Cozy in Springfield

By Heide Brandes Photographs by David J. Schwartz – Pics On Route 66

While it looks like a corn dog, with its golden hue, the cozy dog is entirely its own thing. Yes, it is a wiener on a stick covered in batter and fried, but the cozy dog’s story reveals it to be much more than a simple corn dog.

Beginning its culinary life as a “crusty cur,” this American fast food treat is unique to the Cozy Dog Drive In, an unassuming little building on the south side of Springfield, Illinois. For decades, travelers along Route 66 have found themselves on this block of South Sixth Street to try a cozy dog, a treat perfected in a military kitchen and approved by hundreds of soldiers.

Today, the little diner, with its iconic spinning sign of two cozy dogs locked in an embrace, still attracts travelers and locals alike whose mouths water for a taste of old-fashioned American fare along one of the most storied roadways in America.

A step inside, and you are time-warped back decades. The walls, covered in vintage posters and signs, license plates, black-and-white historic photographs, and Route 66 memorabilia, emanate the well-worn air of a historic institution. A checkered floor with round diner tables and booths topped with red and yellow plastic squeeze bottles of ketchup and mustard, harkens back to the 1960s style. It’s not fancy, but it is a cozy reminder of the mom-and-pop diners that contributed enormously to Route 66’s halcyon period.

On any given day, fans of the Cozy Dog line up at the Formica counter, watching as third-generation owner Josh Waldmire and his crew load up a custom-made vertical mounted rack with Oscar Meyer hot dogs three at a time. The hot dogs are dipped into batter and then placed vertically into the oil to fry up in two to three minutes. Nearby, cooks flip burgers on the flat grill, fry up baskets of fries, or ladle out bowls of chili.

On average, 300 to 400 cozy dogs are cooked each day; in the popular summer months, the diner can serve up to 900 a day at busy times.

Times may change, challenges may arise, and buildings may go up and come down, but the Cozy Dog Drive In remains the same… and so does the wiener on a stick that made it so famous.

Crusty Cur and a Good Idea

The Cozy Dog has been serving the public for over 70 years now, using the same technique that Ed Waldmire Jr. developed back in 1946. Though Ed passed away in 1993, his son Buz Waldmire, Buz’s ex-wife Sue, and their son Josh, have kept the legend of the Cozy Dog going, using the same recipes that made the Route 66 eatery so famous from the start.

Ed Waldmire Jr. was born May 16, 1916, in Petersburg, Illinois, where he grew up with his two younger brothers on a farm. Hard work was no stranger to Ed, and that work ethic created a monster of an entrepreneurial spirit.

“My dad was the oldest and he worked his way up while attending Springfield High School. He went to school, but the family had this farm with cows,” said Edwin “Buz” Waldmire III, Ed Jr.’s son. “He would be out delivering cream and milk in the neighborhood, and he just always worked.”

After high school Ed enrolled in Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and got a job through friends at Howard’s Coffee Corner Café. His work ethic impressed the owner so much that he was quickly offered a management position. That first foray into the restaurant business led to another venture for the young college student.

Ed and a few friends from Knox College bought an old building and opened up a place called the Goal Post. It was his first restaurant, and the college buddies took turns operating it while attending classes.

“My dad liked to brag that when he graduated college in 1941, he had a couple thousand dollars. I guess in the 1940s, that was a pretty cool thing,” said Buz.

In 1941, while visiting Muskogee, Oklahoma, Ed tried an unusual sandwich called a “corn-dog.” It was a wiener baked in cornbread, but at the time, making such a simple dish took longer than usual, and he wondered if there was a faster way to cook a hot dog covered in batter.

“In the fall of 1941, I told this story to a fellow student at Knox College whose father was in the bakery business, and

Order up at Cozy Dog.

then gave it no further thought,” said Ed in a family interview conducted by his late son Bob, who was in eighth grade at the time.

After graduating from Knox College with majors in economics and psychology, Ed attended the University of Illinois to study agricultural economics, mainly because of his childhood on the farm. His father was a farm investment manager for an investment company, so the agricultural business simply made sense for the young entrepreneur.

But, after graduating from U. of I., Ed was drafted into the Army Air Corps in 1945.

“He spent about one year in service, but never served overseas,” said Buz. “He spent his time in Amarillo, Texas, working in the finance office, mustering returning soldiers and discharging them. Of course, that’s when the Cozy Dog happened.”

While stationed at the Amarillo Airfield, Ed received a letter from fellow Knox College student, Don Strand, who hadn’t forgotten Ed’s questions about cooking a batter-dipped hot dog. Strand’s father owned the Strand Bakery in Springfield, and Don and his father were curious enough to experiment with a batter that would hold up to deep-frying.

“To my surprise, he had developed a mix that would stick on a wiener while being french-fried. He wondered if he could send some down that I could try in Amarillo. Having plenty of spare time, I said ‘yes,’” added Ed.

He used the U.S.O. kitchen at the Amarillo Airfield as his test kitchen. Using cocktail forks for sticks, he tried the batter and served up what he called the “crusty cur” to the soldiers stationed there.

“They became very popular both at the U.S.O. in town and at the P.X. on the airfield. My friend continued to send mix and we continued to sell thousands of crusty curs until I was discharged–honorably–in the spring of 1946.”

After being honorably discharged, he decided to sell them that spring, but his wife Virginia–thankfully–wasn’t a big fan of the name.

“My mother didn’t like the name crusty cur, which really doesn’t sound bad when you think about the terms at that time. But they came up with the name cozy dogs and they developed the logo,” said Buz. “The name cozy dog came about through a session of brainstorming with my mom, dad, my grandpa and grandma, my dad’s younger brother John Robert Waldmire, who later worked for my dad as

a sales rep selling mom-and-pop businesses the idea to include cozy dogs on their menu. The ‘cozy dog’ morphed into ‘Cozy Dogs’ and we had the slogan, ‘one calls for another’ and the slogan, ‘eat ‘em on the run, it’s a lot of fun’ alluding to the baked-on bun and the popsicle stick handle. After choosing the name cozy dogs, they set about designing a logo to go along with the name. I still have an old scrapbook that shows the development of the images. It’s pretty neat.”

“When people asked him how he got the idea for a corn dog, Ed told them about ordering one at a roadside diner that took 20 minutes to bake. He developed and invented the equipment that we still use today to cook the cozy dogs vertically in the grease, and he was able to cook them very fast. Instead of cooking one at a time and letting them float around, he could cook a dozen in this new way,” added Buz.

Cozy dogs were officially launched at the Lake Springfield Beach House, a community bathhouse along the shores of Lake Springfield, on June 16, 1946, and Ed capitalized on the crowds that gathered at the community center to introduce his new fare. After the launch, Ed brought his new food idea to the Illinois State Fair that same year, making it one of the first infamous “food on a stick” creations that people enjoy at fairs. Based on the popularity, Ed opened the first Cozy Dogs House, a takeout counter on South Grand Avenue between Fifth and Sixth Streets in Springfield, followed by a second one at Ash and MacArthur, which closed after three years due to the property owners not renewing the lease. In 1949, the landmark Cozy Dog Drive In opened on Route 66, also known as South Sixth Street.

When Ed built the Cozy Dog Drive In, he partnered with his friend Gilbert Stein, one of the founding members of the Dairy Queen franchise. The two of them chose that piece of property on Route 66, though at the time, they just thought of Route 66 as a busy road, the main highway between Chicago and St. Louis, Missouri. They didn’t realize how big that highway would become.

“They bought the property together and they put it in a 50/50 Land Trust so that Gilbert Stein technically owned 50% of the property and Dad owned 50%,” said Buz. “They sealed the deal with a handshake and a gentlemen’s agreement. Gilbert built the Dairy Queen and Daddy built the drive in next to him. They shared the expense to connect the two buildings.”

At the time, the Dairy Queen closed during the winter months and only sold ice cream treats. The Drive In stayed

open all year long, serving up cozy dogs, hamburgers, fries, chili, and hot coffee 24/7.

Ed still worked with the Strand Bakery to develop the batter mix, until Don Strand’s father passed away in the 1960s.

“The father passed away and Don didn’t want to continue the business. He went into real estate in the 1960s, which is why Roland Industries of St. Louis started making our flour,” said Buz. However, the flour recipe has not changed since 1962, when it was tweaked a bit by Ed and his wife.

“Mr. Roland began mixing the flour for us, as Strand Bakery was closing. The secret, if you call it that, is that it is a well-crafted formula which does not depend on sugar to give it popularity. It actually has very little sugar, compared with all the other brands/ flours on the market. The success of the cozy dog is in large part due to the fact that it is a food that is cooked fresh when ordered. It is never frozen, never cold to be reheated. Most corn dogs served in restaurants are manufactured in bulk, frozen, and then, well, you know.”

Josh Waldmire preparing to fry the corn dogs.

A Family Affair

Ed and Virginia had five boys. Bill was born in 1942, Bob was born in 1945, and Buz followed in 1947. Two other boys, Jeff and Tommy, were born in 1952 and 1955. An entrepreneurial visionary, Ed ensured that his children were part of the family business and he had them working at the Cozy Dog from an early age.

Bob Waldmire became a Route 66 legend bringing attention and notoriety to the Mother Road and to the Cozy Dog Drive In. A nomadic wanderer and Route 66 ambassador at heart, Bob and his old VW Van, that he used to ply the historic highway, served as inspiration for Fillmore in the Disney Pixar hit movie Cars. On December 16, 2009, Bob Waldmire sadly passed away from colon cancer, a disease that took many of his relatives.

“My dad passed from colon cancer, as did his dad in 1959. As did Bob in 2009. Jeff, my younger brother, passed away from liver cancer three years ago, but my dad’s mom lived into her 90s,” Buz said.

“When dad opened the restaurant, he thought everyone should capitalize on it. So, he put together sales kits for the cozy dog cooker that he designed. They were electric cookers, and he would travel to mom-and-pop restaurants throughout the Midwest selling [them] and the flour mix,” said Buz.

As a high school student, Buz remembers hauling 50-pound bags of cozy dog flour to the bus station to send to restaurants in places like Galena, Illinois, or South Bend, Indiana. “I remember my brother standing on milk crates cooking fries and hamburgers while I worked the cash register. We all took turns working there. I think my personality was most like my dad’s.”

After graduating from high school, Buz continued to help at the drive in throughout college. He also graduated from Knox College in 1970 before getting drafted into the Vietnam War.

“I was gone for three years. As soon as I graduated, I lost my student deferment. And even though I was married and had a child, that didn’t make a difference,” said Buz. “But it was toward the end of the Vietnam conflict, and I got out early because they had a program where you could join the National Guard for the time you had left. So, I got out of the service early and joined the Air National Guard and I stayed there for another 20 years.”

Dogging Into the Future

When Buz returned from serving his country, he met his second wife Sue, who was working at the drive in for his father. The two married in 1975 and bought the restaurant. The couple had four boys of their own - twins Joshua and Eddie, Tony and Nick - and continued to run the little drive in on the corner.

“We tore the original building down in 1996 because it was falling apart, and we put in a new building in partnership with Walgreens on the same corner. The old building was collapsing around us and Walgreens offered to give us a new building if they could have the corner spot. I’m in their debt. I don’t know if we could afford to be here today without that partnership.”

Sue and Buz divorced in 2000, and Buz sold his interest in the restaurant to his ex-wife. “Then, two of the boys–Joshua and Tony–bought it from her about eight years ago. I think

The Cozy Dog vintage sign.

she took the restaurant over because she wanted to keep it for them.”

Like his father before him, Josh grew up inside the Cozy Dog.

“It was very interesting to grow with Cozy Dog. We pretty much had the run of the place, and it was our own little playground,” said Josh. “We spent [almost] all our Christmas breaks and all our summer breaks there hanging out in the back. We would help out and work cleaning trays, wiping down tables, little things like that. But we really didn’t get too much into working at Cozy Dog until we moved over to our new building.”

When Josh turned 18, he wanted to try something different than frying cozy dogs. He worked as a receiving manager at one store and a customer service manager at another. He ran an online auction site but couldn’t get on full time.

“So, after that, I decided to come back to help Mom,” Josh said. “I was working at a small printing company when I started working for my mom part-time after she took over when my parents split up. I worked there, part-time for probably six—seven months, and then I decided to quit the other job at the printing company and started working for my mom full time.”

“My brother Tony and I purchased it from my mom in 2013. In 2016, Tony passed away,” Josh said. As expected, it was a time of sorrow for the family, but the Waldmires always seem to keep going and maintain their focus.

A Lasting Legacy

for the first time thinking that I had stepped back in time and was experiencing a way of life that was much different than what I was used to,” said Ms. Casey Wichmann, Executive Director of the Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway, on the impact that the little historical venue had on her when she first moved to Springfield in 1999. “I felt the warmth of the family atmosphere, and I enjoyed taking in all of the memorabilia.” Aside from being the birthplace of the first hot dog on a stick, the Cozy Dog offers travelers an experience that is no longer easy to find, while sharing the nostalgic side of Route 66. The Cozy Dog is not only a Route 66 attraction, it’s a Springfield, Illinois, attraction. “Visitors from all over the nation come to see Abe Lincoln’s history, and the Cozy Dog is an attraction that also lends itself to Springfield’s rich history,” Wichmann said. “I think the legacy of the Waldmire family, and the fact that the establishment is still being run by Waldmire descendants, gives people a sense of cultural heritage, something they want to protect because it’s something that is slowly diminishing.” Today, Josh keeps looking to the future. That future, however, will look very much like the past. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said. “I don’t have any major plans for changes.”

Although Josh is the new owner of the Cozy Dog, Buz can’t keep away. It’s a part of his life that remains strong inside him. “There’s not a whole lot of change. I’m in there a couple of times a week, gabbing with the customers,” Buz said. “I help out, and I sometimes repair things, like trim the trees. I drink free coffee as much as I want.”

“We have a loyal customer base, and we’ve always been supported by the community. I can’t tell you how many cozy dogs we sell today—I would say anywhere from 200 to 500 a day based on the day,” said Buz. “Our food quality and food consistency is just spot on. You know if you’re gonna go there, you don’t have to worry about who’s cooking it or anything like that. It always comes out the same and it’s always fixed fresh.”

Today, the Cozy Dog is more popular than ever, thanks to the focused determination of a family who has seen their share of tragedy and failure over the years, but has weathered through, passionate about their contribution to Route 66, and committed to the vision that Ed Waldmire developed decades ago. In 2021, franchise brands dot city landscapes everywhere. Ordering a tasty meal has become prescriptive, boring even. Lost is the warmth, the familiar touch. Cozy Dog represents a time when familyrun restaurants welcomed patrons personally and provided more than fast food, they offered an experience. And in today’s America, more and more folks are beginning to hanker for just that; a pleasant meal and a memorable encounter with a past that is still found in places like the Cozy Dog.

JIGG’S SMOKEHOUSE

In the 1970s, Oklahoma farmer Jiggs Botchlett opened up a roadside outlet that sold two things only: fresh eggs and his locally famous smoked turkey. It was a little shop along Route 66, between the tiny towns of Clinton and Foss, quaint but unremarkable. Within a decade, this little shop would become a nationally renowned restaurant, with celebrity regulars and TV appearances. The transformation began when, in what must have been a stroke of fate, Botchlett’s entrepreneurial nephew-in-law George Klaassen purchased the business and brought his own vision to the roadside stand. He decided to turn the place into a smokehouse, with twenty-four seats and only two sandwiches on the menu: ham and turkey, with butter as the only condiment.

Klaassen had absolutely no restaurant experience when he purchased the place. He was in his forties and had made his living up to that point as an electrician, climbing up tall Oklahoma telephone poles to make repairs. He did some farming on the side and had a tough work ethic, and a do-ityourself attitude. Most importantly, he knew how to cook.

“He’d always had a knack for [it] his whole life,” said Lynn Klaassen, George’s son and current owner of the smokehouse. “He was a boy scout leader, so he could cook anything on a campfire; he could cook anything outside… It was kind of his hobby—his passion.”

But it takes more than just passion to build a successful business, as Klaassen soon learned. Jigg’s is truly “in the middle of nowhere,” as Lynn puts it. For the first couple years, George and Lynn would pass the time counting the number of cars that drove by on Route 66. Their only business came from local oil and gas workers, who would stop by on breaks or after shifts for one of Jigg’s simple sandwiches.

Then, in 1980, the oil boom reached new heights. The Klaassen’s car counting days were over. Suddenly, everyone in Oklahoma found themselves with more money than they knew what to do with, and they were in the mood to spend extravagantly. By the early ‘80s, Jigg’s had expanded its menu and made a name for itself—their beef jerky had been on Good Morning America twice (although George himself refused to make any TV appearances). As word got out, the smokehouse became the spot of choice for those who’d struck black gold.

“It was like Hollywood moved to Oklahoma, there was so much money going around,” Lynn recalled. “People wanted to do more and more extravagant things. We even built a smoker one time where we could roast six hogs at one time. And these were huge hogs—full-grown, 300-pound hogs.”

In a sense, Hollywood really did move to Oklahoma. Jigg’s gained a few celebrity regulars at this point—Lynn remembers Pearl Bailey, an actress and singer, coming in a couple times a year, as well as Lisa Marie Presley, George Lindsay, and countless professional athletes.

The real celebrity, though, was the smokehouse itself. People would order Jigg’s jerky from all around the country. Lynn recalled one particularly insistent customer: “There was a bar owner from New York that would call [George] and be like, ‘Sir, can I order 50 pounds of jerky?’ and [George would say] ‘I’ll send you five.’ The guy would call him begging for jerky. This went on for years.” Needless to say, the little rural smokehouse had become a big name.

By the time the oil bust came around in the late ‘80s, Jigg’s was so established that business barely took a hit. Between local regulars, a steady stream of Route 66 travelers, and various catering gigs, George and Lynn— who ran the kitchen themselves, day in and day out—still had their hands full, even without the new-money oil millionaires. Not much has changed since. Lynn has been running the show himself since his father’s passing eight years ago, and the smokehouse is as busy as ever. The restaurant business is tough, and it can be even tougher when you’re in the middle of small-town America. Jigg’s is so remote that internet providers don’t even service the area. So how have they been able to stay so busy all these years? Lynn thinks the secret to their longtime success is simple.

“I don’t want to try to be modest, but [the restaurant is] good,” said Lynn. “It’s been consistent because there’s only been two of us in the kitchen all these years. That’s the best quality control when you have the same person doing the same job over and over again… you put your heart and soul into it for so long. I tell people that there’s probably something that I would enjoy more, but there’s not anything I’m better at.”

Western Oklahoma is a magical place, packed with Route 66 stops, and a diverse and colorful history, and little Clinton continues to hold its own. Few businesses have been able to outlast time and the changes that it brings, but it is likely that Jigg’s will be welcoming visitors for a long time to come.

THE TOWN THAT SMILES

The town of Atlanta lies in the center of Illinois, halfway between Chicago and St. Louis. So, when the city council was faced with the task of repainting the local water tower, there was a choice to make: Cubs or Cardinals.

Fans of each team campaigned for their emblem to grace the tower. It became a local conundrum. Bill Thomas, chairman of the board of the National Route 66 Road Ahead Partnership, recalls the remedy to the dispute.

“There wasn’t going to be an easy resolution,” Thomas said. “So, at one of the council meetings, a councilwoman named Billie Cheek, offhandedly, to throw out something completely different, said, ‘Well I think it should just be a smiley face. That would make everybody happy.’”

The idea caught on, and in 2003, the water tower was painted canary yellow, with two dotted eyes and a wide, cartoonish smile in black. Drivers can see it from both Interstate 55 and historic Route 66. It was unexpectedly the ideal solution.

In 1926, America’s newest highway, Route 66, aligned directly through Downtown Atlanta. The town grew with the ever-increasing traffic and tourism, but during the ‘60s, the faster I-55 became the popular highway, and Atlanta’s stretch of Route 66 was sadly decommissioned in 1977. Atlanta, like other Route 66 towns in Illinois slowed down. But the small town was not over.

Just over two decades ago, Thomas led an effort to leverage the Mother Road to attract visitors. A 19-foot Paul Bunyan statue was moved in from Cicero, hotdog in arm, murals were commissioned, and the historic Palms Grille Cafe was restored. It worked. In the years after the projects, from 2008 on, sales tax revenue in Atlanta increased by 43% during primary tourism months.

Like the Route projects, the water tower is a representation of classic, hopeful idealism and industry. When Harvey Ball designed the original yellow graphic in 1963 Massachusetts, its purpose was to boost morale among employees. It’s no surprise, then, that the townspeople’s response to the water tower was overwhelmingly positive. Though it was not one of the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program projects, Thomas recognized its potential for attracting visitors.

“There was even a slogan developed and a little bit of marketing done,” Thomas said. “We used the water tower image, and the slogan was, ‘Atlanta, Illinois, welcoming the world with a smile.’”

The smiling tower is a reflection of Atlanta’s welcoming nature as a community, and today, their position on the map brings endless streams of Route travelers once again.

“It’s interesting; it’s enjoyable; and townsfolk find it amusing at times to think that people would actually want to come here,” added Thomas.

Over the years, he’s encountered international visitors with great interest in this country.

“And what do they want?” Thomas said. “They want to come here and experience ‘real America.’ And this town exemplifies that for them.”

As such travelers drive the Old Road, they encounter hundreds of quaint, small towns, each with their own local water tower. While some may have slogans or loyalties, Atlanta’s is readable in any language. When tourists pass, they see a symbol—a Technicolor icon of American optimism.