurgent interest in U.S. 66 as a catalyst for historic district revitalization, and opening eclectic shops reminiscent of the highway’s glory days in the 1950s.

In Tucumcari, this resurgence manifested in the refurbishment of other properties such as the Roadrunner Lodge, a motel that had been created by the blending of the 1947 La Plaza Court and the 1964 Leatherwood Manor by Agnes Leatherwood. As it so happened, this transformation coincided with the growing frustration of Larry Smith— current owner of the venue—with corporate employment and a Route 66 adventure.

A Fresh Start “Being from Tennessee, I didn’t grow up really knowing much about Route 66. I knew the TV show, and I knew the song, and I knew of the road from The Grapes of Wrath.

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Then sometime around ‘95 four friends and I moved to LA. I was working in TV at the time—in the production [and] postproduction part of it and editing. On the way out we stopped in Tucumcari, just by chance. There was just all this character, and still quite a bit of the neon left. I wish I’d taken pictures,” said Smith.

“It caught my attention, and I was very intrigued. This was pre internet, so after we got set up in Los Angeles, I went to the library and checked out a couple of books about Route 66 and started reading.”

A few years later he moved back to Tennessee and worked at Knoxville-based Scripps Networks, developers of HGTV, Food Network, and the Travel Channel. Though the job was interesting and required a great deal of travel, even internationally, Route 66 was always in the back of his mind.

He often thought of doing an end-to-end trip, but it just never worked out. Then in 2009, with a friend that had similar interests and his teenaged son, Smith took an epic Route 66 adventure—in a 1999 Fiat Multipla imported from Ireland.

There were breakdowns and fall weather issues as they made the journey in late October and early November, but none of these problems dampened the excitement. “We just decided that all those things were part of the adventure and part of the experience. We had a great time, and you know, before we were even in California, we were already planning another trip, because we had missed so much.”

The second Route 66 trip in 2015 was in a Jeep Wrangler.

“That was probably my favorite trip, because we met inspirational people and would go off-road a lot to visit places

The Motel Safari’s skyline.

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like the Painted Desert Trading Post,” said Smith. “It was on that trip that I developed a vague idea of doing something on Route 66.”

Fueling that budding dream were conversations with people such as Angel Delgadillo, Gary Turner of Gay Parita, and Bob and Ramona Lehman, owners of the Munger Moss Motel in Lebanon, Missouri. Added incentive came with reflections on his 50th birthday, his dad’s death at age 60, and wanting more from life than a stale corporate job, as his work was now largely confined to a cubicle.

“A quote from the movie Office Space says that man is not meant to just sit in a cubicle staring at a computer screen all day. I mean, we are not made to live that way. It’s soul sucking. It’s terrible. It slowly kills you,” Smith said.

The excursion had also led to thoughts about the future of Route 66, and an awareness that enthusiasts were needed to not only travel the road, but also to own its businesses and be involved in communities.

“As I began getting more serious about having a business on Route 66, I ruled out restaurants. I’ve stayed at enough motels to know what I thought worked well. I also narrowed my search to New Mexico and Arizona, because for me, driving west on the route, you go through all these Midwest states, the Texas Panhandle, and then something happens when you cross over to New Mexico. It just feels like freedom. Then one of the friends that I had traveled Route 66 with found a post about the Motel Safari being for sale on the Route 66 World Facebook page. I began thinking, doing some research, and looking at my financial situation.”

Tucumcari had been one of his favorite stops on the Mother Road.

Added incentive came as the purchase price was reasonable, many of the needed renovations had been completed, and the motel had a firmly established reputation with the Route 66 community. And to make the deal sweeter, the Talleys were offering to assist with a transition position.

“I tend to analyze and overthink things sometimes. This was different. It was, maybe, February 2017 when I told my friends about what I wanted to do on Route 66. [My buddy] Brett found the Motel Safari on Facebook about a week later. I had time The patio with its brick fire pit. off from work already scheduled for March. I cancelled my plans and [went out] to check out the motel. The work completed by the Talleys really impressed me. I got home and started freaking out. It was moving too fast. Shortly after going back to work, I decided to buy the motel. Then I actually backed out and told the broker, ‘no’, it was just going too fast, that if it was still available later, I would look the property over again. I’ve also always kind of been unconventional. I mean, I never got married, didn’t have kids, and didn’t do any of the typical stuff that people do,” said Smith.

And so, in July 2017, Smith reconsidered, and with some trepidation, abandoned the security of a steady job with a future and benefits, and embarked on a Route 66 adventure of epic proportions.

In with Both Feet To enthusiasts traveling the road, Smith, with his dog Sam, a friendly boxer, as greeter, soon became known as one of the Route 66 personalities. He met each guest, showed the rooms, and exuded enthusiasm. He gave the living quarters a full renovation, added a custom brick fire pit to the patio to give it a more inviting feel, hired Doug Quarles to add more visually striking murals, updated exterior lighting, and made some touches to enhance the rooms. And he embraced the essence of the Route 66 experience: an infectious sense of small-town friendliness, by hosting informal events such as Martini Time on the Deck.

Even with the full schedule, Smith has dedicated time to improving his newly adopted hometown. A firm believer in the future of Route 66 and Tucumcari, he accepted a position on the lodgers’ tax advisory board, worked to bring Rockin’ Route 66 to town, and is involved with several projects being developed to enhance the convention center and utilize empty commercial buildings. Most recently, he has been working

with Connie Loveland, executive director of Tucumcari MainStreet, to develop and coordinate the launch of a branding initiative for the City of Tucumcari.

Tucumcari has some way to go if it is to become a destination city. Still, it is well worth more than a cursory stop. As authentic Route 66 motels are a rarity, the lovingly restored Motel Safari, Roadrunner Lodge, and Blue Swallow Motel, with passionate proprietors that see themselves more as stewards of treasures than as mere business owners, give the city a promotional edge.

“I can see the potential here. More people are beginning to see that Route 66 is a catalyst for economic development and revitalization. It is a showcase that highlights assets that make Tucumcari unique,” Smith said.

And as more people like Larry Smith abandon corporate jobs and the monotony of the traditional nine to five, Tucumcari, with its wide array of opportunities and association with Route 66, will attract seeking people that are in search of new beginnings.

“I think that once people see that you don’t fall off the edge of the earth if you go too far, that you can survive by doing something that’s not conventional, that you can have work that provides a living and is rewarding, more businesses on Route 66 will open,” pondered Smith. “There are those moments where you think, ‘My gosh, what [am I] doing! Is this worth it?’ But you know, I usually come back down pretty quickly. I realized that the worst day here at the Motel Safari is still better than an average day in a corporate job.”

If you need a bit of inspiration to chart a new course in life, pay Larry and Sam a visit at the iconic Motel Safari. And if you too have been giving thought to finding a new place to call home, take some time to discover the tarnished gem that is Tucumcari, New Mexico, and meet the people that are working to make it shine bright again.

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OW L ROC K oute 66 attractions tend to fall into two different categories: the manmade ones, such as charming diners, kitschy shops, and funky giant structures, and the geological ones, such as the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, or Owl Rock. When traveling between Mesita and Laguna in New Mexico on Old Route 66, you are certain to pass an ancient rock formation that is vaguely shaped like, well, an owl. Located about two miles east of Laguna and jutting skyward against a bend in the east side of this narrow, winding stretch of the Mother Road, this mudstone sentinel stands silent watch, surrounded only by dry desert grasses and shrubs, and an occasional mule deer or passing elk.

Its only close neighbors are mile markers and telephone poles, though sandstone cliffs loom on the horizon, and not far away to the west is the McCarty’s lava flow—one of the youngest preserved lava flows in the lower 48 states (at between 3,000 and 4,000 years old). A geological site familiar to collectors of Route 66 postcards, Owl Rock was somehow spared the dynamite blasts of the builders of the fourlane Interstate 40. But what makes it so iconic, and why do so many thrill-seekers photograph Owl Rock along such a dangerous stretch of the Route?

Throughout its long existence, Owl Rock has seen much history transpire. It is believed by some that it dates to the Jurassic Period, when it was formed over the course of millions of years, as sediments flowed very slowly through a shallow, ancient river, and eventually cemented together to form mudstone. One of Owl Rock’s official locations is Laguna, which Spain had founded in 1697 on land they had claimed from Pueblo people. The Native Americans had expelled the Spaniards during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 but were reconquered in 1692, and the Spanish Empire regained control. Mexico took possession of this land after gaining its independence from Spain in 1821, but then ceded the territory to the United States in 1848 following defeat in the Mexican American War. New Mexico became the 47th state in 1912.

Nearby Mesita (Spanish for “small mesa”) was founded in the 1870s on the San Jose River’s south bank by a faction of the Laguna Pueblo people that split off as a result of Protestant Christianity’s growth in the area (following the arrival of Baptists in 1850 and Presbyterians in the 1870s).

Today, Owl Rock mostly just sees curious tourists. Aside from its unique shape and the colorful red sandstone cliffs that 38 ROUTE Magazine

loom nearby, these travelers are drawn to the rock because of its unique location on Route 66.

“It’s the old, original, two-lane highway,” explained Austin Whittall, Editor of TheRoute-66.com. “It was never enlarged to a four-lane highway, like in other parts of Route 66, so you get the real feel of what the people experienced when they drove down it in the golden days.”

Thus untouched, right after you pass Owl Rock, you will approach Dead Man’s Curve, a 180-degree bend to the left. There used to be several Dead Man’s Curves on Route 66, which caused many accidents, but most of them were eliminated during the Mother Road’s many realignments over the years. However, this curve remains to challenge the thrillseekers among the Route’s many devotees.

Of course, it is not nearly so dangerous to enjoy Owl Rock itself. Not much traffic passes along this stretch of Route 66 anymore, so you should be able to safely park on the shoulder, get out of the car, and take a beautiful picture. There are no written records of its height, but Whittall estimates that it is around 20 feet tall. Naturally then, you shouldn’t climb the rock, because of the risk of falling off. You may even see a roadrunner dart past, as Whittall did on his visit. And although Owl Rock remains as something of an anomaly in this part of New Mexico, that wasn’t always the case.

“There were only two of these rock formations in the whole of Route 66,” noted Whittall. “Both are in New Mexico. One of them was Elephant Rock, and [that] was in the Tijeras Canyon, close to Carnuel, just east of Albuquerque, and that’s gone; it was knocked out when the highway was widened. It was also very close to the edge of the highway, probably four feet from the edge of the tarmac. But Owl Rock survived.”

New Mexico is blessed with tremendous beauty and some of the very best Mother Road experiences available. America’s Main Street is packed with manmade destinations that deserve to be visited, but perhaps less grandiose in nature, natural stops are no less fun.

So, although there is another Owl Rock, a mountainous spire of sandstone near Kayenta, Arizona, close to the Arizona-Utah border, New Mexico’s Owl Rock has withstood the tests of time and fate that befell others, to become the last geological attraction of its kind along Route 66. And it is likely to stand sentinel for more millennia, watching silently as tourists gawk and wildlife indifferently pass by.

Image by John Smith.

R

A NAT U R A L WON DER

ROUTE Magazine 39

THE RA66IT

By Phoebe Billups Photographs by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66

40 ROUTE Magazine

T RANCH

ROUTE Magazine 41

R

ich Henry likes to say life on his Ra66it Ranch is a little like a jigsaw puzzle. “I’m still putting pieces together. A guy asked me one time, ‘Will your puzzle ever be finished?’ I said, ‘Yeah, the day that I die.’

Until then, it’s still being put into place.”

Driving the stretch of America’s Main Street that curves along the edge of Rich Henry’s pie-shaped property, the different pieces of the quirky attraction become distinct.

A sign at the end of the driveway declares: Henry’s Ra66it Ranch. The name itself is an amalgam of the Ranch’s famous furry residents and its deep connection to the Mother Road. Rabbits frolic around the feet of an eight-foot-tall fiberglass bunny. Inside a perfect replica of an old filling station, visitors sift through Route 66 memorabilia while real bunnies mosey up to demand a little attention. Volkswagen Rabbits are arranged nose-down in the dirt on one side of the property beside Campbell’s 66 Express trailers. One man stands at the center of this hodgepodge of wacky elements.

This is Henry’s circus, and he is the ringmaster.

The Ra66it Ranch sits on the outskirts of Staunton, Illinois, where golden prairies and cornfields meet momand-pop shops housed in charming brick buildings. It is one of the small communities that make up southern Illinois Route 66, where Muffler Men, vintage gas stations, turnof-the-century style cafes, quaint town squares, and kitschy buildings loom around every bend in the road, giving rise to a sense of wonder and possibility. The 300 miles of Route 66 that stretch from Chicago to St. Louis boast an astonishing number of one-of-a-kind attractions, and there is perhaps no attraction that packs more of a personal touch than Henry’s Ra66it Ranch.

Henry’s love for the animals is at the heart of the business today, drawing tourists from around the world. However, the first piece of Henry’s vision fell into place in St. Louis in the 1950s, when he was just a starry-eyed kid, riding Route 66 in the cab of his dad’s truck.

Finding Route 66 Rich Henry was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1947 to Hubert and Elizabeth Henry. While Henry’s father trucked, his mother raised him and his brother and sister. A woman of deep faith, she sent all of her children to Catholic school, where Rich’s cheeky sense of humor, which delights travelers today, sometimes got him in trouble with the nuns. “One time I said something so [a nun] hit me with a ruler,” Henry said.

“I asked her, ‘Can you hit me again?’ The nun looked at me really perplexed. She said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘That way I’ll have credit, and next time I do something wrong you won’t have to stop class to come and discipline me.’”

From the time that Rich Henry was a tiny tot, he knew that his father hauled freight for Campbell’s 66 Express, driving trucks with the playful company logo. “[Campbell’s Trucking 42 ROUTE Magazine

Company] started the same year as Route 66, 1926,” Henry said. “They lasted one year longer than Route 66, until March 1986. They stood out from the other companies as they went down the road because on both sides of their trailers, they had their service slogan, ‘humpin’ to please.’ In the middle of it, on the trailer, was a painted camel running toward the front.”

At a young age, Rich began riding with his father from St. Louis to Chicago and Oklahoma City, stopping at the little diners and truck stops along his route. As a student at St. Louis University, Henry worked in the Campbell Trucking Company’s office. When he graduated with his teaching degree in January 1969, he had six months before the new school year started, so he earned his trucking license and drove the same parts of Route 66 that he had glimpsed from

Rich Henry standing beside his enormous fiberglass rabbit.

the window of his father’s truck. Henry quickly found that he preferred the open road to teaching and kept trucking for them until he took a job as a traffic manager with Tubular Steel in Florison, Missouri, in the mid-1970s.

Often, work brought him to the little farming community of Staunton, Illinois, where the company had a second plant.

His ex-wife, Linda, whom he met in 1973, was from rural Edwardsville, Illinois, just thirty minutes north of Staunton.

They both fell in love with the friendly town where everybody knew everybody else’s business, hemmed in on all sides by wild prairie. They moved to Staunton in the late 1970s, opting to stay, even after Henry quit Tubular Steel and began running license and title service for the State of Illinois in 1982.

Henry bought the big circular plot of land where the Ra66it Ranch now stands in 1988. However, it was not until 1990 that he discovered Route 66 ran right along one side of his land. “One day, my next-door neighbor was telling me about Route 66,” Henry said. “I thought he was talking about 66 over by Interstate 55. ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘just on the other side of your ground.’ This guy was in his early nineties and he’d lived here his whole life. He finally grabs me by my shirt and takes me over to the ground and stomps his foot there on the piece of road where 66 is. ‘Right here,’ he said, ‘this is Route 66.’ That really got me going on the Route 66 thing. Once my old neighbor Ted told me that, other things started falling into place, like a jigsaw puzzle.”

ROUTE Magazine 43

Putting the Pieces Together The idea to open a Route 66 gift shop came to Henry on a 1993 trip to California. Along the way, he searched for Route 66 gift shops and was disappointed to find only about six in total. He began dreaming about opening his own souvenir shop in Staunton. In May 1995, Henry’s Route 66 Emporium became a reality. He opened it in the replica 1950s filling station originally built to hold his rapidly growing collection of Volkswagen Rabbits, a hobby of his and his father’s since 1982.

Henry’s Route 66 Emporium catered to curious travelers passing through the sleepy community. However, Rich always felt the attraction was a little bland, missing a unique element to set it apart from the fast-growing number of gift shops on Route 66. In 1999, a few serendipitous events coincided to show him what that something was. The first, sadly, was his father’s passing in August. “I inherited all of his personal vehicles,” Henry said. “I guess, between him and me, we had way over forty Volkswagen Rabbits.” Those Rabbits now

Vintage signposts in front of half-buried Volkswagens.

44 ROUTE Magazine

jut out of the ground on one side of the property, a shining tribute to the quirky Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas.

Around the same time, Henry and Linda took another trip on Route 66, this time to Delgadillo’s Snow Cap Drive-In in sunbathed Seligman, Arizona. At the historic diner, Henry had the chance to chat with owner Juan Delgadillo and witness his famous sense of humor firsthand. “I should’ve not told him who I was, so I could’ve had some pranks pulled on me,” Henry said. “Juan and I were just talking like regular people, and this young lady came in. She ordered a hot dog. [Juan] asks, ‘Do you want some mustard?’ He gets this squeeze bottle of mustard. As he’s walking back with it, he acts like he stumbles, and the bottle is compressed between him and the counter. It’s aimed right at this lady. All of sudden something’s coming out of the top of the mustard bottle. But it wasn’t mustard. It was a yellow string with a piece of paper at the end.”

Odd touches like dummy knobs on the door charmed Henry. Delgadillo passed away in 2004, but Henry will never forget that life-changing visit. “I could’ve spent a whole day

with the guy just listening to him. It inspired me. If he could do it like that, I could surely turn our thing into something similar with the silliness and quirkiness.”

Henry returned to Illinois bursting with ideas, but first he had a little situation to deal with. In April 1999, Henry’s daughter Emily decided to buy a pet rabbit. She was twenty years old and living in a shoebox apartment about twenty miles from her parents. “It was supposed to be a female,” Henry said. “She went back two weeks later, to the same pet store, to get a second one for companionship.

Well, that one was a female. So, two or three months later, she was surprised with a litter of bunny rabbits. She procrastinated and didn’t get the father fixed until after the third litter was born. By that point it was too late because a fourth Rich Henry checking his mail. litter came. [At this time], she also got a cat. So, she’s in this little bitty single bedroom apartment, probably not even 400 square feet, with 14 rabbits and a cat. She’s freaking out, she didn’t know what to do. I went down there and saw it. I said, ‘Emily, I’ll be back in a few days once I get something made. I’m going to take all the bunnies.’”

So, at the end of the summer of 1999, Henry found himself with a bunch of actual bunnies on his hands, in addition to his father’s Volkswagen Rabbits. Inspired by his fateful jaunt to Seligman, Henry took his newly found wealth of rabbits and transformed Henry’s Route 66 Emporium into one of the wackiest attractions on Route 66 Illinois: Henry’s Ra66it Ranch.

Life on the Ranch After the initial rescue, the rabbit population on Henry’s ranch climbed, peaking at 49 in 2003. Henry, who detested pet stores, made it his mission to adopt as many rescue bunnies as he could. Each rabbit had a unique name and personality, and they all loved Henry as much as he loved them. “It started with a fenced-in area to the southwest of the steel building,” Illinois Route 66 Museum volunteer Jim Jones said. “I’ve been down there several times and there are bunnies all over the place. In the building, Rich has one or two rabbits that will sit on top of the counter. Rabbits are queen or king of the Ra66it Ranch.”

The first rabbit to hold the title “Official Route 66 Greeter and Queen of Henry’s Ra66it Ranch” was a little black

bunny named Montana, who was crowned in 2001. In 2008, Montana channeled her popularity into a presidential run.

While she and her running mate, a brown bunny named Guy, may not have won votes, they did win the hearts of the hundreds of fans who followed their short-lived campaign online. “Tourists would come in and he’d take a piece of paper and [Montana] would punch it with a rubber stamp,” remembered Illinois Route 66 Association treasurer Marty Blitstein.

While the bunnies are a central piece of Henry’s puzzle, the attractions around them are constantly changing and evolving.

Since the 1990s, three Campbell’s 66 Express trailers have joined the growing Volkswagen Rabbit ranch. One of the Rabbits belonged to late Route 66 artist Bob Waldmire. It was given to Henry by Blitstein, who found himself in possession of some of Waldmire’s iconic modified Volkswagens when the artist passed away in 2009.

“I met [Waldmire] and we just had a great friendship,” Blitstein said. “Before he died, I went to see him. He had cancer; he didn’t do anything to stop it. I was there for the majority of the day. As I got ready to leave, I’m not ashamed to say I leaned over and kissed him on the head because he was dying. He put something in my hand. I didn’t see what it was, I was crying. I got outside to my car and opened up my hand. He had given me the key to the bus. I took that as if it was mine to keep.” In the farmhouse where Blitstein found the bus, there was also a Volkswagen Rabbit, which ROUTE Magazine 45

Headstones in the rabbit cemetery.

Waldmire said should naturally be given to Rich Henry at the Ra66it Ranch.

Foreign travelers on Route 66 delight in the old-timey gas station, spilling over with memorabilia, and its fuzzy mascots. After Pixar’s Cars was released in 2006, traffic only increased. It is not unusual for Henry’s neighbors to stop in for license and title service and find tourists from Japan, Italy, or France swapping stories with him at the counter. In 2012, Henry was even inducted into the Route 66 Hall of Fame at the Route 66 Museum in Pontiac, Illinois, alongside his father Hubert Henry, and the countless other characters that make Illinois Route 66 so unique. “These places open up and whether they’re successful has to do with the personality of the proprietor,” Jones said. “Rich is the driving force behind the Ranch. He’s the reason it’s been there for a very, very long time.”

Hopping Along Since 2003, Henry has let the rabbit population dwindle, but there are still plenty of ear scratches and cuddles to go around.

Today, there are just four bunnies in the office. Gilbert, whose fuzzy face has been featured in Route 66 guides, makes the 46 ROUTE Magazine

journey from Henry’s house to the office each day to greet visitors. Montana is buried beside a gazebo on one side of the building along with 63 of Henry’s 67 bunnies. He can still recall each of their names. “I’m going to make it into a memorial garden,” he said. “I want to call it the Tail of Ears.”

Henry’s Ra66it Ranch is a carnivalesque place, dotted with colorful, eye-catching attractions, but the warmth and nostalgia at its core are surprisingly simple. There is a kind of relaxed happiness that exists between Henry, his rabbits, and the guests who return to this whimsical place again and again. This serendipitous joy is spread across the twists and turns of Illinois 66. “It’s quite a different thing from driving 55, the road Eisenhower built when he decommissioned 66 in 1977,” Blitstein said. “Route 66 never went straight, it was like a snake, coiling back and forth. You drive 55 and you have car trouble, no one will stop and help you. But 60 feet to the east or west [on Route 66], no matter where you are, people will stop.”

Like the Mother Road itself, Rich Henry’s Ra66it Ranch is delightfully nostalgic and, at the same time, filled with surprises and the sense that anything could be around the bend. One question keeps visitors coming back season after season: “What will Rich Henry do next?”

Very small.

Very friendly.

Very Route 66.

Atlanta | Lincoln | Elkhart Logan County Tourism Bureau DestinationLoganCountyIL.com 217-732-8687

ROUTE Magazine 47

T

he drive along Route 66 through eastern Arizona brings views of a vast, dry shrubland, sentineled by distant mountains. Decaying structures dot the road as if acting as waypoints, Two Guns being among the most widely recognized. But about 35 miles from the sleepy town of Winslow—made famous by the Eagles’ 1972 smash hit Take it Easy—an eye-catching landmark replicating the nomenclature of the more famous ruins emerges: a pair of giant 25-foot arrows made of telephone poles, planted in the ground diagonally in front of some dilapidated buildings. This is the Twin Arrows Trading Post, the once self-proclaimed “Best Little Stop on I-40.”

The site that would become home to the Twin Arrows started as an empty stretch of land that wouldn’t see any developments until Historic Route 66—initially aligned along the National Old Trails Road through Arizona—was realigned along a straighter route that directly crossed the spot in 1937.

It still wouldn’t take until about 1950 for the first prospector to seize the opportunity to join other trading posts, like the nearby Toonerville, in drumming up business along the Mother Road.

Outfitted with Mobil gas pumps and a portable Valentine Diner next door, the Canyon Padre Trading Post emerged as the first incarnation of the facility, named after the gorge due west of it.

While it’s not known who the original owner was—if he was indeed different—it is known who he was by the time that the Trading Post was sold to its most famous owners.

“My parents bought the Trading Post in 1954,” said April Troxell, daughter of William and Jean Troxell, “and they bought it from a gentleman named Ted Griffith. [My father] was a bit of an adventurer. He already had a couple of retail businesses in Flagstaff—he was a professional photographer. The opportunity came up and he bought [the Trading Post].”

To help mitigate the responsibilities, April’s grandparents moved in to operate the Trading Post. April spent all of her summers and weekends at the business and helped pump gas for the tourists. “[The Trading Post] was [called] Twin Arrows before they bought it,” said April. “And [its caveman and cavewoman statues] were there when we got there.”

The Troxell family did, however, build the two giant arrow structures to accommodate the Trading Post’s new name, bringing notoriety to it. They also installed a coin-operated

48 ROUTE Magazine

telescope to view the San Francisco Peaks to the west, as well as two “bouncy horses” for kids to play on near the telescope and diner. Over the years they hired a former cowboy named Otis Bartley to manage the gas island, and a girl named Lucille from Jerome, Arizona, and a Navajo woman worked the diner. The Trading Post’s close proximity to the Navajo Nation made the tribe one of the Troxells’ most regular customers.

During the rest of the ‘50s and ‘60s, business was good.

Route 66 was always busy and there was a growing interest in roadside Americana and exploring the West.

However, as the decade drew to a close, things took a turn. Fast-food chains became more prominent and the Valentine Manufacturing Company, responsible for the cute prefabricated diners that dotted the country, including the one at Twin Arrows, began to lose business and eventually folded in the ‘70s. In 1971, Interstate 40 bypassed the Trading Post, although the stop was afforded its own exit, Exit 219, allowing motorists easy access. Still, business began to rapidly decline. The aging Troxells eventually sold the Trading Post in 1985 to new hands who sadly had less luck running it than they did. Finally, in 1998, the last owners of the Twin Arrows, the Riedels, closed the store for good.

The entire site was left abandoned and neglected for a good decade before the Hopi tribe purchased the buildings, and in a joint effort with Route 66 enthusiasts, restored the two arrow structures in 2009.

“It was a feel-good exercise, if you will,” said Route 66 author and historian Jim Hinckley, “trying to preserve a bit of history here. It was such a landmark on Route 66 for so many years. The Hopi tribe was talking about redoing similarly with the [Trading Post and] diner, but that [was] over 10 years ago.”

The State and Hopi tribe have thus far been unable to agree upon a future that will restore the Trading Post in its entirety, and as the years go by, the buildings and the iconic arrows have faced continual vandalism and damage.

For now, the two arrows, with their red arrowheads and fletching, yellow shafts, and white cresting still stand, though battered, while the two nearby buildings decay, drenched in graffiti and cut off from the road by concrete barriers.

Perhaps soon, they too will disintegrate in the desert wind and remain only in the annals of roadside Americana history.

That would be a real shame.

Image by Efren Lopez/Route66Images.

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ROUTE Magazine 49

B

efore families flooded Route 66 during the postwar era in search of wonder and excitement, or Midwestern pilgrims journeyed west along the “road to opportunity” to escape the Great Depression, there were truckers. From the moment the road was created in 1926, thousands of trucks streamed between the constellations of small farming communities along America’s Main Street transporting grain, rice, and promises of industry.

In exchange, they found welcoming towns filled with friendly people who were eager to hear stories from the highway or offer a homemade meal or a place to stay. Truck stops and family diners sprang up to accommodate this surge of new visitors, which only grew over time.

One of the giants among these roadside stops was the Rio Pecos Ranch Truck Terminal in sunny Santa Rosa.

In the early 1960s, Ira Lionel and Bessie Boren of the Rio Pecos Oil Company opened a little gas station in Santa Rosa, a charming, blink-and-you’llmiss-it town on New Mexico’s stretch of Route 66. A double wide trailer next to the station quickly became a small restaurant for the truckers to grab a bite and swap stories before moving onto another section of the Mother Road. “Boren owned the place but my grandmother, Stella, ran it for him,” said Eddie Moon, whose family founded the now-iconic stopover.

“She made Spanish food, American food, burgers and that kind of stuff. Even after the big truck stops came in, truckers still went to her because they knew she had the best cooks in town.”

In addition to the truckers who delighted in Stella’s cooking, the truck stop also fed plenty of out-of-towners looking to explore the magic of old Route 66. The cozy restaurant held eight booths with room for six or seven visitors to sit at the counter and watch their food fly off the griddle. Eddie, who started working for his grandmother as a busboy and a waiter when he turned thirteen, saw the lure of the Mother Road firsthand as tourists from every corner of the country rolled through the desert town and invariably stopped to enjoy the famous food and company at the Rio Pecos. But not all of them were ready for the New Mexican ‘wilderness’. “Some tourists would get so scared of the lizards or horned toads around the gas station,” he laughed. “They weren’t used to it. They were from the concrete jungle.”

50 ROUTE Magazine

The Rio Pecos’ most famous visitor from the big city was none other than the King himself. Eddie saw Elvis Presley’s enormous silver tour bus pull up in front of the tiny truck stop in 1972, and members of what he imagined must be his entourage spill out into the parking lot. While Elvis did not order a burger at the counter himself, the King’s visit left an impression on the little town and proved just what a landmark the Rio Pecos had become.

By the 1970s, bigger truck terminals had moved into town with showers and facilities for tired truckers. People still came to the diner and gas station for Stella’s delicious burgers and quesadillas but, in the end, the little truck stop could not compete. The Rio Pecos closed in 1974. Stella, who sold fresh fruit and delivered water throughout the community before working at the truck stop, remained a pillar of the community, driving school buses until she retired in 1984. Stella passed away in 2002, but many of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren still live in the Santa Rosa area and are, like their matriarch, active community members.

Today, the iconic truck-shaped Rio Pecos sign still shines over Santa Rosa, albeit a little rusted. A smiling driver leans out of the larger-than-life yellow vehicle with a plastic arm that once spun to beckon truckers and travelers on the open road. The city tore down the dilapidated buildings in 2016, but the people of Santa Rosa refused to let them remove, or even repaint, the little trucker who now stands watch alone over an empty lot. They remember how the Borens and the Moon family provided so many of them with meaningful jobs and drew visitors from all over the United States with the promise of old road magic that can still be found in a blinking neon sign.

The Rio Pecos Truck Terminal’s brief shining window of fame is a reflection of the ephemeral heyday of Route 66. The cheerful sign is a reminder of a time when, instead of riding the interstate from point A to B, truckers took a winding route through the very towns that filled their vehicles with grains and goods. While the double wide trailer may be gone, the warm memories of the trucks, tour buses, and family cars that once stopped under the grinning, waving sign are alive and well. Standing under the classic, kitschy sign that once lit up the main drag with a neon greeting, it is impossible not to feel some of the wonder experienced by those very first travelers on Route 66: truckers.

Image by John Smith.

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AN OZARK REN

By Eliza McKinnon Photographs by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66

52 ROUTE Magazine

NAISSANCE

ROUTE Magazine 53

S

pringfield, Missouri, perhaps best known for holding the lofty title of Route 66’s birthplace, is a picturesque setting that has evolved along with the historic road. Nicknamed the “Queen City of the Ozarks”, Springfield locates itself in the southeast section of the Cave State. Mirroring the peaks and valleys of the Mother Road’s narrative, the Route’s location within Springfield has changed over the years, but its place in local lore remains steadfast.

Today, the city features three different stretches of Route 66, which cut through downtown and offer striking glimpses of the old road’s winding iterations throughout its history.

Cruising along this scenic section of the Route, sightseers will experience a whirlwind of landmarks, starting with an immaculate display dedicated to the highway, which rises out of Park Central Square and sits underneath the looming shadow of The Woodruff Building, Springfield’s first skyscraper and the spot where its namesake, local entrepreneur John Woodruff—along with Cyrus Avery, the “Father of Route 66”—mapped America’s first highway from Illinois’ prairie to California’s coast. As you move along, you’ll spot a classic 1950s Ford gleaming outside the iconic Rail Haven Motel, the place where Elvis Presley spent the night after storming out of the posh Kentwood Arms Hotel on May 17, 1956. At another nearby motel, travelers can even sleep in the sandstone cottages originally built for road trippers in the 1930s. These snapshots of Springfield’s past are tucked among the boutiques, museums, and eateries that define the identity of this growing metropolis. However, visitors expecting to enjoy the city’s blend of historic charm and modern amenities might still be blindsided by its flourishing art scene, which has exploded over the last twenty years.

Like many cities in America, Springfield experienced a period of economic decline during the mid-twentieth century as families fled urban centers for the suburbs, leaving businesses to close their doors in their wake. When sculptor Nick Willett moved to Springfield in 1997, the downtown area had reached the point of utter desertion— save for a few bars and a camera shop. However, over the past two decades, Willett has witnessed those abandoned spaces fill up with a myriad of galleries, music venues, and new businesses. “When I first moved here, I used to ride my bike downtown and it was like a ghost town,” Willett said.

“All homeless people and boarded-up windows. It’s like a brand-new place now.”

As a result of this cultural renaissance, the city now packs itself full of lively events like the First Friday Art Walk, where each month more than 20 galleries come together to provide original art, live music, hands-on activities, Opening Spread: The mural in the Systematic Savings Bank drive-thru tunnel, just south of Park Central Square.

Artist Jorge Ortiz.

54 ROUTE Magazine

and demonstrations. Hundreds of people flood the downtown area to gallery hop and enjoy the restaurants on historic Commercial Street, while local bands fill the Square with pleasant tunes.

Some of the first people to move into the neglected buildings were artists seeking affordable spaces to create and showcase their work.

Bucky Bowman, an influential educator and supporter of the arts, opened the first commercial gallery in downtown Springfield in 1970. Stephen’s Gallery, which Bowman co-founded with his friend Stephen Davis, featured cutting edge pieces from New York City alongside the work of local artists. While Springfield was not quite ready for Bowman’s vision at the time—the gallery closed in 1976—his endeavor paved the way for galleries that would soon constellate a rejuvenated city.

In 1978, the Springfield Regional Arts Council (SRAC) formed to unite the efforts of a handful of artists and art lovers in the area.

When private organizations began investing in downtown Springfield during the 1990s, they partnered with SRAC to add an aura of liveliness to their developments, which, in turn, established art as a tool for urban transformation. The color popping off hand-painted signs and sculptures stretching to fill every empty space seemed to signal a new era of growth and prosperity for the city of Springfield.

A Messy, Worthwhile Process When Russ and Pam RuBert volunteered to run SRAC in 2001, they entered their roles with a desire to breathe new life into Springfield’s abandoned industrial sites. The artists met in a sculpting class thirty years ago where they bonded over their shared passion. Eventually, the two married on a scenic cliff overlooking Table Rock Lake, and, in a poetic gesture that only true artists could think of, they tied the knot by jumping into the lake together, solidifying their commitment to each other and a shared life of making art. Since then, the couple has played a key role in Springfield’s artistic community.

When SRAC needed to revamp, the couple stepped up to take the reins. Together, along with a team of local artists, they transformed the hollowed-out shell of an old dairy

The mural in the Systematic Savings Bank drive-thru tunnel, just south of Park Central Square. Artist Jorge Ortiz.

plant near the beautiful, sprawling Jordan Valley Park into the now beating heart of Springfield’s art scene. Today, the aptly named Creamery Arts Center houses many of the city’s arts organizations, including the opera, ballet, and renowned Springfield Little Theatre. The venue also offers first-rate performances and exhibitions like Russ’ “Kinetic Man,” a colossus cut from plates of glinting steel, which stands just outside the Center’s doors. Like some of the other largescale sculptures in Jordan Valley Park, the “Kinetic Man”

is interactive; visitors are invited to twist the wheel under his pedestal and move his lengthy silver limbs. The marks of handprints layered onto its steel express a poignant trait about Springfield: people from all walks of life are given the freedom to participate in art, not just visually, but physically, tactilely, and free of charge.

Russ and Pam’s own studio is located in an old peanut butter factory on the edge of town. It now contains laser cutters, a 60-foot Stinger Crane, and a computer system with ROUTE Magazine 55

advanced imaging software. Pam appreciates these neglected spaces for more than just their affordability. “Artists don’t really like moving into new buildings,” she explained. “You don’t want to get in trouble for spilling paint on the floor or, like, ‘What do you mean I can’t put a nail in the wall to hang a painting?’ Artists need messy spaces, because art making is a messy process.”

When Russ and Pam bought the ideaXfactory in 2012, it was just a crumbling building with a leaky roof. The city wanted to tear it down, but the artistic duo had other ideas.

They turned the building into an experimental art exhibition space with a $200,000 grant from ArtPlace America, an organization that aims to revitalize urban areas through the arts. Since Russ and Pam’s inspiring rehabilitation of this neglected place, ideaXfactory has hosted chalk festivals, craft shows, and the Sculpture X-Games, a one-of-a-kind event where teams of sculptors compete in a public tournament.

Additionally, the space provides free, interactive exhibits such as Pam’s outdoor sculpture yard in the building’s back lot, which was once just a dusty, forgotten plot of dirt filled with litter. In her visionary, restorative manner, Pam used her skills as an avid gardener to collect trash and plant roses along the perimeter, resuscitating the outdoor space and transforming it into a lovely setting for visitors to relax and soak in the open-air works. Eventually, the property attracted so much positive attention that the city bought it back. Russ and Pam aren’t worried, though. They have their eye on other buildings

in the area. “That kind of stuff does revitalize,” remarked Pam, “in a different kind of way than if someone just comes in and spends a lot of money to paint and redo buildings or knock them down and build new ones. Artists create a kind of interest that attracts people.”

A Museum Without Walls

While some events have long, traditional histories in Springfield, a slew of others have popped up in recent years. Sculpture Walk Springfield, lyrically referred to as a “museum without walls,” started five years ago and has quickly become a widespread attraction. It involves the annual selection of roughly twenty sculptures to become part of a rotating outdoor gallery downtown. The event draws submissions from every corner of the United States, which range from the elegant and simple to the fun and downright wild. For example, the various pieces Nick Willett has had displayed in Sculpture Walk utilize old metal found along rivers and sinkholes to reimagine the natural beauty of the Ozarks. Susan Wade, Public Relations Manager of the Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau, enjoys peering at a giant cupcake on her way to the office every morning.

The sculptures are hard to miss, even from behind the wheel.

But, as is the goal of Springfield’s public art movement, visitors must get out of their car and parade through Historic Commercial Street to truly immerse themselves in the magic of the Sculpture Walk.

“The actual exhibition is designed to be walkable,” current SRAC President Leslie Forrester said.

“There’s a map and you can see from one sculpture to the next one. It gives you a nice tour of not only the art in the downtown area but also all of the great things that are happening in downtown Springfield. A lot of it does happen around Route 66, near the Square, and so you have a chance to have a guided tour in a way that’s a little different.”

Between sculptures, visitors will see brightly colored murals. This is a more recent development and one that Leslie feels quite enthused about. Some of these equally interactive murals provide fun, unique photo ops; folks can pose in front of human-sized butterfly wings or mimic holding an umbrella in a deluge of rainbow paint. The street artist behind these engaging murals, Andrea Ehrhardt, began creating them in 2017 with the intention of filling every empty wall in downtown Springfield. “There are so many blank spaces that I think could be filled with color,” she illumed. “Just really bright, colorful, eye-catching art, all around town, that people can take photos with or enjoy while they’re walking or Pantree at Jefferson Avenue and Olive Street. Artist Mike Helbing. driving around.”

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Something for Every Season Route 66 has always been a source of inspiration for artists and Springfield is no exception. Tourists driving into town on the Strafford section of Route 66 will see Nick Willett’s 60-foot observation tower, the Ocularium, clad in sun-drenched silver and overlooking the iconic highway. Artist Christine Schilling’s striking “Route 66” mosaic follows the stretch of road that leads into the Square. Some people no longer remember what the symbols of Springfield’s history laid out in smashed, colorful tile mean.

Painter Stephanie Cramer cites the Mother Road as an inspiration for her haunting compositions. The connection between Route 66 and the arts most clearly and vibrantly manifests itself during the Birthplace of Route 66 Festival held in August.

The festivities include a car and motorcycle parade where girls in poodle skirts ride in classic cars next to circus clowns on Harleys, and artists sell their work up and down the bustling street. The celebration is complete with exhibits highlighting the glory days of Route 66 and an astonishing array of musical acts performing each day. Visitors from around the world flock to the stages scattered throughout the downtown area to see big names in rock and country perform.

“Many of them perform nearby the Kinetic Man in Jordan Valley Park. Artist Russ RuBert.

Route 66 space,” Forrester expounded. “So, travelers who are coming through to drive the legendary road have quick access to those kinds of things As President of SRAC, Forrester plays a central role in from the discovery center to the historical museum on the organizing these plentiful, eclectic festivals like the Mural square. It’s just chock-full of historical elements from the Festival, which is slated for next fall, and Watercolor USA, an heyday of Route 66.” annual event where paintings from artists across the country The Birthplace of Route 66 Festival is one of the biggest temporarily join the Springfield Art Museum’s rotating celebrations of the arts on Springfield’s calendar, but it is far collection of 10,000 pieces, which has been going on for from the only one. For those itching to dodge the summer nearly half a century. All this to show, for a city of its size, heat, there is the street fair known as ArtsFest. Established Springfield has an outstanding amount of sculpture, music, in 2000, the celebration now boasts 120 artists with booths and art within its vibrant, bustling streets. Forrester believes downtown to display art and hold demonstrations. Over the the range and depth of the artistry in her city has everything course of two days, 70 performances light up six stages, and to do with its placement along the Rust Belt and on Route 66. families can grab lunch from local vendors and enjoy the “Being in the middle of the country, I think, is a huge interactive exhibits. privilege,” she exclaimed. “We’re not flyover country, we’re “We have family activities for kids,” Forrester said. “We have a place where things can really happen, where we have the a clay mobile art site, which is a mobile clay classroom, so if ability to innovate. I’m a Midwestern girl, so that’s sort of you’ve ever wanted to try out a wheel and sculpting something my culture, but I really feel strongly about the value and out of clay, you can do that right there on the street.” incredible generosity of Midwestern cities, especially this size In September, Springfield hosts its Japanese Fall Festival.

Midwestern city. It’s kind of that perfect combination. It’s not As the trees turn red and gold, a delegation of artists and enormous and you’re not lost among a huge population. But performers from Springfield’s sister city in Isesaki, Japan, there are amenities here that you would find in a bigger city descend on the Ozarks. Past delegations have included without the big city hassles.” dancers, top spinners, large-scale calligraphers, storytellers In this sense, Springfield truly lives up to its royal name; it and musicians, martial artists, and Taiko drummers. The days serves as a cultural flagship for the creative and community are filled with energetic performances that bring a fresh hue ideals imbedded within Route 66’s magic. Moreover, it shows, to the city’s kaleidoscopic arts scene. At dusk, Springfield’s in the most vivid way possible, how the Mother Road, in all Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden is illuminated with soft her wisdom, is a place where light can outshine the dark, a music and tranquil, warm light radiating from hundreds of place where promise and potential are never far from reach; lanterns that guests can wander through during the serene all it takes is realizing and appreciating the history and beauty evening hours. lying in your own backyard.

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T

he largest rocking chair on Route 66 actually rocked just once. On August 18, 2008, Fanning 66 Outpost and Feed Store owner Danny Sanazaro and local welder Joe Medwick, who built the 42-foot-tall chair, chained a pickup truck to steady the seat as they pushed its 30-foot-long rockers forward. Officials at the Guinness Book of World Records watched via live video as the black-andwhite chair, emblazoned with the Route 66 insignia, wobbled above the treetops. In order to secure the title of world’s largest rocking chair for tiny Fanning, Missouri, Sanazaro had to prove it could rock. As the 27,500-pound chair tipped forward over the little general store, a Route 66 icon was born.

Like so many of the larger-than-life attractions that dot Route 66, the Route 66 Rocker came out of one mom and pop shop’s ingenuity and desire to draw eyes to their small but vibrant town and business.

The cornerstone of Fanning, an unincorporated community of less than 100 people, the Fanning 66 Outpost and Feed Store owners were committed to attract motorists off the highway.

In 2008, the Sanazaros began brainstorming ways to do it.

Danny remembered seeing huge rocking chairs along Route 66 as a child. He knew that the largest was “Big John” in Franklin, Indiana, and he decided to do them one better.

He drew up a design and asked his friend Joe Medwick to help bring his vision to life. “Joe Medwick’s a local,” current Fanning 66 Outpost and Feed Store owner Ryan Thompson said. “He’s actually still farming 50 acres behind me but, obviously, he’s a welder. He does a lot of fences. Danny asked him if he could help build it and he said, ‘Well, we can try.’”

Sanazaro and Medwick erected the towering rocking chair on April Fool’s Day in 2008, after months of hard work, but the impact it had on the community was no joke. People poured in from all over the state to see the giant rocking chair. Some even climbed up onto the enormous seat to take pictures. However, Sanazaro worried about visitors’ safety.

“You couldn’t have it loose because the wind would blow it over,” Thompson said. “There’s too much, it’s too topheavy.” As soon as Sanazaro won the Guinness World Record, Medwick welded the chair’s rockers safely to the concrete.

Instead of allowing visitors to climb up on the chair whenever they wanted, Sanazaro established Rocking Chair Day, one

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day every year when people come to take pictures ON the rocking chair.

The landmark wore the title of world’s largest rocking chair proudly until 2015, when it was stolen by a bigger chair, made of wood instead of metal, in Casey, Illinois.

“I talked to one of the Guinness ladies and they said they’d consider altering how they do it because, while this one’s a traditional rocker, meaning it’s all correct, the one they built there in Casey is a high-backed chair,” Thompson said.

“That’s one of the reasons we decided not to [make ours even bigger]. We’d have to redo the entire thing to keep it to scale and all they’d have to do is add longer rods. If I did it, they’d just turn around and add more.”

While the Fanning rocker might not be the biggest in the world, it is still the tallest on the Mother Road, and the flood of tourists coming to visit has never slowed.

“Thousands and thousands of people come from all over the world to see this chair,” Thompson said. “They come in with their cars, sometimes groups of motorcycles. Every weekend between March and October, we get anywhere from 30 to 60 motorcycles from EagleRider.

Because we’re a mandatory stop, we see them on their day two.”

The chair has undergone a few changes over the years. In 2015, after losing the record, Sanazaro repainted the rocker red (renaming it the Route 66 Red Rocker in honor of the “Red Rocker,” Sammy Hagar). When Ryan Thompson bought the Fanning 66 Outpost and Feed Store from Sanazaro in 2017, he made a few modifications. “When I bought it, the back of the chair and the slats were wood, so they were all rotted. Some were missing. We replaced the back and put in all steel, so it won’t rot, and repainted it black and orange.”

Thompson spends most of his time in the kitchen, serving up 250 old-fashioned sodas, 75 flavors of fudge, and more than 300 kinds of gourmet popcorn. Sanazaro is retired but he and Carolyn are still frequently seen at the Fanning 66 Outpost and Feed Store. While Thompson has opted not to keep competing for the title of world’s largest rocking chair, the attraction’s fame has only grown. From international travelers to day trippers, local news shows to international celebrities, everyone wants the enchanting opportunity to climb up onto the big chair and see the world a little differently. And really, what could be more roadside America?

Image by John Smith.

The GIANT ROCKER

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ROUTE Magazine 59

A CONVERSATION WITH

James Woods

By Brennen Matthews Photographs by Ken Aldridge

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J

ames Woods boasts an impressive resume, to say the least. Since his breakout role as Gregory Powell in the crime thriller The Onion Field, the multi-talented actor has worked on over 145 films and television projects in a myriad of roles both on and off the screen. But this masterful jack of all trades is far more than the sum of his work, and many may not know that he also harbors a deep love for the Mother Road.

You went to university at the prestigious MIT but then dropped out to pursue a career in theatre. What was your journey to get there?

I had a pretty colorful childhood. My dad was in World War II —he enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor, like a lot of patriotic Americans did… He was wounded twice, once at the [Battle of] Midway and once on Kwajalein. He was brought back to recover from some of his wounds at the end of the war at Quonset Naval Air Station in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.

My mom had worked in the war industry like a lot of young girls did. She was just 19 years old when they met. They met at a USO dance, and I asked my mom, “What did you like about dad?” And she said, “You know, these guys had been at war, and they came back, and they were pretty, you know, they would paw at the girls a lot. But your dad was a perfect gentleman.”

My dad was a great hero. He retired, he got his honorable discharge, went back to his job as a pipefitter for Standard Oil and went to Colorado. My mom was pregnant with me then. They’d been in Texas and had just been transferred up to Rangely, Colorado. The nearest hospital was in Vernal, Utah,

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a 65-mile trip, and we made the trip three times because my mom was… I was her first, she was 21 years old. While he was in the war, [my dad] lost his seniority to guys who didn’t fight, which is kind of a sad irony for a lot of men who fought in the war. So he went back into the Service. He enlisted in the Army and successfully passed Officer Candidate School (OCS) immediately.

I think my dad worshipped my mom… even when he was stationed back in the United States and worked six days a week, he always made her breakfast in bed on Sunday, and then he and I would go fishing. I had a wonderful life when I was a kid.

It sounds like you and your dad were quite close.

Yeah, I was very close with my dad, but my dad was, like many people who had seen a lot of horror in his life, an incredibly quiet man. Very repressed. And my mom told me, later, that he would wake up to these terrible nightmares. He literally told her a story that they had landed once and there were hands of children that the Japanese had nailed to trees to scare the soldiers. Listen, I know there’s a lot of political correctness these days, but anybody who fought in the South Pacific had first-hand knowledge of the atrocities that the Japanese committed in that war. They were unimaginable.

And I think that if you see enough of that, it has an imprint on you forever. So, he was a very quiet man who could handle things very well, no matter what it was, he could do it. He had an incredibly dry sense of humor. He was just the ultimate good man. It’s really hard to explain his kind of goodness, but he just served his country, he loved his children, he loved my mother.

So, I was close to him, and yet I was also aware that there were areas that I would probably have to wait to be an adult to share with him. Unfortunately, I lost my dad when I was 12. He had a very long operation, and was given the wrong blood by mistake, and died from a transfusion reaction during open repair of his aorta. He was only 44.

You grew up in the turbulent 1960s. A lot was happening in the U.S. during that time.

Yes, I went through all of that. When I went to MIT, we were in the dead midst of [it]—there were sit-ins, demonstrations, protests—and that’s why, when I see it now, I just—I mean, it was every day, every weekend, people protesting against the war. Now, I’m in MIT, trying to serve in a way, because I’m majoring in political science, and the area that I was interested in was defense analysis. I’m very, very pro-military, pro-America, pro-law enforcement, etc. At the same time, what our boys suffered over [in Vietnam] was unconscionable, and what most enraged me about the war was the fact that if you’re going to put men in harm’s way, you’ve either got to stand behind them or don’t put them there. You’ve got to stand behind your troops, and I don’t feel that that’s the way that war was run, certainly by Johnson.

You weren’t very involved in the free love and drugs culture of that time?

I never did any drugs. I never drank. In my senior year of high school, they were doing a play, and I mean, I loved movies.

LOVED going to movies. But I don’t even know if I’d ever seen a play. And so, my friend said, “Hey, we’re doing this play called The Little Foxes for the New England Drama Festival.” I said, “Okay.” He said, “You should be in it with us.” I go, “I can’t act, I’ve got a high-pitched voice, I’m skinny and not good looking, I can’t.” He says, “That’s okay, you can play the bad guy in it.” So, of course, I do it, and I win the Best Actor Award. I go, “That’s kind of fun.” Then this magical thing happened. I go to MIT and the first thing I noticed when I was at MIT, even though it was co-ed, was that there were about 900 guys in the school and, I think, 70 women. And MIT was so hard. It was so hard. I mean, I had perfect scores on my college boards, and I had 184 IQ on my Stanford-Binet and all that stuff and shoot, but I’m telling you, you get there and you…

So, how did you transition from MIT to theater and acting?

The summer of my sophomore year—I was from and living in Rhode Island—I received a scholarship to be an apprentice in a program that the Theater Company of Boston was having at the University of Rhode Island, which was my own state, but in the southern part of the state, in Kingston—with their company. Now, the Theater Company of Boston was a legendary theater company in its time. All the New York young, kind of top, off-Broadway actors that hadn’t made it yet but were kind of well-known

in the business, acted at the Theater Company of Boston. For example, the year before I received my scholarship, they did a production of Waiting for Godot. The two leads were Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall, both of whom were unknown.

Unknown. They made $60 a week to come down to Boston to do a play. The year after I was apprenticed—and I was always there—they did a season of [The] Local Stigmatic with Al Pacino, Jeremiah Sullivan, and Jon Voight—they did The Basement with Robert De Niro, I mean, it was just… so, I got to know all these wonderful actors that were on the cutting edge of theater.

So, the way I became an actor—I was the little apprentice, you didn’t even talk to the actors, but they had acting classes that some of the people would teach. I was doing The Zoo Story by Edward Albee. It’s a two-character play that is literally a one-man showstopper, award-winning kind of role—it’s a guy who torments a man sitting on a bench in Central Park, and cajoles the guy into murdering him, but it’s, like, 10-page monologues. So, I’m doing the play and I said to several of the actors—one of whom was Jon Voight— “Hey, I’m doing this play at my college. Would you guys come?”

And the great thing about actors, I have to say, I love actors, I really do, politics and all that aside—they’re really artists at heart, especially in the theater when you’re first starting, before you get destroyed by Hollywood. So, a lot of them came. They were so nice—some little apprentice wants to show that he can act and hopefully they’ll not think of him as just a guy holding a sword, holding a spear.

So, they all came, and it turned out that I was actually a pretty good actor. I come back and go, “Hey, what did you guys think?” and they are all standing there kind of like, a little bit, I’m proud to say, a little bit like they’re kind of awed, and they go like, “You know, you’re really good.” I go, “Oh, thank you so much!” And they go, “But no, you’re really good.” I go, “Oh, that’s really nice, coming from you guys,” and they go, “Really, you should consider a career in this.

Really.” And Jon [Voight] said, “Listen. The stage manager, Tim, I’m going over to his house tonight. Why don’t you come?” So, I said, “Sure, let’s go to Tim’s house.” Now, we sat there the entire night and we talked ‘til sunrise. And those two guys, Jon Voight and Tim [Affleck], talked me into quitting school and going to New York and becoming an actor.

Years, years later, my agent calls me up and said, “Hey,” — I was up for Good Will Hunting and I really wanted to play the part that Robin Williams got, and Robin got it and won the Oscar and did a great job. But, my agent, after the movie was coming out, said, “You know, the two boys who wrote Good Will Hunting would like to meet you, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.” I said, “Oh, I’d love to meet them,” because I knew they went to Harvard and the story’s about MIT, and it sounded cool.

So, we’re meeting and in the middle of the meeting, Ben Affleck says, “You know, I kind of owe you an apology.”

(Laughs) I said, “Why would you, we’ve never met?” And he goes, “Well…” I said, “Go ahead, I’m curious.” He said, “Well, you know, growing up, my father, who’s now sober and very successful helping others and coaching people in their sobriety, etc. but was, you know, kind of a troubled gambler and drinker when I was young, so, you know, it was rough growing up in a house like that, because sometimes you’d come home and have five television sets and then you’d come home and all the furniture would be gone.” And he said it lovingly and affectionately about his father. He said, “You know, but the ROUTE Magazine 63

one thing that always bugged me about my dad was that, every time you’d be on TV, my dad would see you and go, ‘I know him! And he became an actor because of me!’” And he said, “I was always so embarrassed, and I just thought that was funny that you figured in my life.” I said, “Do you have your dad’s number?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Why don’t you call him?”

He said, “Why?” I said, “You owe your dad a big apology.”

He said, “What do you mean?” And—this always brings me almost to tears—I said, “Ben, he’s the reason I became an actor.

That night was a turning point in my life. Without your dad I wouldn’t be standing here.” And Ben Affleck actually started to cry. It was a beautiful moment for me.

Once you decided to commit to theatre and acting, did you have the typical struggling actor experience?

(Laughs) I went to New York. I had $200 saved to my name.

My mother was—well, I had sold Christmas cards when I was 8 years old, and I had a paper route when I was 12—I was always industrious and I worked in a factory—the same factory that my mom worked in during the war. I worked in the basement, packing watchbands, nine-and-a-half hours a day for a dollar and a quarter an hour—I still have the pay stubs framed—10 minutes off in the morning, 10 minutes off in the afternoon. And I said then, “I swear, I will never in my life. Do. This. Again.” So, when I became an actor, I promised my mother… when I told her that I wanted to quit school and become an actor, she took a long time to think about it and she said, “When I wanted to marry your father, my mother said to me, ‘You’re too young, but if you want to follow your heart, I will support you, but you have to promise me you will always be a good wife, a good mother, and do everything that you can to make that decision the right one.’” And my mother loved my father until the day he took his last breath. He died in her arms. She raised two wonderful men, and she made the right decision. She said, “You must promise me this. Promise me that no matter whether you succeed or fail, you will give your best. Every. Single. Day of your life, and I will give you my blessings.” And I have never once broken that promise, I am proud to say.

So, I was in New York, and I never wanted to ask her for money. I paid $28 a month for my apartment, lived in Hell’s Kitchen for a while. I had one of those police locks on the door—a rod that you hold against a metal door so that somebody can’t get in. I didn’t have air conditioning; I had a fan—a $10 fan. Somebody with a sledgehammer [one day] knocked a hole in the wall between the hallway and my apartment to steal my fan. I used to eat my potato salad by the gallon—by the big quart thing—to save money and would live on it. I had nothing. I was so poor; I cannot tell you. So, I was pretty much at my wit’s end. I did well, I won awards like the Obie Award, I won the Variety Critics, I won the Theatre World Award. But I couldn’t—you’re working for $78.20 a week and trying to pay your rent.

My buddy had a friend that he knew named Brian, who was not in the business—he was an accountant or something—he was a single guy, had an apartment, and was out during the day. He said, “Why don’t you stay on Brian’s couch, just for a while, while we settle something.” I’m living on Brian’s couch for, like, three weeks, a month—a guy I don’t even know, he was so incredible.

I get a call from my agent who said, “Happy days!” So, I said, “Oh, did I get a job?” He said, “No, but you won the 64 ROUTE Magazine

Clarence Derwent Award.” I said, “I don’t know what that is.” He said, “It’s an award that a guy who was an actor who became wealthy doing other things, but enjoyed being an actor, but wasn’t very successful, but he loved it—he left an award—a scholarship—for the most promising, unknown actors each year, and you won it. ” And I go, “Great! That’s wonderful!” And he said, “So here’s the good part: it has a scholarship with it.” Now I’m like, sitting up on the couch, I’m going, “Really?” A scholarship, and I’m living on a guy’s couch, wearing the same pair of jeans, blue turtleneck, a windbreaker, and alpine boots. (Laughs) I’ll never forget, I wore the same thing every day. Washed them, put them on again, that’s it. “It’s $500.” I was like, a week away from just quitting, a week away from becoming a waiter, like all my actor friends—no shame in it, for sure. It’s an honorable thing when you’re trying to struggle to become an actor, I think. I said, “$500?” It might as well have been $500,000.

It was, like, $500, to me, at that moment—I literally cried.

I sat there and I sobbed. I’ll never forget it.

You’ve done a lot of great films. What do you think was your actual breakout role?

I did a lot of theater, but the turning point, unequivocally, was The Onion Field. Unequivocally. In the same year, I also did Holocaust, the miniseries for television, which was a monumental, landmark event of which I am extraordinarily proud. I’ll never be able to explain the emotional strain of making that movie. I literally stood with Meryl Streep in the gas chamber at Mauthausen Concentration Camp, and we were on a break and we were, literally, in there, talking, because that’s where we were shooting, and we were the only two people in there, and I remember Meryl saying to me, “We’re going to die and go to Hell.” I said, “Why do you say that?” She said, “We’re making a TV show about the Holocaust.” And I said, “But we’re making an unbelievably accurate, powerful, and moving miniseries, 10 hours long, about it.” And then, of course, it got nominated for 22 Emmys.

So that was, in one way, the turning point for me. But in terms of my success, I came back, I got the job in The Onion Field, even though another actor had already been cast. My agent talked Joe Wambaugh and Harold Becker, the director, into at least giving me a screen test. My agent actually sold his car to pay for the screen test! And I did the screen test, and the rest was history, I landed the part. Because of Holocaust, I was well known in Europe, as it turned out. I didn’t realize what a huge hit it was. So, they were going over to try to sell The Onion Field in Cannes, in 1978. I wanted to go, and they said, “We can’t afford for you to go.” So I paid for my own ticket. I flew over to the Cannes Film Festival and I was with the people from AVCO Embassy Pictures, and we went out on the Carlton Terrace and the paparazzi swarmed me. Now, I didn’t know anyone ever knew my name. I was completely unknown. Completely unknown. [Paparazzi] said, “Whoa, Holocaust, Karl, it’s Karl,” Karl, that’s the character I played, and, it was astonishing, the response. I was literally—it was frightening. And they went, “What are you here for, what are you here for?” And I turn to look at AVCO Embassy, and they go, “Tell them!” I said, “Are you picking up my hotel bill and my airline ticket?” They said, “What? You’re negotiating?” and I said, “Yes. Are you picking up my airline ticket and my hotel bill?” They go, “Yes!” I say, “I’m here for The Onion Field!” (Laughs)

Let me ask you about two or three projects that I had heard you were up for that you turned down. Because, I can’t see you in those roles but I’m just wondering if they’re true. Back to the Future, Christopher Lloyd’s role.

Were you offered that and turned it down?

Yes, I later worked with Bob Zemeckis, but— when they say you’re offered it, do be careful.

My agent said, “They wanted you to do it.”

That was the early days of CAA—their whole philosophy was: Don’t let the actor get involved in the business of his business—we do that. So, when you say, “You’re offered it,” I don’t know.

But there’s a perfect example—can you ever imagine anybody filling that role but Chris Lloyd? It would’ve been a mistake, I mean, I actually would have done it a different way—it would’ve been my own way, but Christopher Lloyd is, like, a genius comedy guy, and so perfectly genius for that role. But I know it was genuinely talked about, and I asked Bob Zemeckis and he goes, “Yeah, I don’t remember how it worked out, but you were like, one of the two, three guys that we were really—if Chris didn’t do it, you were going to do it,” or whatever. And also, it was between me and Bob Hoskins for [Who Framed] Roger Rabbit.

The one that I was offered was An Officer and a Gentleman, and my incredibly good friend Lou Gossett Jr. got it. And it was such a great idea, I remember thinking, “Wow!” Back then, the part was written for a white guy—a black guy wasn’t even considered. They never thought of that. That was landmark casting, and what he did, I thought—because I was around the military a lot—I thought, “Wow, that’s brilliant casting to have—first of all, use a phenomenal actor and a great guy”— Louis Gossett Jr.—I love Lou, he’s one of my best friends—and I thought, that’s so great, because a lot of those boot camp guys are really tough, Southern black guys. And it’s so great to show that the military was instantly a diversity success.

What was the first big purchase that you made once you had a little bit of money?

I bought a house, $140,000, in Laurel Canyon.

Great place.

Yeah, up on Ridpath Drive. And I looked on the deed—the property first sold in 1930 for $10. And now, I saw it for sale recently for a million-eight.

You’ve done two trips down Route 66.

Yes! I did a shorter one with my girlfriend Sara [Miller], we just decided to use 66 on our way back to Rhode Island, where we live. We got on in Arizona and worked our way up.

But I did a longer trip in 2015 with my friend, Teach. His name is Ken Aldridge, but they call him “Teach” because he was a teacher for years and years. But he’s just the kind of guy, if you ever picked anybody you wanted to take a trip with, it’d be a guy like Ken. And for guys our age—we’re probably the only two guys our age who could act like a couple of older teenagers.

I called Teach and said, “I’m driving cross country,” for the World Series of Poker at the Rio. Teach and I are avid poker players. So, I was going to leave about a week or 10 days early, because I wanted to have a car, then I go to LA afterwards. He said, “Oh sh*t, I’d love to drive cross country!

Let’s do Route 66!” I said, “Oh, yeah, Route 66—I think it’s, you know, a little bit of a winding road.” He said, “So what?

It’ll take a little time.” I said, “You know what? Great.” We get to Illinois—so, we don’t start in Chicago. We start just below Chicago, in Joliet.

Once you get on Route 66, you very quickly realize one thing—first time, you stop and look at every building, every— and you realize: you’re driving through forgotten America.

It’s just forgotten America. So, you think, okay, here’s a big statue somebody made out of, like, plaster and sheet metal from their old cars, and it looks sort of like a dinosaur in their front yard, with an old gas pump, and it’s really not a tourist site, it’s just part of the craziness of Route 66, and you have to kind of be on Route 66 to get it.

You quickly notice that everybody in America welcomes you when you’re on an adventure. And the adventure can simply ROUTE Magazine 65

with really no plan for where we were going to stay that night, we didn’t even know where the hell we were. (Laughs)

What are some of the roadside attractions that stood out to you?

be riding on this old, two-lane road—that’s sometimes a dirt road, by the way. We were looking [on a map] and I said, “That’s Route 66, with a dirt road there?” Teach said, “Yeah, it was turned into a dirt road for a while.” It’s amazing. So, you’re through these little towns—there’s always a little downtown with somebody who has a thrift shop still open, somebody in a little pizza joint, an antique place, and oh look, there’s a little hardware store. Places where people still leave their doors unlocked.

We’d stop and we’d be taking a picture—every time we stopped by Route 66 signs, just to kind of catalog it—somebody would pull up on the side of the road and go, “Where are y’all from?” We’d say, “Oh, he’s from North Carolina and I’m a Yankee from New England.” “Oh, great! Well, here, let me take a picture of you guys!” And they’d take a picture and then they’d take a picture with us, and it was like—America is a very welcoming place, and it’s harder to see that when you’re stopping at a truck stop on the 70 or the 80, just zipping by.

You guys seem to have taken life as it came on the old highway.

Driving on Route 66 we very quickly realized that there was no plan, no schedule, no time table, we didn’t have to get a picture of every site or novelty or museum—for the first time, we weren’t on a schedule, we had plenty of time to get there.

We were driving—we had no plan.

One day we went to the Elbow Inn in [Pulaski County], Missouri. And they have—every woman who’s ever been in there has her bra signed, and hanging from the ceiling, on the roof. There are like 3,000 bras hanging there. There must’ve been 50 motorcycles outside, and us, two doofuses, in our Jeep—and I said, “We’re going to go in and get the sh*t beat out of us, but we gotta see this place. We gotta go in.” We enter in and rather than being beaten up, the first thing I hear is, “It’s James Woods!” And they said, “Come on up to the bar,” and the girls are there and the bras are hanging—so there we are in Missouri, with a bunch of bikers, having a drink—having a beer under 3,000 signed bras in the middle of the afternoon, 66 ROUTE Magazine

The Oklahoma City Memorial for sure. It’s unbelievably moving, because they have a huge reflecting pool… at one end is a big monolith with an open doorway that you just walk through. And it says 9:01, and at the other end is 9:03, and in that minute was when the building was destroyed. On the hillside, they have chairs. Empty chairs for each life that was lost, and—I tell it and it brings me to tears, it’s almost hard to talk about it—for each floor, they have the chairs of each individual person. But, they [also have] little chairs— they’re all in a cluster for, of course, the nursery, where all the little babies were, that got killed—the little children.

So, you see those little chairs, and you just—you just lose it.

I mean, we were a couple of guys driving across Route 66 and it’s raining, and we’re standing, looking at those little chairs, and, it’s like, “I’m not crying, are you crying?” “No, I’m not crying, I’m good.” (Laughs) It’s an incredibly moving experience to be there. You really share in the aftermath of grief that Oklahomans felt for their lost loved ones there— and Americans felt for their lost loved ones, and, I tell you, people should be required to see that place; maybe there’d be less division in the country if they did.

The great thing about driving Route 66 is we didn’t drive it with a plan. And we didn’t expect to be wowed out of our minds—I sent you a picture of the big head that was—the big Easter Island head. [Giganticus Headicus, outside of Kingman, Arizona.] We stopped at a bridge—it was called Chain of Rocks, in Illinois. We walked that whole bridge. It was a long walk.

We saw the big Blue Whale, which is—it’s so funny when you see it, it’s like—you feel like Chevy Chase, standing there, going, “Oh, hey, look, a blue whale in the middle of nowhere.

Nice.” (Laughs) The Cadillac Ranch was great because, of course, you get there and they’ve got all these Cadillacs stuck in the ground.

And you think, “Well, this is kind of ridiculous,” and then you get there and it’s so impressive-looking, and everybody graffities the cars—that’s part of the tradition. You’ve got to walk about half a mile to get out to those cars, and when they’re out there and they’re all spray-painted, it strikes me as: yes, odd, and yet, moving in some ridiculous way, that people want to stop and spray paint a bunch of cars—spray paint their name, which is going to be covered up within two days by everybody else spray painting, but they just embrace this silly part of a culture—the culture of Route 66.

Did you guys stay at any of the historic motels along the way?

We stayed [at the] Roadrunner in Tucumcari, New Mexico.

We looked ahead at some really ominous weather in the distance after Amarillo, Texas—that never materialized, actually—but the sky was black, and we were driving into it.

And when we finally got to Tucumcari, there was something about the way the Roadrunner was set up—there’s a little front office that has a vintage, old—I think it was an old Ford Fairlane, right in the very front.

Roadrunner is very welcoming: it’s got a little gravel parking lot and a big, L-shaped, 2-story building, but the front office had this great sign, a roadrunner with a roadrunner icon, and

you went into that little lobby and waited, and there was a front desk, just like a Coen brothers movie—guy comes out from around, “Hi, how are you doing?” “Fine,” and all of a sudden, it was 1962 again. And we’re at the front desk, we’re signing in and sat down, and “Can I bring you a Coke?” and it’s like, (Laughs) that is exactly what I wanted, a Coca-Cola!

And, I mean, he brought out a Coke and we opened it, on the bottle opener in the machine or whatever, and we sat and had a [drink]. The rooms were great, they were simple—but it really felt authentic, it didn’t feel like, “Oh, they’ve dolled this up to be staged like a ‘50s motel,” although it was maintained very well and renovated—kept up beautifully.

All the places we stayed always had a friendly vibe.

Do you think that Route 66 and similar highways represent America?

Let me just say one thing. I was talking to Teach last night, and after I got off, Sara and I were talking about how we love to travel—neither one of us likes to fly. And you know that I abhor the notion of America as being a flyover country, I think it’s just a snob, elitist, globalist, obnoxious point of view, and disrespectful to the people whose sons came—and daughters—have come home under a folded flag. If you offer that kind of sacrifice for your country, and if you stand up for your country as a worker, as a farmer, as a teacher, as a warrior—as a politician, by the way—trying to give to your country—as an artist—in any way that you can give to your fellow Americans—and to the world—that’s a great achievement. I love a magazine like ROUTE Magazine that celebrates the notion of the road.

A lot of people out there on Route 66 would not necessarily feel… they’d say, “What’s the big deal? A bunch of old gas stations that are kind of like museums now.” But you go to these little towns where, sadly, a lot of the businesses are closed, and I say, “This is America. For better or for worse, this is America.” And these people have lives that would surprise you, and they have hearts and souls and imaginations and experiences. You may only be happy when you’re at the ballet, and the ballet is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, or going to a museum, and I cherish and love museums, but there’s also something about sitting on a haystack and looking up and watching a hawk in the air or whatever. All these experiences are—they’re impossible to replicate or understand unless you’ve had them. How simple and beautiful America can be in its least “stunning” incarnations. And its stunning incarnations—you go to Yosemite, you go to Yellowstone— these parks are unbelievable—you see the majesty of America, but the quiet majesty of America, for me, is the Holy Grail.

In recent years, your presence on Twitter has been quite vocal and focused largely on conservative politics. What made you choose to do what a lot of actors won’t, to voice something that wouldn’t necessarily be popular with Hollywood or half of America?

This is the most important thing I can say about my Twitter presence: If you want to know where I stand on any question, know that I believe in the Constitution, I believe in law and order, and I love my country. So, the answer that you get will always be within those three parameters, and, indeed, all of those three parameters. So, if you have a problem with anything I say on Twitter, then I guess you have a problem with my love

of country, the Constitution, or law and order. And people will say, “Oh, but you said X, Y, or Z,” I said, “No, you didn’t hear what I said. If you read what I say, you will understand it.” I’ll give you a perfect example. A buddy of mine who has Hispanic origins—one of my best buddies—said, “Well, aren’t you against immigrants?” And I said, “I’m an immigrant! We may have come here in 1741 on my father’s side, but on my mom’s side, we came from Ireland and England in the mid-1800s. We’re all basically immigrants. I’m against ILLEGAL immigration. I’m wildly supportive of legal immigration, and I’ll even go so far as to say, and have said until I’m blue in the face: it’s too hard for people who want to come and join the American dream. It takes years and lawyers and fees—it should be easier for those who want to contribute to the American dream.

Did you have any sense of what the impact on your career would be?

Yes, of course. Look, people overstate this, but you can only be silent so long in the face of malicious behavior. I love this country and I believe that there are people who have done criminal things to destroy the values that my father shed blood for. And I think that some issues are at the very heart of our nation’s worth.

Do you have any regrets in being so vocal on social media?

Well, there’s an old saying, when Groucho Marx was discriminated against for being Jewish in some country club, he said, “I wouldn’t want to be a member of a club that doesn’t want me.” And, if I can’t voice my opinion as an American without losing my job in Hollywood, that’s not the kind of people I want to work with, really. That said, I will tell you that I’m good friends with a lot of people who think differently than I do, politically, and people are shocked when they see me out to dinner with Oliver Stone, or I’m laughing with Rob Reiner, or I bump into Sean Penn and we sit down and have a cup of coffee.

I don’t believe people should be punished for being Americans with political opinions. I think it’s heinous that I’ve been blacklisted. I hear the voiced opinions that I believe are about values and actions that we must cherish and take, respectively, for the preservation of values I hold dear in this nation. And that, to me, is more important than making films and entertaining people, which I truly love doing. It is a sad sacrifice that I have made, I am making daily, and will continue to make to voice opinions that I hope are helping people see the truth that they simply cannot get in the mainstream media these days.

The bottom line is—here’s the thing people don’t understand about revolutions and civil wars and uprisings and so on. You can never suppress people’s beliefs. You can fight a war for land, for territory, for money, for suppression. But you can never, ever defeat the human heart. You can’t. So, those people who want to ban me from the business for what I believe, my response, basically, is, “Good, then you can go keep making the same crappy movies you make.” These are the same people who’ll laugh about flyover country, meaning everybody from Los Angeles to New York, in between those two cities, they think they’re a joke, and they laugh about them. And you know what my answer is? Maybe if you got in your car and drove on Route 66 through all the small towns of America and met the people you made movies for, maybe you wouldn’t make the sh*t that you people make, and you would start making movies that people actually wanted to watch.

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Before Route 66 lured road trippers with promises of diverse and colorful history, wacky roadside attractions, and breathtaking views, it was a constellation of welcoming little communities that rose up to create what is now a living testament to American ingenuity. They met travelers as they journeyed west and in turn, developed themselves over the years. And there is perhaps no better example of this moxie than the community of Devil’s Elbow, Missouri, with its beloved picturesque bridge.

When the bridge was built in 1923, the tiny resort town of Devil’s Elbow—so named when the loggers who founded the area declared the tricky bend in the river a “devil of an elbow”—looked much the same as it does today, with cheerful cottages set amid lush greenery and river rock. The people of Devil’s Elbow were eager to show visitors all the scenic beauty and hospitality that their little oasis had to offer. Only one thing stood in their way: dirt roads.

“In 1920, the people of Missouri passed a 60-million-dollar bond issue in response to the slogan ‘get Missouri out of the mud,’ because we had no paved roads in the state,” said Pulaski County historian Terry Primas. “The only paved part of [the state] was about six miles in the city of St. Louis. The roads were atrocious. The main road through the area that eventually became Route 66 was Highway 14. It was essentially a haphazard dirt road. With the passage of the bond issue, they started making improvements.”

The paved lanes of the road that would become Route 66 quickly stretched across Missouri until the architects hit the banks of the Big Piney, a spot once listed as one of the ‘seven scenic wonders’ of Missouri. “The ford where the road went across was just not a good bridge site,” said Primas. “It was in the bottom land of the piney, with flooding all the time. There really were no good approaches to it. The county engineer, a man by the name of George Reed, resurveyed the road and took it south around Hooker Hill. It hooked around the hill and went south toward the little resort village of Devil’s Elbow.” In a combination of nature’s will and the happenstance that so often touches Route 66, Devil’s Elbow took its place as a premiere tourist destination on Missouri’s section of the Mother Road.

The construction of the glittering bridge—589 feet in length—commemorated the beginning of its remarkable 68 ROUTE Magazine

relationship with the people of Devil’s Elbow. Travelers coming to take pictures with Devil’s Elbow Bridge are quickly charmed by the town’s quaint shops, old-fashioned hospitality, and cottages with roofs of jagged Ozark stone. The Munger Moss Sandwich Shop, which later became the Elbow Inn, was a place visitors could stop and chat over mouthwatering barbeque.

“People came from around the world to stop, grab a beer, have some chicken wings, and take pictures of the bridge,” said Route 66 Association of Missouri President Rich Dinkela.

“There’s an outcropping of these rocky bluffs lined along the Big Piney River. It really personifies what the Ozarks mean. It’s a beautiful landscape.”

In 1946, the narrow road that wound through town was deemed too dangerous by highway officials. They carved a new four-lane path for Route 66 right through Hooker Hill.

“As far as traffic goes, the decommissioning [of Route 66] in 1976 had little effect,” Primas said. “The biggest effect had already occurred in 1945 when Devil’s Elbow and the bridge were bypassed by the first stretch of divided four-lane Route 66 in the state to better move traffic around the curvey road through Hooker, Devil’s Elbow, and the narrow bridge.

It featured the deepest road cut in the country at that time, known as Hooker Cut.” Although the little town was bypassed, it was not forgotten. To this day, travelers from around the world trace a path along old Route 66 and find the bridge still sparkling, well cared for even after all these years by the small but devoted community that surrounds it. Every Christmas, residents decorate the silver girders with wreaths and lights, creating a magical lightshow for travelers on the Mother Road. With the decomissioning, the bridge became the sole responsibility of Pulaski County, and residents have always found ways to repair it from floods or the ravages of time, often parterning with lovers of Route 66.

Today, the bridge rises above the peaceful river, a flash of silver between the emerald trees, causing all who wander here to pause and admire this intersection where the beauty of Route 66 meets the natural splendor of the Ozarks. And it just might inspire them to slow down and lose track of time in a town that moves at an easy pace, where the people are as cheery and resilient as the pine structures they rebuild after each flood that threatens to sweep them away, and the spirit of Route 66 is alive and well.

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

CROSSI NG T H E D E V I L’ S E L B O W

PULA’ SAFE ONE. Packed with open air attractions and far enough off-grid you’re away from the crowds, Pulaski County, Missouri’s iconic stretch of Route 66 is one trip that is made for slowing down and taking it all in. Grab turn-byturn directions and travel safety tips at our Visitors Center or online via our interactive map at SeeRt66.com.

Masks are available at our Visitors Center.

ROUTE Magazine 69

N

ow basically a living ghost town, there is not a whole lot going on in Afton, Oklahoma. The main road through town, Route 66, is rather quiet, populated by memories of the past more than modern-day residents. But this was not always the case. In 1936, travelers poured into Afton, and the town was booming. On weekends, the main drag shimmered with neon light. Locals filled the streets downtown, eager to enjoy the quaint, colorful bars and pool halls or pop over to the local roller rink. Tourists spilled out of classic cars to grab a bite at Baker’s Cafe on Main Street before they headed back to the newly opened Avon Court Motel on the west side of town. It was a town with a story. It still is.

When John Foley decided to build the Avon in 1936, Route 66 was in its heyday and the railroad town of Afton, like many towns along America’s Main Street, was a hub.

“You’ve got this river of traffic, which is basically a stream of money flowing through town,” said Route 66 author and historian Jim Hinckley. “All kinds of businesses opened to try and capitalize on it. [Foley] saw that people traveling, towing trailers and things was pretty popular, so he opened a small trailer court with seven units.”

The motel’s seven concrete cabins sat facing the road, shaded by gleaming foliage. The cozy buildings were stateof-the-art with a list of amenities that proudly included: “panel ray heat, air cooled, clean, comfortable reasonable rates, and a modern trailer park.” Guests drove right up to the seven covered car ports, which were rarely empty, and parked next to their simple rooms.

W.R. Trebilcock bought the property from Foley in 1951 and ran it until 1955, when he sold it to Harry Glover. Then, in 1957, construction was completed on the Will Rogers Turnpike. I-44 officially bypassed Afton the next year and the impact was immediate and devastating. “Route 66 was a lifeline for the area for many, many years,” said Afton Town Manager Brent Smith. “Once Route 66 was abandoned and the interstate system was enlisted, like many towns, Afton kind of went away.” Glover sold the property in 1958.

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Today, it is a nostalgic echo of both the town’s and the property’s glittering heyday.

Only three of the original seven cabins still stand, and the awnings that once covered slumbering vehicles have long since vanished. Empty door and window frames stare wistfully out at the winding road. The rusted sign that greets visitors has been worn away by time and now bears just one somewhat visible word: Avon.

The haunting sight of the shells of the white motel buildings and their old sign captivates people traveling along the old Mother Road to this day, and countless people have stopped to admire its eerie beauty. Tourists frequently stop by the side of the road to take photos.

When Rebecca Collins helped launch Project Clean Up Afton in September 2020, the motel was in truly desolate shape. Collins, Smith, and a team of volunteers from the community, which consists of about a thousand people, alighted on the overgrown property armed with buckets, rakes, and the steely determination to save one of their most beloved landmarks. The volunteers were unsure what they would find under the three inches of soil and soot that coated the concrete, or whether they would even be able to save the iconic structures. However, they quickly discovered that the concrete was rock solid, with only a crack or two to show for years of neglect.

In an upcoming event, the team will clean the buildings and try to spruce them up a little. “The next [event], we’re gonna power wash everything and give it a new coat of paint,” Smith said. “[In] some of the rooms, our plan is to build trellises [in order to] to grow some ivy and make a place for picnics or photo shoots and things of that nature, just to highlight its place in Afton, and make it a good starting-off point for the city.”

Whatever may come, the people of Afton want to preserve the ruins exactly as they are. “It’s popular right now because of what it is and the whole thought of what it was,” said Smith. “We’re just going to make sure what’s there can last for many years into the future.”

Image by Nick Gerlich.

AN ECHO OF THE PAST

Miami, Oklahoma

The gateway to Oklahoma on Historic Route 66

DELUXE INN Miami, OK

visitmiamiok @miamioktourism @visitmiamioklahoma

ROUTE Magazine 71

STEEPED 72 ROUTE Magazine

IN HISTORY

By Jimmy Pack Jr. Photographs by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66 ROUTE Magazine 73

A

s you leave Bloomington, Illinois, heading southwest on old Route 66, scoffing as you pass the interchange onto I-55, you’re flanked by two golf courses—Fox Creek and Prairie Vista—situated where the terrain naturally lends itself to the game Mark Twain once called “a good walk spoiled.” The road opens up here, and so does the land, flat and fertile, full of farms where the agrarian way of life is still passed down from parents to children, and where, despite thousands of acres in between, neighbors know each other by their first names.

Five miles down the road you hit Shirley, Illinois, Population 2,000; a small prairie town peppered with oaks, hickories, maples, and the occasional dogwood.

But five more miles down, on the edge of McLean, Route 66 will take you into the heart of one of Illinois’ oldest preserved tree groves. A place world-renowned today for its maple ‘sirup,’ with an eponymous moniker bestowed by the family that “discovered” and laid down their roots here in 1924—Funks Grove.

Two Methodist families from Ohio, the Funks and the Stubblefields, were the stuff of legends—early pioneers looking to break new land and grow our young nation.

“They had come west, like the people that would follow them, looking to make something of themselves, and here’s this beautiful grove of trees—about 3,000 acres of hardwoods,” said Funk Prairie Home Museum historian, Bill Case. “Funks Grove is still the biggest stand of virgin hardwood timber left in Illinois today. That’s because of the Funks’ and Stubblefields’ preserving, and that’s an incredible accomplishment.”

The Funk Dynasty Begins The two original Funks, brothers Isaac and Absalom, worked the land and raised livestock with the Stubblefields for years before even thinking about the ‘sirup’ business. At first, the maple trees were merely incidental, and Isaac and his sons (all eight of them) boiled down the sap from the sugar maples for personal use as a sweetener. The family’s focus was purely on growing the prairie farm in an area with no natural body of water. There are no rivers near the grove, so why would people settle here? The answer is simple: the area is home to some of the richest topsoil on Earth. It’s deep, rich, glacial dirt that grows hearty and plentiful crops.

But the corn and grains they were growing were not people food. They were to feed their livestock. Isaac and Absalom raised cattle on the prairie grass and corn and then drove them to market.

When the Funks first arrived in McLean, Chicago was not yet a market, so they had to drive their livestock east. The nearest market was Cincinnati, Ohio, but they drove as far as the east coast. It is not known exactly how many trips they 74 ROUTE Magazine

made, but they drove cattle as far as New York and Boston, and to Philadelphia definitely more than once. The Funks were a determined lot.

Growing the Grove and Aiding the Union If this seems like an incredible accomplishment, it was all in a day’s work for the Funks. Isaac’s contributions to Illinois, and his larger connection to the early United States, run much deeper, as Isaac was a friend to Abraham Lincoln.

Isaac was called one of Lincoln’s campaign generals, and, with other prominent Illinois folk, went to Chicago in 1860 to help get the future president the nomination.

Isaac Funk gave a famous speech in the Illinois Senate in February of 1863 called ‘The Copperhead Speech’, as the anti-Union Democrats were called Copperheads— poisonous as snakes to the Union. The Copperheads were

Mike and Debby Funk sitting left of their family.

causing trouble in the Illinois Senate by passing anti-Union measures. Isaac, at 65 years old, stood up and took on the entire Copperhead Party, by giving the famous speech, which is the only state speech printed in every northern newspaper during the Civil War. Lincoln ordered that the speech be read to every soldier in the Union as an inspiration.

For generations, members of the Funk family were either state senators or representatives, but politics was only one of many areas that the Funk family concerned themselves with. The more one dives into the family history, the more one finds that from their grove on Route 66, the Funk family have left an even larger footprint on Illinois, and even the entire U.S., than their prized maple sirup. Isaac Funk helped found area universities (Illinois Wesleyan University) and grow area universities like The University of Illinois at

Champaign-Urbana, where today one can visit the Funk Library. His brother Absalom was one of the founding trustees of Northwestern University.

Still, agriculture was at the heart of the Funk family business. Isaac’s fifth oldest son, Marquis De LaFayette Funk, known as Lafayette, helped create the Chicago Union Stockyards, and Isaac’s eldest son, George, helped found the Funk Brothers Seed Company with his brother Eugene, which is one of the first hybrid seed companies in the world. The home of the business was on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, near the original start of Route 66.

The list of accomplishments could fill a book, and indeed it does in A Tree Grows in Funks Grove: A History of the Funk and Stubblefield Families, also known as “The Green Book.” But when does the sirup take center stage for the Funk family?

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Getting Into the Maple Sirup Business “In about 1890, 1891, Isaac II’s son Arthur was the first Funk to make maple sirup to sell to people. The maple sirup business was known by the family because the family did this early on when maple sugar was the only source of sweetener in the area, until people began collecting honey from domesticated bees. But before that, this was something that the settlers learned from Native Americans, this art of making maple sugar and the sweetener that they used all year round. But they could only produce it, like we do today, in the months of February and March,” Mike Funk, the greatgreat-grandson of Isaac Funk, said, taking some time out to talk about his family during the fall harvest.

“Hazel Funk Holmes [Arthur’s cousin] started her business in the 1920s, just when Route 66 was getting built through this area, so it was kind of lucky. She had different tenants [who rented the land] that made sirup for her until my mom and dad took over the business in 1947.”

In the 1920s, the tenants farming the land hung about 600 buckets on the maple trees to produce about 240 gallons of maple sirup a year. Hazel had the original cabin—where Arthur and his brother, Lawrence, cooked the sirup—moved to its present-day location to use as a summer home, and a new sugarhouse was built with more modern equipment.

During World War II, the government’s rationing on sugar made the production of maple sirup a losing endeavor, so production ceased for a year, but started back up in ’43. Then in ’47, Stephen and Glaida Funk took over operations, further modernizing the family farm in the 1950s by installing an underground cistern to collect the sap, switching the cooking fuel from wood to oil, and even trying out tubing, buried underground, to collect the sap. The squirrels found the tubing too much of a draw, so the buckets went back on the trees soon after.

A signpost pointing the way on Route 66.

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“My mom and dad sold the maple sirup off the porch of their house. We always like to tell a story of how people would come all hours of the day, off Route 66, come up to the house to buy maple sirup, and inevitably my mom would always be fixing a meal or something, and she would always take the time to wait on people and talk to them. She has a very appreciative following, still on Route 66—friends that know who Glaida Funk is,” Mike said on reflection of the year Interstate 55 was completed, 1979.

“We were very concerned when they decommissioned Route 66 and they moved the traffic to the Interstate— that we would lose business, but it really didn’t hurt us like we thought it would. We had a couple of generations of people that grew up with our product and they would seek us out, but the popularity of Route 66 as a travel experience has really fed on itself. And what seemed like a fad at first has become popular, not just in our country, but internationally—using Route 66 as a way to see America.”

Mike and his wife Debby completely took over the maple sirup business in 1988, when Mike, his father, and his brothers, Larry and Adam, built the currently used sugarhouse. A year later, Mike successfully set up the tubing again, this time with the lines above ground. Mike and Debby’s nephew, Sean, became a partner in 2001, and their son Jonathan joined the partnership in 2014. Debby is one of Illinois’ Route 66 most familiar faces and Funks Grove’s biggest cheerleader. Debby helms the counter of the Funks Grove Maple Sirup Store, welcoming visitors with small paper cups filled with samples of Funks’ prized maple sirup.

Syrup or Sirup? Which Is It? The store is essentially the welcome point for those interested in visiting the Grove. Upon entering Funks Grove, visitors are entreated to rest and stay a while by a small red cabin lined

with Adirondack chairs painted in vivid rainbow colors. Adjacent is the store, large enough to pass as a glamping cabin for a family of eight. Once inside, the wood walls welcome road trippers into a rustic dry goods store stocked with Route 66 ephemera like T-shirts, keychains, jams, Route 66 maps, Funks candy and of course, Funk sirup. But what about that spelling—sirup?

“Hazel Holmes was married to a Harvard professor, and they lived in Massachusetts most of the time that my mom and dad ran the business, and they would correspond back and forth. In the 1920s, I guess, if you used the Webster’s Dictionary, they had two different spelling for syrup, and that ‘y’ spelling was for a product that sugar was added to—adding sugar or fruit juice to make a syrup sweet—and syrup made by boiling sap, that was the ‘i’ spelling,” said Mike, whose explanation does not belie a weariness of telling the story of Funk sirup.

Today the Funk family currently have Debby Funk behind the counter of the Maple Sirup Store. about 6,000 taps, including 3,500 that are attached to tubes, producing roughly where curious campers and travelers can learn about the 2,000 gallons of sirup each maple-tapping season. Yet, while natural prairie history of the Funks Grove area. the sap only runs a few weeks, the preparation starts in late “Hazel Funk Holmes was forward-enough-thinking to want December. to put the trees into some sort of protection status, and so she Mike and Debby’s nephews and son, Jonathan, spend put the whole grove of trees, which are mainly sugar maples, December and January out in the timber clearing roads, into a trust so that nothing could be built on it. It couldn’t checking the tubing, repairing tubing, and getting ready for be sold,” said Jill Wallace, educator at the Sugar Grove sirup season. Even though the sap doesn’t really run until Nature Center, just one of the few places where visitors can February, sometimes it can come early, and the Funks like to experience and learn about the Grove, the natural ecosystems, be ready when it does. and the wildlife of the prairie.

“The season is usually four to six weeks, but I don’t think Another stop in the Grove is the Funk Prairie Home we’ve had a six-week season for a long time. So, really, four Museum, originally a family home completed by LaFayette weeks is good now. We’ve had a few years lately where it’s Funk in 1864. The home featured the most modern been more like two weeks, where the weather’s right—it’s conveniences of the time: indoor plumbing and hot water not too cold or not too hot—and we’re getting that freezing/ heating systems. This is also the home where LaFayette and thawing cycle that keeps the sap flowing, but we definitely his wife Elizabeth raised their two sons: Eugene Duncan, believe in climate change. It is affecting us. The winters aren’t founder of the Funk Brothers Seed Company, and Deloss, an nearly as cold, and spring seems to arrive earlier, and it’s early tinkerer in electricity who built the Funks’ very own worrisome. We’re one of the southernmost producers of sirup power plant to help run the farm and electrify the house in in the country and this will affect us sooner than Canadian 1910. Also unique to this museum is that almost everything sirup producers,” Debby said. is either original to the house, or original to the Funk family.

Who knew that this massive grove of trees—a green oasis There’s Something More in Funks Grove of shade and sweetness for all those who travel the original Funks Grove is more than just a Route 66 business where Route 66, paralleling the train tracks and the Interstate that travelers can get an authentic bottle of locally produced sirup threatened her—was more than just a place to grab a couple and is well worth a longer visit than just a stop at the Funks of pints of locally produced sirup? While Funks Grove is a Grove Store. The entire grove is a preserved trust with many preserved land, assuring future generations can experience and places to visit offering different experiences, starting with the be educated about the growth and development of the Illinois Funks Grove Cemetery, where Isaac Funk’s father Adam was prairie, it’s not just for the Funks alone—and that’s exactly the first to be buried. what the Funk family wants you to know about the Grove.

Established in 1830, the cemetery continued to grow, This is a sanctuary for all travelers, and for 66ers, it is a eventually leading to the creation of the Chapel in the Woods, hallowed ground, protected by one of Illinois’ most cherished where the pulpit is a tree stump and the pews are made of families, a family that has always welcomed those who travel logs. The board of the cemetery purchased more land in the the Mother Road in search of a fresh start, a much-needed area of the Grove to start the Sugar Grove Nature Center, adventure, or a bottle of tasty maple sirup.

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I

t is the year 1914. A modest crowd forms on the covered veranda, having gathered in the evening to celebrate the opening of the mission-styled schoolhouse. These driven individuals allow a sense of clarity to fuel their excitement and vision for the space, which, empty of furniture, is broken in by dancing feet. These members of up-and-coming Goff County have chosen to adapt, like the Mojave Desert’s array of plant and animal life, and work this vast sandy scape into a home.

The history of the eastern Mojave Desert traces its path from 1776 when Fr. Francisco Garces became the first non-Native American to cross the Mojave Desert, passing through the present-day community of Goffs. Following him, an incessant stream of trekkers designated this area a significant east-west transit region, culminating in the establishment of the town of Goffs, in 1883. In 1893, a short train line that would become the Santa Fe was constructed north of town. In the early 1900s, members of the railroad company started to move to Goffs, and its rising popularity demanded learning facilities. In 1911, using a rented room, the town developed a school to serve its then-fairly-sizable population, until a local homesteader donated an acre of land on which to build its schoolhouse.

In 1914, classes began.

Windows were thrown open and students, many of whom were children of local railroad workers and miners, bent over their desks, learning in the sweltering heat.

The desolate nature of the surrounding area highlighted the architecturally notable structure and drew people to it. The 2,000-square-foot space immediately became a local hub, serving as a community center and branch of the county’s library. Though it’s possible that 1920s Goff residents weren’t aware of the exact significance of their schoolhouse-cumdancehall-cum-place of worship. The social and cultural history of the town was embedding itself in that building with every service, every party, every lesson.

In 1926, the former wagon road that ran parallel to the railway went from being known as the National Old Trails Road to U.S. Highway 66. Goffs became a highway town and a major travel intersection. The town boomed.

Sadly, Goff’s prosperity would come to an end. Santa Fe developed more modern steam engines and became less dependent on the town, and the 1931 decision by the highway department to realign Highway 66 away from its original

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path through Goffs by six miles spelled doom. The school kept its doors open until the spring of 1937. Goffs began sinking into the status of ghost town.

During World War II, the schoolhouse was used to house troops, and the older buildings and structures were used for firewood by the soldiers. By the end of the war, the desolate landscape of the desert was matched by the destroyed structures that once housed the families of Goffs. Besides the school building, all that remained was a water tank, a pump house, and a tool shed. As with its rise, the schoolhouse’s fall into disrepair mirrored the town’s decline.

In 1989, retired physicist Dennis Casebier and his wife, Jo Ann, purchased the collapsing schoolhouse and surrounding property and set to transform the acres of rock and scrub into a museum. Nine years later, in partnership with the newly founded Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association, the Casebier family, armed with interviews from more than 40 former students, as well as several hundred historic photographs, set to restoring the schoolhouse back to its 1914 glory.

Laura Misajet, who was hired as executive director of the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association in 2018, lives on the historical property five days a week. It runs flush against Route 66 on one side and the Northern Santa Fe line on the other.

While Goffs is still almost a ghost town, with just 11 residents, Misajet sees people from all over the world come through. “A lot of people will come by in search of Route 66,” she said. “Japanese, German, they discover us by accident. Some people make a special trip.”

Today, Goffs Schoolhouse houses small wooden desks and chairs, almost as it did in 1914. With them, a vast collection of information and artifacts from the area, surrounded by an outdoor museum of mining and farming artifacts, offers visitors a step back in time.

In carving out a home in the desert, the founding fathers and mothers who raised the first beams of the remarkable schoolhouse created a legacy that reaches into the present day. They serve as a model of ingenuity and perseverance— the schoolhouse preserved as a timeless testament to where the vision to foster life took shape despite the harsh natural landscape. It is not and was not easy to live here. A century out, it stands quietly in the desert, a historical and cultural landmark from a bygone time.

Image by John Smith.

m SC HOOL I N T H E DE SE RT m Goffs Remarkable

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PARTING SHOT

Bob NAVARRO What is the most memorable place you’ve visited on Route 66?

In Illinois, the Old Joliet Prison. Outside Illinois, the Santa Monica Pier. Most famous or noteworthy person you have ever met? Last year, I met Bruce Willis on the streets of NYC. What characteristic do you respect the most in others? Follow through—doing what you say you’re going to do. Dislike in others? Lack of follow through—over promising, under delivering. What characteristic do you dislike in yourself? My terrible memory. Talent that you WISH you had? I’ve always wished I could sing. Unfortunately, I can’t carry a tune in a box. Best part about getting older? The collection of various experiences. What is your greatest extravagance? I have quite the collection of Robert Graham shirts. What is the weirdest roadside attraction you’ve ever seen? Blues Mobile on a Stick (Joliet, IL). What makes northern Illinois so special to Route 66 enthusiasts? There is something worth seeing every few miles along Route 66—from diners and antique shops to gas stations and museums, there are many great photo ops along the way.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Being named to the Board of Trustees for Illinois State University. As a first-generation college graduate, I’m honored and humbled to serve. Most memorable hotel/motel that you have stayed at in Illinois? Tie between the Palmer House Hilton Chicago and Starved Rock Lodge. Funniest person on Route 66?

Teri Ryburn-Lamonte in Normal, IL. Most memorable person on Illinois’ stretch of Route 66? John Weiss—he has a million stories! Last book you’ve read? “Is This Anything” by Jerry Seinfeld—I know, heavy stuff, 80 ROUTE Magazine

huh! What breaks your heart? Child abuse—those innocent kids are affected for life. What is still on your bucket list to visit?

Australia-New Zealand! What movie title best describes your life? What About Bob? Ghost town or big city person? Big City Person. What does a perfect day look like to you? Laughing and eating with family and friends. Which is your favorite Illinois Giant? Gemini Giant (Wilmington). What is your favorite place on Route 66? Santa Monica Pier—I love seeing and listening to the ocean. Strangest stop on Route 66? Bob Waldmire Bus in Pontiac, IL. What would your spirit animal be? Dolphin. Which historical figure—alive or dead—would you most like to meet?

Abraham Lincoln or Walt Disney. If you won the lottery, what is the first item you would buy? My house—I hate having a house payment. Unique attributes of Illinois’ stretch of Route 66? So many things to see and do.

What food item can you not live without? Pizza.

Bizarre talent that you have that most people don’t know about? I can still do a good cartwheel. At my age, that makes it a bizarre talent. What surprises you most about people? Creativity! What makes you laugh? Every day stuff—my parents usually crack me up. Most unknown (but shouldn’t be) stop along Route 66 in northern Illinois? Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie (Wilmington, IL). What do you think is the most important life lesson for someone to learn? How to listen-seek first to understand, then to be understood.

What have you always wanted to try, but been too afraid to? Skydiving and surfing.

What do you want to be remembered for?

Helping others. Best time of the year to visit Illinois? Anytime—I enjoy all four seasons Illinois has to offer.

Sometimes we have all four seasons in one day—crazy weather!

Illustration: Jennifer Mallon.

He may not be at the forefront of household names known along Illinois’ stretch of Route 66, but he is undeniably a major influencer in the tourism experience at the beginning of the Mother Road. An ardent advocate of Illinois’ Route 66, no one knows more about what to see and do between Chicago and Towanda, and how to get travelers to pay a visit. In this issue, we learn a little about what makes the head honcho of one of Illinois’ top destination tourism bodies tick. Meet the President and CEO of Heritage Corridor Convention and Visitors Bureau, Bob Navarro.

SO MUCH TO SEE IN OKC Occupying the historic Ford Motor Company assembly plant, 21c Oklahoma City is a multi-venue contemporary art museum and boutique hotel. The perfect Mother Road destination for the curious traveler.

Best hotel in the Midwest – CondÊ Nast Traveler Readers Choice Awards 2019

#thisis21c 21cOklahomaCity.com Matthew Geller, Woozy Blossom (Platanus nebulosus), 2010-2015.

Steel, water, copper, pump.

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

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