Carthage Nostalgia

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

Illuminated on a summer night by a sprinkling of stars, a pale moon waxing or waning, and a neon sign, the local drive-in movie theater stood ready for its silver screen to light up with the evening’s featured movie. No less symbolic of the Mid-Century than the era’s classic cars and cozy diners, that iconic amphitheater of entertainment was a truly American phenomenon. Who doesn’t have memories of their local drive-in, the aroma of popcorn wafting from the concession stand, the sound of children frolicking on the playground, and the magic of a dusky evening sky as the movie begins? There’s just no denying that the drivein theater was–and in a few fortunate places still is–the quintessential family attraction.

Entertainment for the Automobile Age

Although the drive-in movie theatre was invented in the 1930s, its popularity didn’t come of age until the postwar economic boom. Seemingly all of a sudden, American families lived their lives via the automobile, with drivethrough restaurants, drive-in movies, and drive-up banks the new normal. Richard M. Hollingshead Jr. patented his drive-in theater design and opened the first one in 1933 in Camden, New Jersey, with partner Willis Smith. When this new and affordable evening entertainment caught on, the format multiplied across the country to the tune of more than 4,000 in the 1950s. The drive-in movie theater had a bombshell impact on the American family. Instead of gathering around the radio or the piano in the living room, Mom and Dad bundled their kids into the station wagon for an evening’s entertainment that also included a playground for the kiddos and inexpensive “road food” from the concession stand.

On the outskirts of the charming Missouri town of Carthage stands one of those iconic outdoor theaters, virtually unchanged from when it was built in 1949. Deservedly on the National Register of Historic Places since 2003, the venue still boasts its original screen house and neon signboard, as well as the low-slung concession stand and glass-block ticket booth, both graced with touches of Streamline Moderne style. On a nine-acre lot, the drive-in was registered as its own historic district! The only modern addition is a metal support building added during the 1990s restoration. On a spacious, tree-lined lot, the drive-in sets back just enough to allow a pretty green lawn and the historic neon sign out front to beckon movie-goers, vintage theater enthusiasts, and Route 66 travelers alike.

“It’s one of only a handful of drive-in theaters still operating directly on the length of Route 66,” explained Callie Myers, Executive Director of the Carthage Convention and Visitors Bureau. “It’s something we include in all our marketing. It’s a great asset, with great ownership and a value to the community. And the Route 66ers are interested in the iconic visual; they like to see the quirky spots and get the feel-great photo opportunity. They really like to get the retro feel of the place, even if there’s no movie [that night].”

A Drive-In for Carthage

William D. Bradfield and V.F. Narramore, Bradfield’s son-inlaw, operators of the Roxy Theatre on the Carthage square, jumped into the drive-in craze just three miles outside of town in 1949. Using 65,000 pounds of steel, the Ozark Engineering Company from Joplin built the screen house with a 66-foot-high screen, 90 feet wide, plus 50-foot wings. Creating ramps for 500 cars, Sweeney Construction Company from Neosho did the earthwork. And as Bobby Troup’s song, “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” swept across the country, the drive-in’s owners blessed their new creation with a good-luck name.

The Route 66 Drive-In opened to the public on September 22, 1949,—an opening night the owners might rather have forgotten. The movie choice, a musical comedy named Two Guys from Texas, was said to be a flop (despite a cameo by Bugs Bunny), a sound amplifier quit working, and a projector light shorted out. Despite the tentative start, the theater was considered to be one of the finest in the Midwest and continued to draw crowds from across the Tri-State area. Sometime after 1953, a wider screen was installed to accommodate the new CinemaScope movie craze.

The Dickenson Theatres chain purchased the venue in 1971, but a dozen or so years later, drive-ins were a dying breed, their demise hastened by television and movie rentals. Like many others, the Route 66 Drive-In was in a state of disrepair and, rather than sink more money into it, Dickenson opted to close the theater and sell the property.

From Theater to Salvage Yard— And Back Again

Inspired by a defunct drive-in filled with old cars in Fort Scott, Kansas, Mark and Dixie Goodman purchased the Route 66 Drive-In on Old 66 Boulevard in 1985 to use as an auto salvage yard. They left all the structures intact but packed the parking lot with used vehicles. Their dismantling business lasted ten years before the aura of the old drive-in got to them. Route 66 travelers were continually stopping to ask about the drive-in’s past. Randomly, someone offered to buy the ticket booth (although they couldn’t bring themselves to sell it). Local friends asked, “But what about the drivein?” And then there were the Goodmans’ own fond memories

Nathan and Amy McDonald.

there. It became an easy choice to restore the theater to its former glory.

The project took them and restoration partners, Wes and Janice Alumbaugh, two years, doing 90% of the work themselves, with Alumbaugh volunteering his construction company. Nine semi-trailer loads of crushed cars and 1,280 tires were hauled out, and 1,705 tons of crushed rock were brought in to resurface the parking area. Triumphantly, the Goodmans re-opened to a long line of cars in the fading light of April 18, 1998. But by 2016, after 30 years of ownership, Mark and Dixie were ready to retire. And, in a twist of fate, the next owners had already been on the property for a decade.

A Family of Caretakers

Jasper County Sheriff’s Deputy Nathan McDonald had been working security at the drive-in for ten years and had admittedly fallen in love with the place while becoming good friends with the Goodmans. “The owners let us bring our family, so if I was there working, we were usually sitting in the front row watching whatever movie was playing,” Nathan explained. “It was a rainy Sunday night in 2016 that I was outside talking to Mark, and I said, ‘Hey, if you’re ever ready to sell this place and your kids don’t want it, let me know.’ We ended up buying it. It was a good thing for the Goodmans, too, because the philosophy we had as far as how to run the theater was the same. So, the blood, sweat, and tears that they put into the property was able to be maintained, because we just carried on what they had built. Our part now is to take care of this 71-year-old property.”

The McDonalds, both graduates of Salem High School and natives of Salem, Missouri, where Nathan was an officer with the Salem Police Department, embrace small-town values and work ethic which fit perfectly into Carthage’s well-loved drive-in. “Our families have similarities, working folks, so we’re rooted in the foundation of faith and family in a small town. Salem was a good place to grow up,” Nathan said.

“[Salem’s] a tiny town, about three or four thousand people, everybody knows everybody. We were always together; we didn’t have a lot but what our parents did to make us happy was to go camping together,” Amy added.

On February 1, 2017, it became official—Nathan and wife Amy Boxx McDonald purchased the drive-in—the first new owners of the theater in more than three decades.

Get your ticket at this vintage booth.

That same day, Nathan retired from the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department, and soon after, Amy retired from her position as a State of Missouri support clerk after 19 years. “I had to hang it up,” said Amy. “It was too much for me to keep up the house, cook, clean, get the kids where they needed to be–and then also run a drive-in!” Now, Nathan holds a full-time job as a Human Resources director at Dyno Nobel Transportation in Carthage while Amy runs the day-to-day drive-in operations and keeps sons Jake and Easton, 14 and 11 years old, and daughter Ayla, 13, in tow. But on weekend movie nights, the whole family is at the drive-in, working in tandem.

March 31, 2017, was the McDonalds’ opening day of their first year, followed by two more successful seasons, including a celebration in 2019 of 70 years since the drivein first opened. But then, 2020 arrived with its unique challenges. Unable to open their season normally in March 2020, the McDonalds allowed local churches to hold services at the drive-in into the summer, overlapping with their delayed restarting of the movie schedule in May. Now open for their fifth season of family entertainment, the McDonalds appreciate their clientele from cities and towns throughout the Tri-State area, as well as the interest from their Route 66 visitors.

A Surviving Gem

A rare and authentic survivor, this is one of the few intact drive-ins still in operation in the US today. Because the city did not grow up around it, the property retains its rural feel, and the Streamline style of the concession stand and glass blocks of the tiny ticket booth transport one right back to the 1950s. Enhancing the vintage aura, some original driveway markers and speaker poles still stand, although the speakers are long gone and an FM transmitter now provides audio. The concession stand offers familiar snacks and sandwiches, and children still climb on the original playground equipment. In this perfect setting, it’s easy for old home-town memories to surface of “the way things were”–of your pajama-clad kids, yawning and settling down in the back seat as they try to stay awake for a few more minutes, or your arm sneaking around your date’s shoulders before the first feature ends. “The idea of the drive-in was America’s love of the car, so they would pull into a theater, the speaker would be there, and people would stay in their car and watch the film. [But] nobody stays in their car now!” said Nathan with a chuckle. “Everybody sits out by their car, laughing, playing catch, no one’s on their phone. It’s like you’ve stepped through those gates and you’ve come back to a society of interacting human beings and we just enjoy each other’s company. It’s just that step out of the hustle and bustle of everyday life so you’re in that moment, and you just can’t find that anywhere else. It really makes the place special, and that’s what we were drawn to and we want to continue for many years to come.”

“It is the local attraction that people put on their calendars, and people do travel from miles around,” said Myers. “People travel back to yesteryear and enjoy passing that on to their children. We are very proud of the drive-in. It almost always sells out and is kind of the premiere community event. People go out and tailgate and begin to gather. It’s sort of an event within an event. It’s a fun thing for locals.”

There is a magic that separates America from much of the rest of the world, a beauty that celebrates the simplicity and the ungeneric in our lives. Tucked peacefully into the countryside of tiny Carthage, Missouri, the Route 66 Drive-in offers not only family-friendly pictures to enjoy, but a reminder of a period when spending time together away from the distractions of life truly mattered.

It’s still a fun thing for the McDonald family, too. “When we moved here in 2006, the people in the area were used to having a drive-in movie theater. Then we talked to our friends and family back home [in Salem], and they’re like, ‘why a drive-in theater?’” Nathan recalled. “But for us, if you’re there on a warm July night, and the sun goes down and the stars are up and there’s a good movie on the screen, popcorn’s popping, you can’t get that atmosphere anywhere else.” Throw in some fireflies twinkling on the lawn, just enough moonlight, and a loved one or three for good company, and we’re there, too.

CUBA, MISSOURI’S, Finest CALABOOSE

The city of Cuba is a well-known juncture along Missouri’s stretch of Historic Route 66, but its history as a site of national crossroads actually extends back nearly a century before the Mother Road came into existence. Originally traveled by Native Americans in their seasonal movements, settlers began platting the city in 1857 around a planned railroad and hauled iron ore from the location’s mines to St. Louis by ox cart. The railroad soon came through, giving way to expansion, and with expansion came a greater need to regulate law and order. And it is here, in this original section of Cuba, that the oldest surviving government building in the city still stands: the Cuba Jail.

The Jail’s first incarnation was a small wooden building that was destroyed rather easily prior to 1908.

“There were some young guys that liked to have a good time,” said Marilyn Stewart, former Chair of The Historic Preservation Commission, “and they would get a little bit excited while they were drinking pretty bad, because it was 2, 3, 5 in the morning and they would be out, riding and singing up and down the street. So, at 1 at night, the marshal stopped them and said, ‘You boys are coming with me.’ He put them in the jail, they slept it off, and they were a little bit disgruntled because they were having fun. A couple of nights later, they got together, [attached a rope to] the wooden building, and took off [on their horses, dragging it] down the street.”

In April of 1908, the Cuba residents elected to have the wooden building replaced and the city purchased the lot on the corner of what is today South Main Avenue and Prairie Street, where the previous structure stood. Within the year, the new jailhouse—sometimes known as the “calaboose” for its single-room, block building style—was built with concrete walls, an iron door in front, a metal cot for prisoners to sleep on, and inscribed with the words “CUBA-JAIL” and “1908” outside to state its purpose. The building served the city faithfully for decades, eventually being upgraded in 1944 with the addition of a septic tank, modernized water facilities, new mattresses for the cot, and a new paint job.

In 1954, the Cuba Jail was abandoned in favor of a new jailhouse that was constructed behind the City Hall and Fire Station on North Smith Street. In time, at around 1975, even the new jailhouse fell out of use as prisoners were instead taken to the county seat of Steelville, eight miles south of Cuba. For the remainder of the century, the Cuba Jail was left untouched, and the building, as well as the yard around it, lived free of human interference until Verlin Boda, of Boy Scout Troop 463, discovered it in 2004. “At that point, we were getting our city recognized as [being] historic,” said Stewart, “and we got the Historic District, and [the Cuba Jail] was within [that], and we were doing a big thing on preservation. For about 15 years, we were taking care of buildings. And I think [the Cuba Jail] was just something that [Boda] and his dad saw—his dad was a Scoutmaster—and went, ‘Hey!’ They came to the Commission and asked if they could [restore it], and we looked at it and gave them the nod to go ahead.”

Boda got permission to begin the task on October 4, 2004, from the board of aldermen and the mayor at the time, John Koch. Boda then went to work, cleaning out the inside and outside, building new furniture for the space out of wood, and he even located the iron door that had disappeared from the entrance sometime after its retirement.

“They found a temporary holding place at the City Hall that had the iron door,” explained Stewart. “It’s not used for anything, it’s just there. Somebody said, ‘Why don’t you get rid of it?’ ‘We can’t. It’s too old.’ So, they [reattached it].”

For Boda, the project was not only a way to help preserve a piece of Cuba’s history—it was also a task that would earn him his promotion to Eagle Scout. And on March 31, 2007, the city rewarded his efforts with the rank in question at a Court of Honor ceremony held at Recklein Auditorium. From there, the Boda family seemingly left the area and not a record exists of them beyond the unusual achievement.

Today, the Jail still stands in downtown Cuba, just a blockand-a-half south of iconic Route 66. Though the interior is closed to visitors, they can still peer through the bars of the iron door to view the setup of the room, and the key to the Jail still hangs in the mayor’s office. While no longer in use, the Jail represents a time in Cuba’s history that still attracts visitors in search of a glimpse of a simpler time.

ROCKIN’ ON

By Phoebe Billups Photographs by Marshall Hawkins

ROCKIN’ ON

Stroud, like many of the little communities constellated along Route 66, emanates a quiet presence of a simpler time, when children played on the street from sunup to sundown, and people greeted each other like old friends at the local diner. A growing town at the dawn of the 20th Century, with four cotton gins, two newspapers, and two banks, Stroud, which once was known for its rough and tumble taverns, made headlines with the capture of outlaw Henry Starr and his cohorts who had attempted to rob the town’s two banks, the First National

Bank and the Stroud National Bank, at the same time.

Today, Stroud’s tranquil Main Street, with just two stoplights, belies its wild past. But one of the town’s main anchors, the Rock Cafe, is still drawing people to this quiet midwestern community. And as much of a great experience as the venue is, there is more than just great food and ambiance pulling people in.

Dawn Welch, the Rock Cafe’s current owner is famously known as the inspiration for the larger-than-life personality behind Sally Carrera, the spunky lawyer-turned-motelowner in Pixar’s 2006 blockbuster Cars. The credit put a spotlight on Welch and the little cafe, whose neon shimmers over Stroud like a crown jewel. However, the story of “the

Rock” truly begins more than eighty years ago, when Route 66 first tore through the Oklahoma prairie.

Steady as a Rock

In 1936, the Mother Road carved its path across Oklahoma. In Stroud, H & P Service Station owner Roy Rives bought the sandstone dug up and leftover by the construction of Route 66 for five dollars and used it to build the squat, flat-roofed building that would become the Rock Cafe. “He finished it in 1939,” Rives’ granddaughter Susan Riffe Suliburk said. “They would plow up the land and he would go and pick up the rocks. Grandpa was always scrounging up stuff to use in other ways.” The Rock Cafe’s one-of-a-kind design, with the Mother Road literally woven into its foundations, is the product of Rives’ ingenuity.

Born to settlers driven west to Kentucky by the Civil War, Rives came from creative, resilient people. In the early 1920s, he moved to Stroud, something of a boomtown after oil was struck nearby in 1923, to escape a life of farming and to open a filling station. Rives thought up the Rock Cafe as a way to lure his oldest daughter and son-in-law, Allene and Ed Riffe, who married and moved to Sayre, Oklahoma, in 1939, back to Stroud to run it.

His plan worked and Allene and Ed returned to town in 1939. The cafe found immediate success as a Greyhound Bus stop, and with the depression ebbing, there were plenty of ready and willing patrons, from travelers to soldiers departing for war. However, World War II caused national food rationing and running the diner became more difficult. “My dad raised the price of hamburgers from seven cents to a dime and he got boycotted by the truck drivers because they thought that was too expensive,” Suliburk said. “I think that’s one of the things that soured him on [it].”

In 1942, the Riffes left the Rock for wartime jobs—him in the oil industry and her running a nursery school—and Ed Smalley, an army cook freshly returned from overseas, took over the lease. Smalley served up burgers in the kitchen until 1946. In its heyday, the Rock was a little truck stop with two shiny red booths, a jukebox on every table, and eight bar stools where customers could sit up at the counter and watch the cooks flip buckwheat pancakes. For locals, it was a special gathering place.

In 1959, Smalley’s aunt, Mamie Mayfield, acquired the lease, running the cafe 24 hours a day from 1959 until her declining health forced her to retire in 1983. Mayfield became the friendly face of the cafe and under her management, the cafe’s popularity grew like wildfire with vacationing families and long-haul truckers who could stop in at any time of the day for a quick bite and a cup of coffee. For the local high school students, it became the favorite watering place.

When Mayfield retired, Smalley was filled with dread at the prospect of the Rock being torn down. The cafe was where he and his wife, Aleta, first snuck kisses behind the jukebox and three of his four sisters met the truck drivers that they would marry. In 1983, he bought the building from Rives. Over the next decade, Smalley made renovations and toyed with the idea of giving the Rock to his son, but the cafe’s fate ultimately remained uncertain. Then, as so often happens on the Mother Road, serendipity lent a hand.

In 1993, Dawn Welch got ‘lost’ in Stroud and Smalley found the perfect heir to carry on the Rock Cafe’s legacy.

Around the World and Back Again

Welch’s dreams of becoming a world traveler began in Yukon, Oklahoma, where she grew up watching The Love Boat and Fantasy Island on TV. Her wanderlust was not diminished by the fact that money was tight in their household. Welch’s mother taught her how to stretch a dollar early on and, when she was fourteen, Welch began working at Ken’s Pizza, where her manager, Maurie Gingell, took her under her wing. The first thing Welch bought with her earnings was a little motorcycle, which she still rides to work to this day.

In school, Welch’s favorite subject was history. She dreamed of becoming an archeologist and exploring the pyramids in Egypt. In 1989, at the tender age of twenty, she did leave her “quintessential small town Oklahoma” existence for a life of adventure, but not quite the one she had envisioned.

As a purser with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, Welch worked ten-hour days on the ship and then got off and explored dazzling ports from Aruba to Barbados. She met her first husband, a Swiss-German cook named Christian Herr, on one of the ships. For four years, Welch would work for nine months, visit her mother in Oklahoma, and spend two months globetrotting. “On the cruise ship there were 800 employees and maybe ten of them were from America,” Welch said. “I’d meet people from all over the world and travel to their countries and their families would host me.”

Welch immersed herself into other cultures in Norway, The Cars Story England, Italy, and France, every place she dreamed of exploring as a child. One of her favorite memories is of Anyone who has seen Cars will remember Sally Carrera, the casting fishing nets at sunrise on a Turkish lake with a Porsche who abandoned her glamorous life in the fast lane friend’s father who spoke no English. By the time she as an LA lawyer to unite a small community along Route turned twenty-four, Welch had seen more than most 66. If this sounds familiar, you are not mistaken. people do in a lifetime. She was ready to settle down. At The Rock Cafe’s story changed forever in 2000 when least a little. a small fleet of Cadillacs filled with Pixar executives

When Welch visited her mother, now living in Stroud, in rolled into town. Route 66 historian and author Michael 1993, she was making plans to open a sub shop in Costa Wallis led animator John Lasseter, scouting inspiration for Rica. Fate intervened. “I was rollerblading down Main characters in a film that he was developing, through the Street and this old man in an old truck, Ed Smalley, pulled doors of the Rock Cafe around 9:30 p.m. to meet Welch. over and told me that my mom had told him I wanted to She excitedly showed the director her flickering neon sign, buy a grill,” Welch said. “He took me to the Rock Cafe and which she promised would be “newly refurbished” the next unlocked the doors and there was all this dusty restaurant time he visited, and all the small things that made her so equipment.” proud of the cafe.

Welch agreed to buy some of the equipment and told Smalley about her plans. “He asked me if I knew how to speak Spanish or run a business. I told him I’d been a shift supervisor at Ken’s Pizza so of course I knew how to run a business. He kind of chuckled at me. I was 24 years old. He said, ‘Why don’t you stay here for six months and learn how to run a restaurant, and then go to Costa Rica and learn the language?’ That made sense to me.”

Herr joined Welch in Stroud and their daughter Alexis was born in 1994. Herr ultimately decided to return to a life of travel, but Welch fell in love with the little town and decided to stick around. “It was a simple life, but then the Rock Cafe also brought in international tourists every single day.”

Welch met her second Dawn Welch serving some friendly customers. husband, Fred Welch, in Stroud, and they welcomed a son, Paul, in 2000. Welch’s mother Between 2000 and 2003, Lasseter returned to the Rock was always around to help watch the kids or make a hand- with Pixar and Disney executives several times. Welch painted sign for the cafe. Alexis and Paul grew up at the would not find out whether she or the Rock would be Rock, helping out around the restaurant for pocket money. represented in the film until the night it premiered. She had Alexis became a prolific cook and waitress and Paul remains no idea how closely Lasseter was taking notes. Everything Welch’s “crisis management team of one,” doing everything Sally does and says in the film, from her broken neon sign from snaking drains to hanging Christmas lights. to her sass, to her iconic blue color (Alexis’ favorite at the

In 2002, Welch’s longtime manager Beverly Thomas time), are echoes of Welch. joined the cafe. A preschool teacher by trade, Thomas Even the “tramp stamp” on Sally’s bumper was inspired started picking up shifts on the weekends to earn a little by a story Welch shared. “When I was 24 years old and we extra money and be close to three sons in their early teens, had all these motorcycle groups coming through, I wore the who worked at the Rock through high school. Welch, same outfit every time,” Welch said. “Real biker chick look Thomas, and the five children formed an unbreakable bond and I had this fake black widow spider crawling down my that is at the heart of the operation to this day. Thomas stomach like a tattoo. I played this whole part of being the and Welch have seen each other through births, deaths, ‘black widow waitress.’ I was real mean to customers and graduations, and a Route 66 trip to California that Thomas she became really famous. That’s the reason Sally has the calls a “very clean version of Thelma and Louise.” “My tramp stamp, which I was horrified [by].” husband calls her my work wife,” Thomas said. “The good After 2003, the visits from Pixar tapered off. By 2006, times and the bad, we’re family.” Thomas was convinced that the ship had sailed. When

Dawn Welch outside the Rock Cafe.

Pixar called to invite Welch to the May premiere in 2006, everyone at the Rock was shocked. When Welch and her husband at the time attended the star-studded premiere at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, they were in for an even bigger surprise. “She just knew that she got invited, and they were so starstruck and excited to go,” Thomas said. “They took two days off work… and I held down the fort here. When they went, that’s when John Lasseter pulled her aside and said, ‘You are Sally. As you’re watching the movie, look for your character.’ So, as she’s watching the movie, she’s just in tears the whole time.”

At the time, the cafe staff consisted of just Thomas, Welch, and their children. Within thirty days of the premiere, Disney filmed a commercial at the Rock that aired in France, Spain, Australia, England, Mexico, and all across America. Business tripled that summer. The cafe, which seated just 25 people then, found itself inundated with visitors from around the globe.

Trial by Fire

Starting in 2006, it seemed like things could only get better. In October 2007, Guy Fieri filmed an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with Welch. The Rock hired two new full-time employees. Even through the winter months, the waves of tourists grew and grew. Then, as Memorial Day kicked off what was gearing up to be an even wilder summer season, a fire gutted the cafe. “That just brought everything to a stop,” Thomas said. “That ended us right then and there.”

Thomas and Welch, who had closed up early for the last day of school activities, rushed back to the cafe at 11 PM with their husbands and children in tow. The families sat outside the cafe and wept. “[Welch] said, ‘Listen, I know you’re going to have to get a job. Just don’t get a good job. In one year, we’re going to kick these doors open,’” Thomas said. “I looked at her as we’re crying and thought, ‘You’re kidding me?’ I said, ‘Okay.’ On the way home, I told my husband, ‘It’s done. We’re done.’” Reopening was never a question in Welch’s mind. “Everyone’s looking at this fire saying, ‘Okay, the Rock Cafe’s gone.’ I told my kids, ‘I’m gonna rebuild it.’ They looked at me and said, ‘Yup, it’s gonna be rebuilt.’ They were the only ones that believed that was true. They’d go there with me every day and help me clean out the inside of the [building].” People from town poured out to help save the beloved landmark. Combing through the rubble, Welch was touched to find that the grill that Rives scrounged up in 1939 was still intact, miraculously saved by the fallen hood vent. Over the course of a month, Welch, her children, and their army of volunteers, slowly pieced the historic sandstone building back together.

One year and nine days after the fire ripped through the cafe, the Rock Cafe officially reopened for business. Thomas and Welch watched the travelers return in droves. Since 2009, the number of visitors has only grown.

On the Up and Up

Today, the Rock Cafe boasts an assortment of the old and new. A poster of Lightning McQueen signed “to Sally” hangs on one wall and another is filled with artwork by iconic Route 66 artist Bob Waldmire, who often stayed in the Welchs’ little green house when he passed through town, fixing her son’s toys and creating doodles for them of himself with his Cars character. The sweet hippie VW van Fillmore is thought to have been based on Waldmire. The simple neon sign from the late 1940s still shines. Plywood cutouts of Lightning and Sally, which Welch’s mother made herself, sit in front of the quirky building, which Welch rebuilt with sandstone from the Turner Turnpike, out by original Route 66, where Rives found the foundations of the Rock nearly ninety years ago.

Welch’s journey has been winding and serendipitous, filled with incredible highs and lows, but she is grateful that it dropped her in Stroud. Anyone who comes to the Rock Cafe hoping to learn the story behind Cars will not leave without discovering what makes Stroud and the cafe so special.

“My favorite thing about the Rock Cafe is when people really get it,” Welch said. “You can physically see them slowing down and enjoying each other, just doing the simple things.”

April 23, 2021

Few people know that when photographers schedule midday, outdoor portrait shoots we are secretly praying for “mostly cloudy” conditions. Direct sunlight is harsh, it leaves dark shadows and a clear blue sky is often uninspiring. Big, soft, fluffy clouds… that’s where it’s at. When an outside portrait is composed, the sky usually takes up a large amount of real estate and clouds make the image much more interesting by giving texture and subtle contrast around the subject. Most importantly, from a lighting perspective, clouds help diffuse and spread light evenly, softening shadows and offering the subject a more delicate and forgiving light.

I was on my way to the photo shoot at the Rock Cafe in Stroud, praying for mostly cloudy conditions. However, Mother Nature over delivered. For a mid-April Oklahoma morning, it was unusually cold. It had rained the night before and everything was still damp. Thankfully, it wasn’t dark or gloomy. There were times that the clouds would occasionally part, allowing soft warm tones to peer through, but those moments were scarce. I knew it was imperative to find an interesting way to shoot inside the café.

Right outside of the kitchen, I found a long hallway that connects the outside patio to the host station. The walls are painted with black, chalkboard paint that have been written and erased repeatedly, leaving fading words and clouds of chalk dust. The walls have a lot of character. Opposite is a narrow window that peers into the kitchen, showing the staff hard at work. At the threshold of the doorway is a working stoplight. On the ceiling, a single, bright fixture, struggles to find surfaces to bounce light from, and I thought to myself, this hallway could be my picture. As I framed my shot the light glowed invitingly green. It was a good omen.

As a photographer, I must be able to embrace my surroundings. Like the sun in a cloudless sky, this uncovered fixture was bright, warm, and harsh. I asked Dawn, the proprietor of the Rock Cafe, to stand directly under the fixture, take a step back, and lean against the wall. This gave her a bright, dramatic light, with a full view of the kitchen window and the stoplight.

You can’t see this hallway from the street. You are unable to study this area while dining. If you blink on your way to the patio, you just might miss it. It’s a small part of the historic Rock Cafe, but I found it to be a great place for a picture. —Marshall Hawkins

OUR TOP 5 AUTO MUSEUMS ON ROUTE 66

Nothing celebrates America’s love affair with the automobile like Route 66. With almost 100 years of car history under its fender, this road has seen it all. And so can you. America’s motoring legacy, culture, and glamor endures at these mustvisit museums that each highlight and showcase the cars that once cruised this fabled highway.

Pontiac – Oakland Museum Pontiac, IL

What better place to have a car museum than in Pontiac, Illinois, right? Not only does this museum showcase a variety of Pontiac’s through the ages, but it gives a good glimpse into the Oakland brand as well. The constantly changing roster of vehicles will have you going back again and again.

Route 66 Car Museum Springfield, MO

From early Brass Era cars, classics, sports, to cars from the silver screen, step back in time at this museum that displays over 70 privately owned vehicles going as far back as the late 1890s. Standouts include the famous truck from the film “The Grapes of Wrath,” the Gotham Cruiser, and a 1936 Horch 853 Cabriolet.

Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum Sapulpa, OK

See some of the coolest cars at this decommissionedArmory-turnedmuseum and home of the world’s tallest gas pump. Over 30 historical and classic cars, on loan from various private collections, provide loads of automotive nostalgia. In addition, enjoy the Route 66 memorabilia and military history that it offers.

Route 66 Auto Museum Santa Rosa, NM

Any car enthusiast will know that this place is worth stopping at. On show are over 30 automobiles that have been rebuilt, modified, and restored into works of art by owner Bozo Cordova. From Hot Rods, Corvettes to Chromes, it’s a walkthrough automobile history. Also, enjoy vintage memorabilia and a gift shop that is stocked with some unique finds.

New Mexico Route 66 Museum Tucumcari, NM

Displaying a modest but unique collection of classic cars, including a 1929 Ford Model, a 1937 Studebaker President, and a 1956 Mercury Montclair, among others, plus the world’s largest Route 66 Photo Exhibit, and a selection of old school memorabilia, make this museum deserving of a visit. Stop in when next in Tucumcari.

AMERICA’S h BELOVED VAGRANT

In Downtown Buckeye, Arizona, at 1015 Monroe Avenue, stands a 22-foottall, 1200-pound, fiberglass statue of a ragged yet contentlooking man. Donning baggy pants, a hat, a bandana, a copy of the Wall Street Journal and glove in one pocket, and another glove, a banana and empty candy wrappers in the other, a shoe with a flapping sole, and a Phi Beta Kappa key hanging from his rope belt, this character exudes an air of intelligence and worldliness. His name is Hobo Joe, and he is just one among the legacy of coffee shops that populated Arizona during the ‘70s.

“He was not really a hobo,” said Arizona historian Marshall Trimble. “This was kind of a world traveler. He was a philosopher and he was also a connoisseur of good food—that’s just quoting the motto of the [original] Hobo Joe.”

The original Hobo Joe was also 25 feet tall, created in 1967 by ex-Disney artist Jim Casey in Culver City, California. After Hobo Joe’s Coffee Shops first opened in 1965, founder Herb Applegate commissioned Casey to sculpt his mascot and send the variously sized molds to Scottsdale, Arizona, where they could be mass-produced in a fiberglass factory. By the end of the 1960s, each of the eight existing Hobo Joe’s venues had a life-sized, 5-foot-tall statue standing outside of it.

Of the 25-foot-tall versions, only two have their existence recorded. The first was erected in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, early on and did not have an easy life.

“It was damaged about two months after it was erected,” explained Trimble. “According to the stories, some upset union people tried to set it on fire and did enough damage to it that it had to be sent back to California—at least, that’s what they say—to be repaired by the artist who did it. But did they send it back to California, or what happened? But we know this: nobody knows where it is now.”

The second giant Hobo Joe is the one that resides in Buckeye. Cast by Marvin Ransdell—the owner of a fiberglass factory presumably responsible for the hoboes—in 1967, the second giant was never erected for the restaurant chain and instead lay in Ransdell’s backyard, unpainted, until his death in 1988. The reasons for its negligence are disputed—some say Ransdell created the statue for Applegate but was never paid for the job, while May—the widow of Applegate—claims not to recognize Ransdell’s name. Whatever the case, this giant statue was willed to Ramon Gillum, a friend of Ransdell and owner of the meat factory, who had the statue painted and erected outside of his slaughterhouse in July of 1989, with a plaque denoting the hobo in memory of Ransdell. The statue was purchased and refurbished in 2016 by the Buckeye Main Street Coalition. “It was years ago when [the Buckeye statue] was [lying] in a pasture,” said Don Parks, a statue collector in Phoenix. “I tried to buy it, but the people wouldn’t sell it. But they did have other ones, too—they had the little 5-foot ones that were brand new and had never been painted. And [Gillum] wanted $6,000 for [one of them]. But the big one, they wouldn’t sell.” The more numerous life-sized hoboes have done their own fair share of traveling ever since the coffee shops closed in the late ‘80s. Parks has owned two of them since 2012, having found one in a restaurant supply store in Phoenix and the other which he could not recall the circumstances behind.

Another statue was anonymously donated to the Arizona Railway Museum in Chandler between 1985 and 1987. Accompanying this hobo was a perfectly intact statue of his canine companion—a rare find nowadays. The hobo currently resides in storage.

Also, buying into the culture of hobo train-hopping, the John Bell Museum of Verde Canyon Railroad in Clarkdale, Arizona, houses a 5-foot-tall Hobo Joe—donated in 2011 by Dale Randles, Sr., who had previously bought it at an antique store in 2004 to fit into his own Hobo Joe’s restaurant in Cottonwood, Arizona—opened in 1980 and permanently closed by 2011.

The old coffee shops may be long gone now, but the hoboes’ ideology of owning the freedom of the road lives on. Throughout Arizona and California, a vagrant Hobo Joe may have secluded himself into any warehouse, garage, or museum, and there’s no telling where one will pop up next. While real-life hoboes’ only aim was to travel in search of work, the Hobo Joes are instead a manifestation of the romanticism of the open road, going wherever they please in search of new adventures. It is this notion that makes them synonymous with the spirit of America’s Main Street.

SOME TEXAS R&R

It’s quiet in Fort Davis, Texas. The town is peaceful, an agricultural-based community where everyone knows everyone. The Davis Mountains decorate the landscape and most of the backroads in the town remain unpaved. With the nearest household retailer 170 miles away, it’s safe to say that Ft. Davis stands comfortably in the ‘middle of nowhere.’ But in this quiet corner of Texas, there’s a spot that has been drawing in visitors since its opening in 2000.

Right across from Ft. Davis’ National Historic Site is Rattlers and Reptiles, home to Buzz Ross’ Rattlesnake Museum. The yellow, stucco, nondescript building has a large painting of a snake encircling the planet earth with the faded words ‘The Largest Live Rattlesnake Exhibit’ written right above it. Inside, in the dimly lit back room, are lighted glass boxes lining the walls, each housing a unique desert creature—Gila monsters, tarantulas, and lots and lots of snakes, both venomous and otherwise. The stars of the show are the rattlesnakes; intimidating serpents that promise to wow visitors. And it all started with one man.

Jeffrey “Buzz” Ross was born in London, England, in 1944 during a buzz-bomb raid that earned him his nickname. His family then moved to Fort Worth, where his father, an American Army Air Corps pilot, was stationed, when he was just seven months old. At a young age, Ross was fascinated with all sorts of wildlife, but quickly discovered a particular admiration for snakes, an interest that would persist throughout his life. In 1979, he moved to Ft. Davis and bought a property that was littered with rundown vehicles but had a vacant 1,400-square-foot house, perfect for keeping snakes. Ross cleaned the place up and went into taxidermy.

“When I walked in, it was a taxidermy shop and he [Ross] was doing one last year of his taxidermy work. He had some snakes in the shop and they were just sitting in cages in the back,” said Scott Teppe, current owner of Rattlers & Reptiles and friend of Ross. Teppe arrived in Ft. Davis and met Ross for the first time after returning home from a geology survey at Big Bend National Park.

“I walked in and was looking at the animals while he was talking to a gentleman,” Teppe said. “When he got done, he came over and asked me how I liked the snakes. I said, ‘They’re great,’ [but] that he had mislabeled some of the cases. I assumed that they were for different animals in the cage and that [he] never changed the label. I said, ‘That’s not what’s in there.’”

In that moment Ross glared at Teppe, asking what the hell this stranger knew. Teppe retorted and stood his ground. That was their first conversation.

After about 10 minutes of wrangling back and forth, Ross opened up to Teppe, appreciating his moxie, and invited him to take a look at the rest of the snakes he owned.

“He told me that he was thinking about turning the taxidermy shop into a live display so that he could show live animals to people instead of dead ones,” said Teppe. Ross already had notes on what he wanted to do but didn’t have enough species for display—luckily for Ross, Teppe offered his own collection for what would become Rattlers & Reptiles.

“We built everything out of scrap. It was a very low-budget operation, so everything takes twice as long when you don’t have the money to buy the right stuff. I literally lived in the building that is now the rattlesnake museum for two months.” After building cages together and transforming the property, alongside numerous volunteers, on July 4, 2000, Rattlers & Reptiles opened for business. “It was great,” said Teppe. “[The] Fourth of July is a nine-day party in Fort Davis.” Thanks to the holiday traffic, the Museum saw dozens of people venturing inside, each of them keen to experience the state’s natural wonders. Everyone was impressed with what Rattlers & Reptiles had to offer.

For a time, the Museum thrived, always happy to educate curious visitors. But as the years passed, the shine on the Museum’s star began to fade. Buzz Ross battled leukemia, among other ailments, during the last years of his life. In that time, as Ross suffered, so too did Rattlers & Reptiles. The Museum became quite rundown. But its doors remained open.

On May 3, 2018, Jeffrey “Buzz” Ross passed on. But even after his passing, Rattlers & Reptiles has continued to live out his dream, thanks to the love and appreciation of friends, volunteers, and a steady flow of fascinated tourists.

So, if you’re ever looking to get up close and personal and hear the buzz of some West Texas rattlers, be sure to visit the Rattlers & Reptiles Museum, in the middle of nowhere, in true rattlesnake country.

A GOOD TEXAN

Matthew McConaughey

By Brennen Matthews Opening Image by Vida Alves McConaughey