ROUTE - October/November 2023

Kick Back on Route 66

Whether it’s classic cars, old fashioned burgers or a museum that brings history to life, you can relive the glory days of Route 66 in its birthplace. We love our city and know the best places to eat, drink and play. Get your kicks at the Birthplace of Route 66 Festival, August 10–12, 2023.

SEE YOU IN SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI

CLEAR YOUR SCHEDULE. GET TO PULASKI COUNTY, MO!

Ready for a road trip of breathtaking twists and turns that will take you back in time? Take your pick of drives down Route 66, through historic Fort Leonard Wood, and along the Frisco Railroad line. Then, fill up at unique (and oh-so-tasty) diners before heading off to uncover even more rare finds at countless antique shops. Book your stay and get ready to play on a road you’ll always remember.

Check out our Great American Road Trip Itinerary and plan your Mother Road adventure at visitpulaskicounty.org/roadtrip.

Willowbrook

Chicago

Romeoville

Joliet

Joliet

Wilmington

Braidwood

Dwight

Pontiac

Pontiac

Wildey Theatre Edwardsville, IL

World’s Tallest Catsup Bottle Collinsville, IL

Twistee Treat Diner Livingston, IL

Granite City Mural & Monument Granite City, IL

ENJOY MEMORY LANE:

This image depicts the Blue Dome building at 2nd and Elgin in Downtown Tulsa when it was a Gulf Oil White Star Service Station in 1949. This was the original alignment of U.S. Route 66 from 1926-1932.

This 1940 photograph depicts the Corydon Apartments, located at 420 West 11th Street in Tulsa, the Southeast corner of 11th & Frisco Ave. Sadly, both the apartments and that portion of Frisco Ave are gone.

This photograph from 1955 depicts an advertising sign for the Bill Benton Clothing store for men, located at 11th and Denver Ave (U.S. Route 66) in Tulsa.

This image circa 1950 depicts WolfRobe’s Indian Trading Post, located at 3303-3307 East 11th Street, Tulsa (11th and Harvard). Wolf Robe Hunt owned and operated the store. Mrs. Hunt operated a U.S. Post Office substation from the store. The store no longer exists, and the property is part of the University of Tulsa campus.

Photos Courtesy - Tulsa Historical Society & Museum.

PHOTOS IN “TULSA” TIME 1962

This 1962 photo depicts the exterior of the Rose Bowl, a bowling alley located at 7419 East 11th Street, Tulsa (11th Street between Sheridan and Memorial). Architect William Henry Ryan designed and built the structure in 1961.

BUSINESS THRIVES ON THE ROUTE

This 1967 street scene looking east at the intersection of West 23rd Street and Southwest Boulevard in Tulsa features Cypert’s Used Cars, located at 2241 Southwest Boulevard, Ed’s Hamburgers, located at 1205 West 23rd Street (where QuikTrip is today), and Sutterfield’s D-X Service Station, located at 2301 Southwest Boulevard.

This image depicts the exterior of Bama Pie Company, located at 2747 East 11th Street, Tulsa (11th and Delaware, where a modern Bama Pie Company sits today). The image shows the wood-frame company building on the northwest corner of East 11th Street (Route 66) and South Delaware Avenue. Several employees stand in front of the building. Bama delivery drivers stand closest to the fleet of delivery trucks. An advertisement painted on the side of the building states, “Bama Pies A Taste, A Smile.”

Bama Pie credits its early success to Route 66, which opened up economic development opportunities by providing a major highway by which to deliver their pies regionally.

This 1970 photograph depicts the exterior of the Saratoga Motor Hotel and restaurant, located on Route 66 at 10117 E. 11th Street in Tulsa.

CONTENTS

20 The Blue Whale of Catoosa

By Melanee Morin

A whale in the landlocked state of Oklahoma? One man’s belief in loving what he does and doing what he loves collides with his wife’s love for whales to create one of the most iconic and beloved landmarks on Route 66.

26 A Stylish Lair

By Shellee Graham

The Coral Court Motel was as famous for its streamlined art deco architecture as for its reputation as a haven for criminals and adulterers. This fascinating tale takes us through the salacious life and history of the St. Louis landmark and its mysterious owner, John Carr.

32 Lou Mitchell’s

By Nick Gerlich

Opening in 1923 on W. Jackson Blvd, Lou’s predates Route 66 by three years, but this family restaurant would not miss out on a golden opportunity when it came. Now in its 100th year, this venue is still the starting point for many a traveler’s Mother Road voyage. The real magic behind the iconic eatery though is not simply the tasty food, but the families who have created this Chicago gem.

40 Here It Is!

By Jim Hinckley and Lea Loeb

Few markers from days gone by are as recognizable as the black rabbit silhouette signs that once dotted Arizona’s Mother Road. Find out the backstory of this quintessential Route 66 stop and its undeniable significance to the route.

48 A Quiet Place

By Frank Jastrzembski

At the Ed Galloway Totem Pole Park in sleepy Foyil, Oklahoma, one man’s incredible vision and carved creations continue to touch people’s lives and provide a place of tranquility. But where did the dream that is still inspiring visitors today begin?

58 Texan Style

By Melanee Morin

From the oversized boot in the parking lot to its 72-ounce steaks, The Big Texan Steak Ranch proves that everything really is bigger in Texas. Morin tells the story of the family who built it and their enduring legacy on Amarillo’s enviable stretch of Route 66.

68 Relighting History

By Alex J. Rodriguez

Neon is a magical part of spending the night on the Mother Road, and Missouri has more than its fair share, but one venue stands out with its classic architecture and wraparound vivid green neon lighting. Boots Court Motel has been in business since the late 1930s, and continues to be a must-stay while traversing America.

ON THE COVER

Seligman, Arizona.

Photograph by David J. SchwartzPics On Route 66.

Stewart’s Petrified Wood Shop, Holbrook, AZ. 1980. Photograph by Julian McRoberts.

This past summer, my family and I spent close to three glorious months on Route 66 (and a bit off), exploring the country and reconnecting with many of our favorite people and places along the Mother Road. Along the way, we bumped into both domestic and international travelers who were equally enamored with all of the friendly people, beautiful scenery, and diversity that they encountered as they discovered a small sample of a vast nation. There was a palpable excitement from everyone we met, with many global visitors eagerly sharing their journey with us. One English couple in their fifties, recently married and on their honeymoon, gave themselves five months to savor as much Americana as they could, and not wanting to miss anything “important”, had most of their days well planned and mapped out. Another group of young men from Germany — teachers on an exchange program — were taking every day as it came, absorbing what they stumbled upon as they drove. It was a joy to witness. This year we discovered more age diversity on Route 66 than any year before and most of the iconic motel and restaurant owners were delighted; the international community was coming back!

Another interesting event occurred this year. My son, Thembi, has been telling his best friend, David, about Route 66 since the pair were nine years old, sharing maps and tons of photographs from each annual visit we had made. Finally, this year, after 12 trips down America’s Main Street, David and his mother joined us in Oklahoma City for the journey east. It was a wonderful experience for all of us and one that Thembi and David will now share for the rest of their lives. Personally, I loved witnessing our guests’ response to 66 and to all that Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois had to offer. From watching the huge 66-foot soda bottle at Pops in Arcadia come a light and exploring the endless varieties of sodas on display, dining at the historic Cattlemen’s restaurant while watching real life cowboys dine, standing beside a neon lit sign as it illuminated the night, to finally seeing — in real life — giant muffler men only seen in pictures before. “Route 66 is so cool!” David said repeatedly. This is the beauty of a journey down the Mother Road and most historic highways; it is easy to come face-to-face with real life America in all of its splendor and quirks. Route 66 is not a Disney ride, it is a living, breathing artery through the heart of America. In this issue, we are doing something a little different. After almost six full years of in-depth stories and mesmerizing imagery found nowhere else, we are bringing readers some of the most popular stories from the 2018 and 2019 issues. Most of these issues have been sold out for years, and we’ve received many requests on where to find these early issues from new folks who discover ROUTE Magazine. Sadly, they are not available, and so we have decided to do the next best thing: pull some of the most important stories from those early years and bring them back in one beautiful issue. There have been some noted changes with some of the properties and venues showcased in this issue that I want to share with you. In 2022, the iconic Boots Court Motel was purchased by The Boots Foundation, a non-profit, 501c3, who undertook a full restoration. The former owners, sisters Debye Harvey and Pricilla (Pixie) Bledsaw happily retired in Carthage, and former manager Debbie Dee moved to Illinois. Down in Catoosa, Oklahoma, the City purchased the Blue Whale in April 2020 and is now responsible for its upkeep and preservation. Future plans include expanding the picnic area, creating an organized trail system in the woods, a larger gift shop with restrooms that can accommodate larger crowds, and some enhancements to the pond. Exciting times!

If you have not yet grabbed a copy of my book, Miles to Go, now is a great time to do so. With Christmas fast approaching, what is a better gift than a great book that tells moving human stories and a magazine subscription to the only title celebrating Route 66 today? Both continue to give throughout the year and beyond! Get inspired today and pass the love to those around you.

Remember to follow us on social media and visit us online for unique content and lots of great news, images, and stories.

Blessings,

Brennen Matthews Editor

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

DIGITAL

Matheus Alves

ILLUSTRATOR

Jennifer Mallon

EDITORIAL INTERNS

Aaron Garza

Ashley Bassick

Kristy Gillespie

CONTRIBUTORS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS

Alex J. Rodriguez

B. Hammond

Efren Lopez

Efrain M. Padró

Frank Jastrzembski

Grand Canyon National Parks

Jim Hinckley

Julian McRoberts

Lea Loeb

Melanee Morin

National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. Old Trails Museum/Winslow Historical Society

Olivia McClure

Shellee Graham

Tony and Cindy Jaquez

Editorial submissions should be sent to brennen@routemagazine.us

To subscribe or purchase available back issues visit us at 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 service contractors. Every effort has been made to maintain the accuracy of the information presented in this publication. No responsibility is assumed for errors, changes or omissions. The Publisher does not take any responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photography.

A Ribbon Runs Through It

The lure of Route 66 calls to modern-day adventurers with its quirky attractions, historic sites, breathtaking landscapes, and the promise of 85 percent of its original 2,448 miles available to drive. Oklahoma boasts the most original Mother Road miles — over 400 — of the eight Route 66 states, cutting through large swaths of windswept landscape. Picturesque drives take the traveler over rolling hills on old, narrow, two-lane, curbed pavement. If you get a case of white knuckles just thinking of oncoming traffic while trying to stay in your own lane, there is another unique section — with only a single lane — that’s truly not to be missed.

Quietly tucked away between Miami (pronounced “My-am-uh”) and Afton in the northeast corner of Oklahoma are a half-dozen miles of tenacious original pavement dubbed the Ribbon Road, aka the Sidewalk Highway. Cutting through sparsely populated farmland, this ninefoot-wide road zigzags through six 90-degree turns. Although only about six miles remain, travelers can still drive both segments of it, which lie separated by a few miles of modern pavement. The singlelane construction undoubtedly caused early motorists grief, but it allows modern travelers to savor the thrills as they imagine two directions of historic Route 66 traffic attempting to safely pass.

“The Ribbon Road is an experience that every traveler needs to take,” said Amanda Davis, Executive Director of the Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau/Visit Miami, OK. “The special feel of the original Ozark Trail added with Historic Route 66 makes it a traveler’s dream. I love to walk on the old road and take in the years of historical value it possesses. Visitors always find their way to the road. It’s something we see all over social media. The pictures and experiences are what keep that stretch of road alive in Oklahoma.”

Almost a hundred years ago, construction began, divided into two stages. The first linked Miami and Narcissa and was finished in March 1921. The second, completed a year later, connected Narcissa to Afton. This route, originally State Highway 7, was absorbed into the spiderweb of roads known as the Ozark Trail Highway, but with the advent of the federal numbered highway system in 1926, it became part of Route 66. How, in the age of 12-foot lanes, did a nine-foot highway come to be? The road’s engineers only had enough funding for one lane, so they paved the entire distance between Miami and Afton, rather than half the distance with a regular-width road. So, there it was – a nine-foot asphalt-over-cement road, not

much more than the width of an average sidewalk, with white concrete curbs.

The reality of driving the Ribbon Road almost a century ago meant that oncoming motorists both had to give way as necessary, with their right wheels running slightly off the road to provide enough space for safe passage. Lane-sharing was the unspoken code of conduct.

This section only lasted until 1937 as part of Route 66, when the road was finally realigned. For those in the know, though, its unique legacy has prompted many visits over the years.

“We know that people often stop and get out of their cars to walk and snap photos, and that bicycle tour groups pedal these memorable miles rather than sticking to the modern road. Even tour buses have gingerly ventured out to drive it, just to say they could offer their passengers such a distinctive experience,” said Davis. However, over the course of those 80 years of local travel, the Ribbon Road has suffered a lot of wear and tear and is now at risk of being ground into powder. Loads of rough gravel dumped on it a few years ago offered the road itself some protection but made it even more treacherous to navigate. Thankfully, there have been plenty of concerned citizens who want to preserve the Ribbon Road for future generations. The historic pavement was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994, and guidance from the National Park Service has continued. A grassroots preservation effort a few years ago was picked up in early 2020 by Ottawa County officials considering several options for restoring the iconic stretch of narrow road.

“You know, Route 66 in itself is the trip and the experience, but then when you get to see special roads, special things that date back as far as [the road] dates back, it’s definitely a huge draw. Miami is the welcome mat for Route 66 travelers coming into the state from the Northeast corner. We truly are the gateway to Route 66 in Oklahoma.  Miami is unique in its history and is home to nine Native American tribes, more than anywhere in the nation. We pride ourselves on the hospitality and friendliness that travelers say they love about our city.”

This “huge tourism attraction” is just a tiny stretch of road compared to all the historic highway found in picturesque Oklahoma, but while cruising the state's long ribbon of Mother Road, tourists shouldn't miss this single-lane gem. Thanks to preservation efforts, travelers can continue to enjoy a big experience on that narrow highway.

Image courtesy of David J. SchwartzPics On Route 66

Innumerable and then Gone THE GREAT AMERICAN BISON

By Olivia McClure

Around the time that Christopher Columbus made his famous arrival in the West Indies, an estimated 30 to 60 million bison roamed the vast plains of North America. During this time, Plains Indians, including the Blackfoot, Cheyenne, and Sioux tribes, made use of temporary teepees as they followed bison herds during their seasonal migrations. For these Native Americans, bison were an important resource. While bison meat was used for food, bison skins were used for clothing and teepees, while their sinew or muscle was used to make bowstrings and moccasins.

For several centuries after Europeans arrived in North America, bison continued to thrive in large numbers in the wilderness stretching from northern Canada to northern Mexico and from western New York to eastern Washington. But by the 19 th Century, life had drastically changed for North America’s largest land mammal.

As European settlers came into contact with native populations, trading partnerships emerged. In exchange for military assistance and animal pelts, Native Americans acquired ammunition, which gave them the newfound ability to kill bison in larger numbers. When the Spanish introduced horses to North America during the 1500s, Native Americans were granted a way to hunt more efficiently. Previously, natives were forced to rely on bows and arrows and uncanny precision in order to hunt bison. Wielding guns on horseback, Native Americans were able to kill bison easily and quickly, and the mammals’ population began to dwindle as a result.

During the 19th Century, settlers killed an estimated 50 million bison for food and recreation. That number is simply staggering. By 1889, unregulated shooting and widespread habitat loss shockingly decreased the bison population to a

little over 1,000. The once great herds were decimated and their dominance on the Great Plains relegated to history.

In 2016, the bison was declared the national mammal of the U.S. But despite this proud title, these shaggy, odd looking beasts are currently classified as “near threatened” by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). In order to prevent bison from reaching total extinction, the WWF is working with various Native American tribes to strategically manage bison numbers.

For those who have the chance to travel the western highways of America, including Route 66, a glance out the window could result in a rare glimpse of this American icon. In truth, bison embody the strength and resilience that defines the American spirit. These roaming giants survived the Ice Age, moving piles of snow and earth with their massive heads while keeping themselves warm under their dense coats. They’ve been saved from extinction once before, during the 20 th Century. With the help of preservation organizations and government intervention, bison can be saved from their demise again.

During their early seasonal migrations, herds of bison carved out trails through the untamed wilderness. Native Americans, early explorers, and pioneers followed in their wake, using these trails for guidance. Without assistance from their animal neighbors, these people would have been lost in a maze of endless frontier land.

Bison undoubtedly played a pivotal role in American westward expansion. In failing to protect and save this incredible species, America will be neglecting an important aspect of its identity. Like the winds that whistle through the Great Plains, the demand for bison preservation comes across as a soft whisper. It’s up to Americans to make the decision to listen to nature’s pleas before it’s too late.

Image courtesy of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

The BLUE WHA

LE of CATOOSA

By Melanee Morin

Opening photograph by Efren Lopez/Route66Images

ehind every great icon and timeless attraction along the route lies hopeful, determined, and enthusiastic individuals who cherish their community and its place along an iconic road. “The most important resource along Route 66 is the people,” notes photographer and president of the Oklahoma Route 66 Association, Rhys Martin. A native Oklahoman, Martin has traveled around the world and traversed the entire Mother Road, but it is Oklahoma that keeps drawing him back: “The first thing that comes to mind when I think of Oklahoma is right in the name: Home. Not only for me, but for a great many Native American tribes. For people coming here around statehood to try and strike it rich in the Oil Boom. For people that would give you the shirt off their backs if you needed it.” Fellow photographer and OK Route 66 Association member Liz Huckleby shares the feeling that Oklahoma’s greatest strength is the kindness of its people: it’s amazing “how friendly even complete strangers tend to be to each other in Oklahoma.” Some of the most famous Route 66-related individuals have harkened from this state, including the father of the Mother Road, Tulsa’s Cyrus Avery, and the great entertainer Will Rogers, whose name is also given to the route.

Add to this illustrious list the name of Hugh Davis, creator of the Blue Whale of Catoosa. The Oklahoma stretch of Route 66 is well-known for having more miles of original alignment left than any other Route 66 state, dotted with whimsical roadside attractions such as the world’s largest totem pole near Foyil, the 66-foot-tall bottle at Pop’s in Arcadia, and the burger joint in Miami (pronounced “Miama”) that’s built to resemble a giant cuckoo clock. But the Blue Whale of Catoosa remains one of the most visited and beloved attractions along the Mother Road, due in large part to its sense of whimsy, lost nostalgia, and wholesomeness. As Martin states, the Whale “absolutely hearkens back to the golden days of Route 66.” But how can a simple, oversized concrete whale embody such a noble and enduring spirit? Because the man who built it was the embodiment of that spirit, and he put everything into his creation.

A Dance Beneath the Stars

It all started with a dance. “[My parents met] at Cain’s Ballroom, a Tulsa dance hall that is still packin’ em in after nearly one hundred years,” recalls Blaine Davis, son of Hugh and Zelta Davis. This historic 1924 music venue, with its neon “Ballroom Dancing” sign still outside, helped create another long-term legacy when it introduced Hugh and Zelta. Hugh was “an adventurer looking for a time and place to happen,” says Blaine — he certainly found it at Cain’s Ballroom! Hugh was also “a kind and gentle man” with an artistic eye: “He was a good photographer and carried a camera most of the time,” elaborates long-time volunteer at the Whale, Linda Ross-Hobbs. Zelta, meanwhile, was “a very energetic redhead.” Hugh and Zelta married and had two children, Blaine and

Dee Dee Belt, neé Davis (Dee Dee passed away from breast cancer in 2006 at the age of 60). What followed was a loving, countryside existence in touch with nature — the wide-open plains, lush forests, and vast blue skies of Oklahoma.

“I was raised in a log cabin, and because Dad was curator of the Tulsa Zoo, I grew up with all kinds of animals underfoot. There were many specimen-gathering trips and lots of days and nights camped out in remote locations. Pitch black nights with a quadrillion stars overhead, or a full moon with the sounds of nature surrounding us,” Blaine reminisces. Hugh had a love and interest of all living creatures, while his wife Zelta was a voracious reader, despite having only a high school education (the walls of their house were lined with books about hundreds of different subjects). Zelta was also fascinated by whales, and had a large collection of whale figurines. Blaine thinks this fascination might have come from reading about whales, although living in landlocked Oklahoma, he doesn’t believe she ever saw a live one.

Although the Davis’s were incredibly proud of their state and enjoyed everything it had to offer, they also loved exploring the rest of America, especially along Route 66. Hugh and Zelta traveled the entire length of the Mother Road over the years, as has Blaine, but they were invariably always drawn West — broad plains, desert heat, and incomparable hospitality.

Back home, Hugh was always busy with one project or another, with vast interests and a boundless energy. Before she passed, Dee Dee wrote an excerpt about her father and the Whale for the Catoosa Historical Society’s “History of Catoosa” book, published in 2003 to celebrate the town’s centennial. She wrote of her father, “Hugh believed that every day was a beautiful day, that people should use the talents God gave them, that one should keep busy by thinking, planning, and creating, that people should love what they do and do what they love, that you should always finish what you start and that you should enjoy life to the fullest.” No better example of this is when Hugh and Zelta’s 34th wedding anniversary was coming up, and while looking at Zelta’s whale figurines, Hugh got a big idea.

126 Sacks of Concrete, 15 Tons of Sand, and an Indefatigable Spirit

There had always been a pond on the Davis property, and Blaine and Dee Dee’s childhood consisted of swimming in the pond with friends, canoeing, fishing for perch and bass, picnicking in the summer, and skating in the winter. When Blaine had children of his own, they too enjoyed the family pond. After retiring from the Tulsa Zoo after 36 years, Hugh “devoted all of his time to developing facilities to educate people about nature,” writes Dee Dee. On the land surrounding the pond, Hugh built an A.R.K. (Animal Reptile Kingdom) with cute cut-out wooden animals, then he created the Alligator Ranch and Nature’s Acres with its live alligators, snake pit, and prairie dog village, entertaining and educating local children.

In the late 1960s, at the age of 60, Hugh began to envision building a whale to include at the pond. After the sketches kept getting larger and larger, he settled on the blue whale, the largest animal in the world. What followed was a grueling two years of construction, from 1970-72. But for Hugh, who was in his early 60s, nothing would stop him once he had an idea. He asked his friend Harold Thomas, a welder, to help fashion the iron framework of the whale, 20-feet-tall and 80-feet-long. Thomas devoted over 100 hours to the project and charged

nothing; helping a friend and neighbor was payment enough (the true Oklahoma spirit). Hugh then had to apply cement to the structure, and Dee Dee writes, “He worked 2,920 hours applying the cement, which he hand mixed and applied one five-gallon bucket at a time.” Hugh kept notes of the materials he used to build the whale, including 126 sacks of dry concrete, 19,400 pounds of rock, and 15 tons of sand. It was an enormous project, Hugh was not a young man, and the pond was full of water while he worked. But it was incredibly well-built, notes Blaine, and “is so strong and well anchored that there is not a fatigue crack or failure anywhere in a 45-year-old structure.” This is a testament to Hugh’s tenacity and fortitude. Linda enjoys educating current visitors of the Whale about the family legacy: “I love telling the story of Hugh Davis saying that he was going to build a cement whale, his friends said, ‘How are you going to do that?’ He replied, ‘How hard can it be?’ and two years later it was done, with water slides no less. It is the history of one man who knew without a doubt that he could do it.”

The Golden Years

It’s a bit difficult to hide a massive concrete whale outside the family pond, but what began as a surprise anniversary gift turned into a two-year long testament to Hugh’s love for his wife. Every pail of cement showed his devotion; every pound of sand his fortitude. It couldn’t be kept a secret from the community either. Every summer, the swimming hole was still open for business, and locals and visitors alike began enjoying the Blue Whale attraction before he was even blue. “In July 1972, the unpainted blue whale began attracting people who wanted to fling themselves off his tail, slide down his water-coated fins and poke their heads out of the holes in the whale’s head. So began what became one of the bestloved icons on Route 66,” writes Dee Dee. The Blue Whale captured the hearts and imaginations of everyone who came across his wide grin and playful spirit, offering a persuasive invitation to play like a kid again. What followed was 16 years of delighting and teaching children about nature and animals, providing a fun and safe place for family outings, contributing to the community, and becoming a Route 66 icon — who wouldn’t pull to the side of the road at the sight of a massive blue whale with the charm of nostalgia that defines the Mother

Road? What began as a thoughtful and loving anniversary gift expanded to become a gift to the community of Catoosa and beyond. However, there were rocky times ahead.

Closure and Disrepair

By 1988, Hugh was 78 with crippling arthritis, Zelta was 68, and many swimmers had stopped coming to the Whale. As Blaine notes, “the support base, which was mostly local, got swimming pools in their backyards and attendance fell from 150 per day to 5 or 10.” This, coupled with Hugh’s poor health, caused the family to close the Whale. Hugh died two years later. (Zelta passed away in 2001).

Without the constant maintenance needed to keep such a vast structure alive, Old Blue’s paint slowly faded and chipped away, the grounds became overgrown and the pond murky, and vandals marred the exterior with graffiti. The facilities were also completely ruined, with the plumbing and bathrooms destroyed. Anything that wasn’t nailed to the ground and could be stolen was. The aura of childhood innocence and nostalgia was gone, replaced with such modern ailments as disrespect and apathy.

This period of closure and disrepair is echoed in many towns and attractions along Route 66, when the interstate highways bypassed much of the route and travelers went elsewhere. As Blaine recalls, “The motoring public had taken up the turnpikes and Interstate highways, my father had passed away, there was no more interest or income to be made, no one lived on that side of the road [anymore], my sister and my families had careers to follow and nature took over the landscape, then the vandals came. From the closing in the fall of 1988 until 1995, it stayed that way.” The once bright light in Catoosa and along Route 66 had gone out, and past innocence and wholesomeness were substituted with abandonment and vandalism. This even led to discussions about potential demolition. But, thankfully, in true Oklahoman spirit, the kind and caring people of Catoosa rallied to help return an icon to its former grandeur.

A Tide of Resurgence

When Blaine returned to the Whale in 1995, he had time to commit to the attraction again, and he noticed that many of

Hugh Davis at the Tulsa Zoo. 1940s.

Zelta, Blaine, and Dee Dee with baby lions and bears, taken on the grounds of the Tulsa Zoo. 1940s.

One day, when she brought her 3-year-old twin granddaughters to the Whale, their joy at Old Blue reminded Ross-Hobbs of the happy memories she herself had from the Whale. She had intended to only volunteer for a year, but the happiness the Whale brings to herself and others has kept her hooked. The most memorable moments for her while working at the Whale are “the everyday people who touch you with their stories. We share lives from here and abroad. Blue is the essence of Route 66 and represents the innocence of that time. It signifies the strength and determination of our people and country.”

the kids who had swam at the Whale had grown up, started businesses, and had an interest in saving their childhood playground. In addition, Michael Wallis had published his seminal Route 66: The Mother Road book, which helped start a revival of Route 66 appreciation and preservation.

When the community learned that reopening the Whale was a possibility, they came together to donate time, money, and energy to reviving the faded roadside attraction. In 1997, the Catoosa Chamber of Commerce refurbished the landmark with help from volunteers, private companies, family members, and the Hampton Inn hotel chain (the Blue Whale is now used in Hampton Inn’s marketing campaigns nationwide). Oklahoma Governor at the time, Frank Keating, even painted the pupil of the Whale’s eye. And the adorable little white hat atop the Whale’s head was added to show support for the Catoosa Public School system, where three (and soon to be four) generations of Davises have graduated from and where Dee Dee taught for over 30 years. There could not be a better example of Oklahomans’ kindness and desire to help and support one another.

The work on such a large and well-visited attraction is never done, and Blaine, along with his sons and a dedicated group of volunteers, continues to keep the place up and make regular improvements. In addition, a local volunteer group, the FINS of the Blue Whale (a sub-committee of the Catoosa Arts and Tourism Society), formed in 2009 to help support the ongoing maintenance of the attraction by organizing fundraising events. Every year, among other events, they hold the Blue Tie Affair, a fun and glamorous evening at the Whale with dinner, a silent auction, and entertainment.

One of the key elements to keeping the Whale alive is the long-time volunteer, and only full-time person on site, Linda Ross-Hobbs. Blaine believes that the Whale is such a hit among travelers because of the story behind it, and says Ross-Hobbs is the best storyteller there is. “Linda Ross-Hobbs is a dedicated, consumed volunteer who has experienced its rise, fall, and resurrection as much as my family members, and is primarily responsible for every improvement in the place and every sale in the gift shop that provides all the financial support.”

Ross-Hobbs first began volunteering at the Whale after suffering the painful loss of her husband in 2011 to cancer.

Present and Future

The resurgence of the Blue Whale of Catoosa is part of a larger trend along Route 66, with dedicated people working hard to preserve an important part of American history and offer something nostalgic for future generations. Ross-Hobbs notes that all over Oklahoma, “Buildings are being saved, [people are] fighting to save graceful old bridges, old sections of highway and neon signs, and I cannot say enough about this and the people who help and donate time and money. Saving a great history.”

Old Blue continues to draw in people every day, and, over the years, has had some special visitors. One of the most memorable visitors to the Whale for Blaine was Sir Paul McCartney: “It was very brief as I was pulling into the driveway, he and his soon-to-be wife were pulling out. Our driver’s side windows were down and not over three feet apart. We both stopped ever so briefly, and I said, ‘You look just like Paul McCartney,’ he replied, ‘I should — I am’ and drove off.”

Special moments like that happen all the time at the Whale, between locals, international tourists, and everyone in between. Huckleby drives by on her way to work and visits often: “A visit to the Blue Whale provides a bit of whimsy in an otherwise regular day.” Crews from the Food Network, American Pickers, and the Cartoon Network, have also been drawn to the site, among others. And in 2010, Time Magazine named the Blue Whale of Catoosa as one of America’s Top 50 Roadside Attractions. Nearby Catoosa is also well worth a visit, notes Catoosa Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Glenna Scott, with its friendly, welcoming atmosphere and small hometown feel. Route 66 runs directly through the heart of Catoosa, and “folks from all over the world travel Route 66 and end up in Catoosa, OK.”

Along with the dedicated volunteers, corporate partners, the FINS of the Blue Whale, and the Oklahoma Route 66 Association, the Whale should keep on swimming for many years to come. So stop by, bring a picnic, fish in the pond (catch and release), explore the grounds, or just “sit on the tail of the whale and dream a dream,” in the words of RossHobbs. Her personal motto is one shared all along the Mother Road, and echoes Hugh Davis’s incredible spirit: “Work in the present, look to the future, and save the past.”

Blaine Davis.

Images courtesy of of the Davis Family via Linda Ross-Hobbs.

A STYLISH

By Shellee Graham

LAIR

“John Carr was perhaps the most intimidating, charming, secretive, generous, and potentially dangerous character the route has known.”

From Secret Route 66: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful and Obscure

F

rom the day construction was completed until the day the wrecking ball cast it asunder fifty-four years later, the Coral Court Motel stood as both an architectural masterpiece and a place of mystery and nefarious activities. Its reputation was brought to bear by the shadowy John Carr, who owned and operated it for forty-three of those years.

Carr, an ex-con, purchased property along Watson Road (U.S. 66) in the suburban village of Marlborough around 1940. How the motel was financed is unknown, but Carr spared no expense in its construction, hiring architect Adolph Struebig in 1941, to grace the pastoral property with an incomparable motor lodge.

Built in the Streamline Moderne style of the era, the Coral Court featured curved walls and an array of glass blocks and colored tile bricks. And each room came with a private garage. The original plans called for ten two-unit bungalows, a modest beginning that would be expanded in the years to come. The completed complex was without equal in terms of curb appeal. Its uniquely designed rooms in the eight-acre park-like setting were shaded by beautiful pin oaks on a slightly sloping hillside facing the Mother Road. It is believed that Carr named the motel after a coral business investment he had in Mexico. He also had a home in Siesta Key, Florida, near Sarasota.

The Coral Court was an instant hit with the motoring public. Carr kept the grounds manicured and insisted that every aspect of the operation be perfect. Not so much as a gum wrapper was left on the ground, and repairs were done immediately without regard to cost. Tourists found it to be the cat’s meow, and it provided lifelong memories, especially for World War II brides who honeymooned there, some of whom never saw their husbands again. Because of the unending stream of customers supplied by the Mother Road, the motel stayed booked far in advance. Yet, almost from the beginning, there were hints of a dark undercurrent to John Carr’s high-profile motel.

The Man behind the Mystery

John Henry Carr was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on June 10, 1901. As a young man, he migrated to Ohio, where records show that in 1923 he married Pearl Miller, who gave birth to Anna Pearl Carr in 1924. After his wife became pregnant again, the story goes that the two were fighting, and she fell (or was possibly pushed) down a flight of stairs to her death.

Carr had done hard time. Records are sketchy, but he was incarcerated at Leavenworth, Kansas, at least once and possibly twice (documents show he entered there in 1933 as

Inmate #43035). It is known that he was charged in Toledo, Ohio, for violating the Mann Act (transporting a female across state lines for the purpose of prostitution). His seedy dealings got him chased out of Ohio by the Detroit mob, who frowned on his growing infringement on the Motor City sex trade. During the 1930s, Carr ran at least one brothel in St. Louis, located in the Mid-Town area at Theresa and Lucas Avenues.

Carr was tall and thin with rugged good looks and steely blue eyes. An old friend once described him as “Dapper, orderly, handsome. He was a smooth talker and the ‘king of control.’ He would have no trouble killing someone or having it arranged.” There is little doubt that ulterior motives played into Carr’s decision to create a cash-based business, conveniently situated just one mile outside the St. Louis city limits. Later, it became generally known that Carr carried the Marlborough police department in his hip pocket.

In 1946, twenty-three more two-unit cottages were added, designed by architect Harold Tyrer, and by 1951, three twostory units in more traditional styling were in place at the rear of the property. That same year, Carr married former prostitute Jessie Hughes, possibly from his own stable of soiled doves. Safe to say it was not a romance born in paradise, as we shall see. Around 1953, the motel’s original neon sign was replaced, further enhancing the motel’s visibility.

Still unknown to most, the Coral Court secretly percolated with illegal gambling and call-girl activity. As part of the expansion, Carr included at least one underground room (beneath bungalow No. 46), as well as an escape tunnel that extended from one unit’s closet to near the pool, where it masqueraded as a drainage outlet. Rumor had it that another tunnel ran beneath Watson Road to a business that. oddly, was never open. More obvious were the comings and goings for one-night stands by locals, which over time would contribute to the Coral Court’s ruin.

In September 1953, headlines exploded with the kidnapping of six-year-old Bobby Greenlease, son of a wealthy Kansas City Cadillac dealer, who was snatched by bumbling, lowlife amateur criminals Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Heady. They killed the child, and then collected $600,000 in ransom. Arriving in St. Louis, Hall flashed money around town, then rented a room at the Coral Court. He and Heady were quickly collared—conveniently arrested by corrupt St. Louis police lieutenant Lou Shoulders, who had ties to mobster Joe Costello, a friend of John Carr. Approximately half of the ransom money was never recovered, and many still believe

John Carr’s Leavenworth Penitentiary mug shot from 1933. National Archives.

Opening image: The Coral Court in the early 1990s. Author Photograph.

that the likely recipient of the loot was John Carr, even though he was cleared following an investigation.

Hall and Heady fessed up to the kidnapping, and in a case of lightning-swift justice, the pair were executed (side by side) in the Missouri State Penitentiary’s gas chamber on December 18, 1953, only twenty-nine days after sentence was passed.

The marriage of John and Jessie proved somewhat volatile, and in 1965 they divorced. Jessie promptly ran off with desk clerk and ex-con Julian Stewart, taking along a briefcase full of incriminating documents and one of John Carr’s Cadillacs. Jessie and Stewart were found to be married and living in Florida when Carr finally tracked them down two years later. Two of his friends were dispatched to send Stewart packing and bring Jessie back to St. Louis. Jessie, the briefcase, and the Cadillac were returned without incident. Three years later, John and Jessie remarried.

John Carr had two distinct personalities. On the upside, motel staff spoke of his kindness and generosity. He was known to help employees, sometimes handing out cash or appliances and furniture when updating the units. Local business owners considered him a gentleman. One story tells of a poor family brought to the motel by the highway patrol after their car broke down. Carr put them up, fed them, bought them winter coats, and had the manager slip them a shoebox full of cash. Having grown up poor, he had a soft spot for those down on their luck. John Dover, Carr’s grandson, stated, “My grandfather was the type of person who would pull out his wallet and hand $500 to a complete stranger that he felt bad about.” Dover is the son of Anna Pearl Carr, daughter of Carr’s ill-fated first wife, Pearl Miller. The other side of Carr could be downright scary. John Carr was not one to cross, and he demanded obedience. His son from a previous relationship decided to do a bit of freelancing in the East St. Louis, Illinois underworld, but not for long. In July of 1955, the body of Bobby Gene Carr, age 24, was found stabbed and shot in the trunk of his car in Williamson, Illinois. When an acquaintance offered condolences, John Carr

seized him by the throat and yelled, “That was not my son; I never had a son!” Coral Court employees were uniformly loyal, though an underlying fear of their boss no doubt played into it.

Carr had considerable reach and powerful friends. John Dover says his grandfather “was paying off the policemen to look the other way.” St. Louis news reporter John Auble once stated that “(Carr) had close ties with Buster Wortman, the mafia boss from East St. Louis. He had an underground room where he played cards with hoodlums, most notably Bugsy Seigel.”

The popularity of the Coral Court during its glory years occasionally brought celebrity guests such as Danny Thomas, Frank and Nancy Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, and others. By the 1960s, getting a room there became the ultimate cool thing for area youngsters. It was often the site of

The bungalows at the Coral Court made great photo subjects, as seen here in this image from the 1980s. Esley Hamilton Photograph.

The Coral Court was popular with tourists during its best years. Here, Brothers David and John Sznek pose outside their room in 1956. Author’s collection.

after-prom parties and otherwise considered a rite of passage to stay at the Coral Court. Naturally, doing so required lifting a souvenir ashtray or matchbook as proof of one’s bold escapade.

The inevitable and irreversible downhill slide began following the completion of I-44, which forced even more reliance on “no-tell” clients. A room could be rented by the hour or the week, and management didn’t care what you did behind pulled drapes as long as you didn’t spoil it for anybody else. Still, business declined, as did public opinion about what was going on there. Curious tourists and roadside photographers wandering the grounds were often met by unfriendly staff and told to leave.

Money for maintenance was drying up, as was (apparently) John Carr’s other sources of income. “John knew it was coming to an end, but he would not let the place die,” according to former employee ‘L.G.’ “He was going to do whatever it took. He may have spent his whole fortune keeping the place going. He would never let it go or sell it. (The motel) was his life and he really loved that place.”

John Carr finally did let it go. He died in 1984, taking his secrets to the grave and sealing the motel’s fate. The current

manager, Bob Williams, became Jessie’s next husband, and he made no effort to stop the motel’s deterioration. In 1985, the last of the U.S. 66 shields came off the famous highway, completing its decertification. Eight years later, on August 20, 1993, the Coral Court closed its doors for good. By then, the Mother Road renaissance was well underway, and preservationists became anxious about the motel’s future, from both an architectural and Route 66 perspective.

The Coral Court could easily have been repurposed, but the asking price of $1.5 million plus the cost of renovations was too steep for preservation-minded buyers. In spite of continued and passionate efforts to save it, the motel was sold to a housing developer, and demolition was set for early summer, 1995. For Jessie Carr, burdened with bad memories, the Coral Court was a millstone to be cast off. Once the sale was finalized, she had the sign covered up and later ordered it destroyed rather than sold or otherwise preserved. Jessie Carr Williams had her revenge before passing away on October 15, 1996.

In a brilliant move, the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis County made arrangements with the demolition contractor, Spirtas Wrecking, to dismantle and reassemble one of the bungalows for a permanent museum display. For several weeks, museum employees, retired masons, Navy Seabees and many other volunteers painstakingly removed bricks and glass blocks to make this possible.

Spirtas reported getting more calls about the Coral Court demolition than when they had razed entire city blocks. This prompted them to erect a large sign that read, “It’s Check-Out Time at Coral Court — No More One Night Stands.” The sign evoked anger in some, but others saw it as the contractor’s way of recognizing its notoriety, while paying tribute to its iconic status. To their credit, the developers left the stone walls of the former entrance in place, which still remain visible on Watson Road.

Over its lifespan, the Coral Court symbolized the true essence of Route 66 and embedded itself into the memories of thousands. A night at the Coral Court was a classic St. Louis and Route 66 experience. While its loss was a heavy blow to the route and to vintage roadside architecture, the Coral Court maintains its presence. Since its demise, it has been the subject of a play — Kid Peculiar at the Coral Court Motel, a book, a documentary film, and has been featured in dozens of publications. The legendary Coral Court may be gone, but it will never be forgotten.

Spirtas Wrecking installed this sign as demolition began. For years, the Coral Court had been a subject of controversy in metropolitan St. Louis. Author’s photograph.

Jessie and John Carr next to his Cadillac. Circa 1956. Courtesy of John Dover.

The secretive John Carr, owner of the legendary Coral Court. Author’s collection.

By Nick Gerlich

Images courtesy of Efren Lopez/Route66Images

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

From the ashes arose skyscrapers designed by renowned local architects Daniel Burnham and John Root, as well as “The White City,” a sprawling complex that was home to the 1893’s World’s Columbian Exposition. Only 15 years had passed since the Cubs had won the World Series. Prohibition had been in effect for only three years, with Al Capone running things on the sly. The City was working hard and growing fast.

TIt was in this environment that William Mitchell heard opportunity knocking. He quietly opened a small restaurant in a diner car on Jackson Street’s north side, a year before Union Station opened nearby and three years before Route 66 was christened. He originally called it Mitchell’s, then subsequently named it for his son, Lou. That move may have gone unnoticed at the time amid the hustle and bustle of a city teeming with activity, but the legacy he spawned has now become the starting point for many a road trip down Route 66.

All in the Family

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

Lou had never married and had no children, perhaps influencing his decision to sell the restaurant to his “niece,” Kathryn Thanas, and her daughter, Heleen, in 1992. Kathryn treated Lou Mitchell’s as a true family business, bringing in her son, Nick Thanas, to round out the team. In fact, it was Lou who approached the Thanas family about buying his business, in part because both Kathryn’s father and Heleen had prior restaurant experience, and also because the families were so close that the younger members referred to everyone else as aunts, uncles, and cousins, in spite of not being blood relatives. The Mitchell and Thanas families are like cousins from the same area of Greece, and all immigrated to the U.S. together on the same boat in the late-1800s. “We just called him Uncle Lou. When Uncle Lou wanted to sell the business years ago, he reached out to us,” said Nick. Both families were steeped in the Greek Orthodox faith and have a long track record of involvement in the Hellenic community. “My dad and Uncle Lou’s dad were all restaurateurs in the area, and they knew each other forever and a day. When Uncle Lou was going to retire, he knew that we would carry on. We were very close to him,” Kathryn explained.

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

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

Lou Mitchell.

He was too nice for that kind of element.

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

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

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

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

The Thanas family has guided the restaurant through the resurgence of interest in Route 66, the result being a diner that has caught the fancy of a market far larger than the Thanas or Mitchell families ever imagined. For a short period, a decade ago, the family ventured into franchising, but today only the downtown location and a Häagen-Dazs franchise in Rosemont remain. Heleen died unexpectedly at age 63 in 2015, from complications following a stroke, leaving the business still under family control with Kathryn as President and Nick as Vice President. Nick, who had studied at Southern Illinois University, had prior restaurant experience, and was a financial trader for 10 years.

Breaking Fast

Mother Road sojourners are just as likely to be seated among Chicagoans as they are other tourists, from the rank and file to Chicago’s mayors, U.S. Presidents, journalists, and stars. “We’ve had everyone from President Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama and George W. Bush, every governor, every mayor, and senator,” Nick said. In fact, politicians see Lou Mitchell’s as a place to rub shoulders with a cross-section of the voting public, from the common laborer to elite financiers.

Donna Fenton, 91, has been at Lou Mitchell’s for 31 years (“That’s a long time in this business.”), and sees to it that

Inside of Lou Mitchell’s.

patrons mingle. “I have served several of our governors, and every mayor since Father Daley. They all intertwine. I find the Route 66 people very personable, they want to chat, whereas Chicagoans are on business. But everybody in there is pleasant. We make them that way,” she said. “The people who come here now come in looking for the nostalgia of Lou Mitchell’s being Route 66.”

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

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

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

people like them’,” Nick explained. The rest is restaurant and candy history.

Samples were given to Lou to see how people liked them. “Uncle Lou started handing them out to the women and children. To this day, we still purchase 145-150 cases of Milk Duds each year to give away. It goes back to this. We’re Mediterranean. When you went to someone’s house, they gave you a welcome, something sweet. My grandmother would always open a tin of sweets. It came from the Greek culture of friendliness and hospitality.”

Just the Way You Are

Despite Lou being a very creative restaurateur, both he and the Thanases know their limits. “I’ve seen people put themselves out of business trying to keep up with trends. I refused to get too fancy, to try to become something we’re not. That’s not what Lou Mitchell’s is, and we’re never going to be that,” Nick said. “We just try to keep things going.” The restaurant looks very much the same now, inside and out, as it did on inception, and they still make their own orange marmalade, bake their own bread, and continue to serve a prune and orange slice prior to the meal, and a dollop of ice cream afterwards. “It’s kind of a digestive thing. It’s all part of my roots from being Greek.” Nick explained.

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

Inside of Lou Mitchell’s.

However, all of the mainstays are still there, calories be damned. “We’ve made a few changes, made a few fun things like the Chicago deep dish omelet, which is a mushrooms, onions, green peppers, and sausage. It tastes just like a Chicago deep dish pizza,” Nick said with a hint of pride that only a native Chicagoan would understand.

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

Location, Location, Location

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

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

Although he is proud of their Route 66 connection, Nick has yet to travel all of it. “I haven’t driven the pure route itself, but I have done parts of it. It is an amazing culture. I come from a family that [has been] in this country for more than 100 years. We’re very American. I consider myself American over anything. Part of Route 66 and the culture, the fact that so many people are embracing it… And Route 66 is certainly one of those things that keeps American culture alive. I see it when people come in all the time. Europeans, Asians, people from all walks of life, are embracing what America was like in the 1920’s, 1930’s, 1940’s. I don’t want to say when America was great. America still is great,” he said with emphasis.

To the Future

Lou Mitchell’s has been a Chicago and Route 66 institution for 96 years, and won’t be going away any time soon, even though Nick harbors a few uncertainties about the future. “I have to say, I am not sure how that is going to look. I have three daughters, and all of them worked in the business all the way up through college, waiting tables or serving ice-cream out at the airport location. It’s a tough business,” he said, hinting he is unsure about succession.

“I don’t know that answer. My kids are the fourth generation to work this business. The good news is I am a healthy 59! I’m the baby of the family,” he joked, implying he has no plans of throwing in the skillet.

But there is also Kathryn to consider, who graciously declined to state her age (“If a woman tells her age, she’ll tell you anything!” she said with a chuckle.). “I am not interested in retiring. You get up in the morning, and you have a sense of direction.”

Kathryn is still a regular at the diner, the matron saint of Lou Mitchell’s. “On Sunday, I do my church in the morning, then I am always at the restaurant after church. During the week, I am in and out.” She compares daily operations to shooting a movie. “It’s like show business. Lights, camera, action!”

For Fenton, retirement is barely in her vocabulary. “I think about it, but that’s about all I do. I don’t have any definite plans.” If anyone ever were to take over the helm, “It has to be done exactly like the way we do it. That’s what keeps people coming,” she added. “I have been treated very well, I love the people, and there are good people to work with.”

Which is another way of saying that Lou Mitchell’s, after 96 years, is still on very solid ground for many years to come, and Kathryn, Nick, and Donna will be right there at the front door.

THE AMBLER’S TEXACO STATION

At a time when Americans traveled the country on roads surrounded by seemingly endless farmland, one man dreamt of constructing his very own gas station in the heart of that prairie expanse. And despite over eighty years in a constantly shifting environment, full of turnover and name changes, that dream has set the record as the longest-running service station on the Mother Road.

The Ambler’s Texaco Service Station, at the intersection of Route 17 and Route 66 in the Village of Dwight, Illinois, proudly welcomes travelers to small town America. Beneath its refurbished, charming, cottage-like facade lies a piece of history with a story as old as the Mother Road herself.

In 1933, seven years after Route 66 was commissioned, the Lone Ranger debuted on American radio, prohibition was fully repealed, and Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in as the 32nd President. The Village of Dwight had bloomed into a bustling center of commerce. This was the year that Jack Schore, assisted by his son Paul, built his gas station, consisting of an office with an arched roof and a sheltering canopy extending over three Texaco gas pumps. The design, developed by Standard Oil of Ohio in 1916, a housecanopy style and strategic to the time, was believed to help gas stations blend in with residential neighborhoods.

In 1936, Schore leased and later sold the station to Vernon Von Qualen, who renamed it Vernon’s Texaco Station. Shortly after, Basil (Tubby) Ambler bought it, changing the name to the Ambler Texaco Gas Station. Ambler, a World War II veteran and storyteller at heart, was known to keep a couch in his station to offer a homey feel for weary travelers and create an audience for his tantalizing tales; he had a penchant for regaling people with stories about the time he worked at the Keeley Institute, a world-renowned alcoholic treatment center that hosted the rich and famous, which was first established in Dwight. Route 66 was teaming with traffic, and sometime in the 1940s, Ambler added the service bay area, keeping the station open 24 hours a day. It not only became a filling and service station, but a friendly refuge for locals and motorists. Ambler owned the station from 1938 to 1966, laying claim to the longest period of its ownership.

The property changed tenants twice again before Phil Becker purchased it in 1970. Becker had spent his childhood around the station, during the Ambler ownership, and worked at the station up until he bought it. However, just a year later, Texaco discontinued supplying gasoline and Becker switched to Marathon Oil. The Texaco pumps were replaced by 1960s style Marathon pumps and the station became the Phil Becker’s Marathon Gas Station. Throughout the years of constant

change, new and modern businesses sprouted up around the station, altering the cultural and physical geographies of the area. The Interstate redirected traffic away from the once thriving station, and gasoline was dispensed for the last time in 1999. After running the station for 26 years, the Beckers leased it out as an auto repair shop, and in 2004, Phil and his wife Debbie, donated the building to the Village of Dwight.

“In Illinois, it seems like there is a town every ten miles on Route 66, so each little town has to do something that will get the tourists to stop,” said Kevin McNamara, administrator for the Village of Dwight. “So, we try to encourage them — don’t try to get through Illinois in one or two days. Relax, take your time, meet the people, and spend time in Illinois. And in the same respect, spend time in Dwight.”

To this end, the classic station has been restored back to its 1930s (main office and canopy area) and 1940s (service bay) appearance. Old cash registers, historic automotive memorabilia, tools and display cases from the 66 years that it serviced motorists, are on display, creating a time capsule of an era when radiant neon giants lit up the two-lane road. With the push of a button, audio recordings transport visitors to a period when full, personalized service was the norm and when quintessential small-town America still existed. A fully restored Model-T, Dwight’s first fire truck, speaks to a time when life moved at a more leisurely pace.

Upkeep of this historic station relies heavily on the selfless efforts of volunteers from Dwight and the surrounding area. The chance to engage with people from varying countries and cultures inspires the majority of the volunteers. “It’s the best part-time job I’ve ever had,” said Bob Ohlendorf, leader of the Dwight Economic Alliance. “We have people coming in from [over] 68 different countries, so it’s a chance for [volunteers] to kinda strut their stuff. People are starting to take shifts where they can get their grandkids to come out to help them, just for the exposure.”

The Ambler’s Texaco Station today serves as both the literal and metaphorical welcome center to that sense of American authenticity that travelers are searching for. The Becker’s donation has made countless international connections possible, keeping a crucial element of America’s story alive. The small haven of Dwight presents the ideal opportunity to revel in the nostalgia of Route 66 Americana. With people coming from Las Cruces to Luxembourg, the consistently rising tourist numbers show that the Ambler’s Texaco Station is truly a highlight for many trips along America’s Main Street and a destination where a little extra time is needed.

By Jim Hinckley and Lea Loeb

Opening photograph courtesy of Efren Lopez/Route66Images

nyone who recalls traveling on Route 66 in the 50s will fondly reminisce that one of the highlights that they remember the most were the mysterious Jack Rabbit signs that dotted the old road — huge billboards strategically placed all along the route that featured a black, almost sinister, jackrabbit silhouette over a bright yellow background, with the remaining mileage to the advertised ‘destination’. Travelers were intrigued. The destination was the Jack Rabbit Trading Post, an iconic stop on Route 66 in Arizona, that has become a living part of Route 66 history, and one that continues to capture the imagination and instill the thrill of traveling the Main Street of America.

The Jack Rabbit Trading Post may be a quick stop along the Will Rogers Highway for some, but to whole generations it remains so much more than a faded gift shop. The vivid yellow paint, bold red lettering, and dark silhouette of the jack rabbit sign against the sepia landscape of rural Arizona are images that kindle nostalgia in many Americans who remember the ‘glory days’ of the road and of road travel itself.

The trading post, which dates back to 1949, has managed to cement its place as an important piece of Americana for generations now. For those who traveled the old road during the halcyon days, it’s a fond memory of when the double-six was THE Main Street of America, and for younger folks, the Jack Rabbit is a rare, recognizable Route 66 landmark, thanks to its appearance in the Disney animated movie Cars.

As with many roadside businesses that opened along Route 66 in Arizona and New Mexico during the post-war years, the early history of the building is a tangled mix of faded memories. Purportedly, it began life as a building built by the Glenn

Santa Fe Railroad. In the late 1930s, the complex was home to the Arizona Herpetarium, a glorified snake farm and gift shop. After a few years of abandonment, the Rockwell family used the space as a restaurant and dance hall. Finally, in 1949, James Taylor leased the property and opened the Jack Rabbit Trading Post — a souvenir shop that would become known for its giant jack rabbit statue.

The ever-increasing flow of traffic along Route 66 in the post-war era and into the 1950s provided unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurs, showmen, and families in rural eastern Arizona. At the time, the Jack Rabbit was one of many faux trading posts along the Mother Road. Each boasted their own special attractions to lure in visitors. Petrified logs, fake wigwams, teepees, and frontier-era forts blossomed in the desert along the highway near Holbrook and Joseph City, like wildflowers after a spring rain, creating stiff competition for tourist’s dollars.

These trading posts and their oddities became famous throughout the country. “Doc” Hatfield, who had established the Geronimo Trading Post five miles west of Holbrook, was luring droves of tourists to his establishment with signs that advertised the “World’s Largest Petrified Log.” Otis Baird, a former deputy sheriff in Navajo County, opened the Apache Fort Trading Post and used snakes and a pet mountain lion as a draw — legend has it that he deterred theft by keeping rattlesnakes in the jewelry cases. There was also the Hopi Village Indian Store & Cafe, which by the mid1950s had evolved into Howdy Hank’s Trading Post.

The pioneer in the trading post business near Joseph City was a self-proclaimed poet, as well as former prospector and trapper named Frederick Rawson, who, for reasons unknown, went by the moniker, San Diego. Rawson was a tangible link to the frontier era, and, by all accounts, a colorful character. Born in about 1861, the story goes that his early childhood was spent as a captive of either the southern Cheyenne or Kiowa Indians. He came to Joseph City in about 1926 and opened a museum that housed an array of memorabilia from the territorial era as well as personal effects from his various adventures. In 1927, he established San Diego’s Old Frontier Trading Post along Route 66.

Local lore has it that Don Lorenzo Hubbell, owner of the historic Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado, Arizona, acquired the complex built of old telephone poles in the 1930s. However, what is known for certain is that by the late 1940s, Hawaiian band leader Ray Meany and his wife Ella Blackwell owned the trading post and that they were fiercely competitive.

Today, these trading posts are almost extinct, with the Geronimo Trading Post and the Jack Rabbit Trading Post as the lone survivors. They are the last links to a way of life erased by the need for speed that led to the replacement of Route 66. Of the two, the Jack Rabbit is a true rarity. Unique to the post is signage that dates to its founding, part of a brilliant advertising campaign that gave the store an edge over competition during the heyday of Route 66, as well as international recognition today.

A Family Business

The proprietors have deep roots along Route 66; for current owner Cindy Jaquez, who now runs the post with her husband Tony, the highway and trading post is a lifelong association. The Jack Rabbit has been in Cindy’s

Blansett with his State Senate sign. 1950s.

family for all but the first 12 years of its existence, when it was operated by the original owner, James Taylor.

Shortly after opening the trading post, Taylor realized that he needed a hook — something to make his business stand out from the crowd. Taylor approached Wayne Troutner of Winslow, Arizona, and the men put their heads together. In what proved to be a stroke of brilliance, the combined effort resulted in Taylor erecting a large billboard along the opposite side of the highway, painting it bright yellow and adding the black silhouette of a jackrabbit and bright red lettering that read: “Here It Is.”

The two men joined forces and set out along Route 66 to set up signs; the yellow sign with the jack rabbit and mileage to the trading post, and Troutner’s sign for his men’s clothing store, with the silhouette of a curvaceous cowgirl and the slogan: “For Men Only, Winslow, Arizona.” Eventually, the signs would be placed along U.S. 66 as far east as Illinois and as far west as California. The mileage listed on the Jack Rabbit Trading Post signs decreased as the traveler drew closer and then, finally, the big “Here It Is” sign. Then, as today, smaller versions of the mileage signs with the jack rabbit became popular souvenirs and soon they were turning up everywhere; military barracks on bases in Guam and Germany, restaurants in Philadelphia and New York, and, purportedly, even in a bar in the Yukon Territory.

Cindy’s grandparents, hoteliers Glenn and Hattie Belle Blansett, leased the Jack Rabbit Trading Post from Taylor in 1961.

“My dad’s parents built the Pacific Heights Motel in Joseph City in the 40s,” said Cindy. “Then they built the Pacific Restaurant across the street. [Glenn Blansett] got into the Arizona state Senate through the 1950s, and in 1961, he leased the Jack Rabbit. They bought it in 1967. Thanks to his Senate ties, he was able to get us an exit off the highway during the I-40 bypass in 1967.”

In 1961, the Blansetts employed a 10-year-old Glen Jones, as well as his aunt and thirteen-year-old sister, to help run

the store — it was the beginning of a 57-year relationship between Jones and the Jack Rabbit.

“My job was to tie on bumper signs; they were made from cardboard, had four holes in them and had to be attached to a car’s bumper with two lengths of heavy twine. I believe I was paid two and a half cents per sign.”

It was Jones’s first paying job, and he credits his experience at the post for sparking his interest in travel and fostering his wanderlust.

“To me, the place was magical — there were people from all over the world stopping there, people from all walks of life coming and going all day long. One memory that will always stick with me is the smell of the cars — you could smell the bugs cooking on the hot radiators and the Desert King canvas water bags [that] hung on the front bumpers.”

Postcard of Jack Rabbit Trading Post. Early 1960s.

New Management

Although the Jack Rabbit Trading Post has remained relatively intact from its opening to the present, there have been changes over the years. Blansett added cold cherry cider to the store’s offerings and did a bit of expansion to the trading post in 1967. In 1969, Blansett passed down the business to his son Philip and his wife Patricia — Cindy’s father and mother. Jones, who joined the Navy that same year, returned home in 1971 and continued to work odd jobs at the venue.

“The place was still magical,” said Jones. “I helped Phillip Blansett pour a concrete floor in the east end of the store —

when we tore out the old flooring, there were hundreds of snake skeletons from when it had been a snake farm.”

“My parents moved here in 1969 from Phoenix. I was not quite four-years-old,” Cindy said. “However, we had visited the trading post often before this as my grandparents owned it at the time, and mother’s parents lived around Flagstaff and Williams.”

There were difficulties that came with living in such a remote location, and according to Cindy, growing up in rural Arizona along Route 66 wasn’t easy as a kid.

“There were four of us and we were five miles from Joseph City where we went to school. Friends were very hard to come by, and we only went on two family vacations since it was harder for our parents to leave the business as it was open seven days a week. There wasn’t much thought about Route 66 [at the time], it was simply our road. We rode the school bus or drove this road every day to get to school. Route 66 didn’t really mean that much to us until the early 80s when Joseph City was getting bypassed.”

Cindy’s recollections capture a moment in time when Route 66 was on the cusp of rising from the ashes of abandonment.

“[My husband] Tony and his family lived about 15-miles east of Holbrook at Goodwater, where they worked for a local ranch. He eventually moved into Holbrook to live with his older sister and brother-in-law to attend high school. We met in 1984, married in Holbrook in 1988, and lived in Pinetop, Arizona, for two years.”

“I was working 6 to 8-hour days managing convenience stores up in the mountains, and one night I sat down with my fatherin-law over dinner,” said Tony. “He was going to sell [The Jack Rabbit Trading Post] so I offered to run the store for him and Cindy just kind of went with it — it wasn’t planned at all.”

Cindy and Tony raised their children at the Post, the same way Cindy grew up.

“All of our kids learned how to play soccer, baseball and softball on our gravel and concrete driveways. But you make do with what you have. Not always the best, but you learn to live with it.”

In addition to the series of giant rabbit statues that have starred as the Post’s main attraction, there is now a weathered old De Soto sedan that sits at the back of the property and peaks the interest of visitors.

“The De Soto was Tony’s dad’s car. He moved back to Mexico after Tony’s mom died and left the car here. That car is almost as popular as the rabbit as far as pictures are concerned. I was always under the impression that there were only two rabbits, but we recently discovered that there were three. The first one was gray and had fur, that was when the store opened in 1949. We found out that the second rabbit arrived here in a convertible in 1956. The third rabbit is the one we have today.”

Today’s Challenges

Cindy and Tony proudly carry on the tradition of making memories for the Route 66 traveler: “Cherry cider was sold here until the very early 80s, but so many people still come in asking for it. A lot of people say that this store and Route 66 are a big part of their growing up. We now have second and third generations customers.”

People from across the globe come to visit the Jack Rabbit Trading Post. During his time in the military, Jones met a

Grandparents Devaney, Flagstaff, Arizona.

Jack Rabbit Trading Post mileage sign.

man in Vietnam who had traveled down Route 66 and stopped at the Post. Customers from all over the world continue to frequent the Jack Rabbit, some as often as once or twice a year.

“Yesterday we had someone here that was from New Zealand that was here 20 years ago,” said Cindy.

In the era of renaissance on Route 66, one would imagine that an icon such as the Jack Rabbit Trading Post, a living time capsule where a person can have an authentic Route 66 experience, would be bustling with travelers. However, rumors were circulating online recently that the Post had closed, so Cindy took to social media to set the record straight: the Jack Rabbit is definitely still open for business.

“People were writing on the internet that we were closed, but they weren’t even trying to come into the store. They were just looking from the outside and assuming we had shut down.”

Cindy began posting regular updates on Facebook on the shop’s happenings, in an effort to prove the Jack Rabbit’s vitality. One day in April 2018, she posted a picture of a souvenir mile marker Tony had made for a customer. It was a replica of the infamous yellow billboards that used to line the highway leading to the Post’s iconic “HERE IT IS” sign. The picture quickly made its way around the web and became viral in the Route 66 community. Suddenly, after years of decline, the Jack Rabbit was back on the map.

Route 66 has always been about the people. The people are what give this highway its sense of infectious vibrancy. The people are what make a road trip on the double-six memorable.

“Every time I was in Arizona on leave to visit family when I was in the Navy I would stop in and visit with Phillip and Pat,” said Jones. “I never missed a chance to reminisce about the time Waylon Jennings and his bunch stopped in for a visit, or the bus load of naked hippies, or just how good [a] cold can of Coors tastes. It’s still the same Jack Rabbit — still magical, still wonderful people running the place. The Jack Rabbit is not just a tourist stop, it’s a family that has continued a tradition for almost sixty years.”

The people, the dreamers that travel the road, the people that organize events, the people that keep the neon glowing bright or the vintage signs painted, they are the essence of the Route 66 experience. If we forget that, if we only see Route 66 as a photo op, a linear theme park, we risk losing everything that makes the highway special and unique.

The Jaquez’s have high hopes for the future of the Jack Rabbit Trading Post and the Mother Road. According to Tony, business is starting to pick up again, but he and Cindy urge visitors to support local families along the route so that they can continue to keep the tradition alive.

“Don’t just take a picture, come meet us — hear our stories.”

As a parting thought, Cindy shares a little bit of wisdom that her father used to say: “If you haven’t been to the Jack Rabbit, you haven’t been to the Southwest.”

Historic Jack Rabbit statue.

Images courtesy of Tony and Cindy Jaquez.

Postcard of the Pacific Heights Motel. 1970.

OUR STORY

On Museum Square in Downtown Bloomington, the Cruisin’ with Lincoln on 66 Visitors Center is located on the ground floor of the nationally accredited McLean County Museum of History.

The Visitors Center is a Route 66 gateway. Discover Route 66 history through an interpretive exhibit, and shop for unique local gift items, maps, and publications. A travel kiosk allows visitors to explore all the things to see and do in the area as well as plan their next stop on Route 66.

CRUISIN’ WITH LINCOLN ON 66 VISITORS CENTER

Open Monday–Saturday 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Free Admission on Tuesdays until 8 p.m. 200 N. Main Street, Bloomington, IL 61701 309.827.0428 / CruisinwithLincolnon66.org

*10% o gift purchases

A QUIET

QUIET PLACE

By Frank Jastrzembski

Opening photograph courtesy of Efren Lopez/Route66Images

W

allace Rider Farrington, editor of The Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin and governor of Hawaii from 1921 to 1929, wrote that “Lives that live forever are lives of self-sacrifice.” What does a Hawaiian have to do with a sculptor from northeastern Oklahoma? Nathan “Ed” Galloway — the man behind the ninety-foot totem pole and the surrounding park — is one of those rare, selfless characters that Farrington was alluding to. He may have been a poor Oklahoman, but Ed Galloway had a rich vision to create something spectacular that would bring happiness to others and spent eleven years and countless hours to make it a reality. “All my life I did the best I knew,” Galloway declared. “I built these things by the side of the road to be a friend to you.” Today, visitors from all over come to see this unusual and breathtaking monument in Foyil.

A Place of Solitude

The Ed Galloway Totem Pole Park rests about four miles off of Route 66 in Oklahoma’s rural Rogers County. The nearest major city, Tulsa, is located about fifty miles away. “It’s this nice, hilly drive with lots of nice mature trees,” Rhys Martin, President of the Oklahoma Route 66 Association, said of his most recent journey to the park. “Then suddenly, you crest over a hill and there’s this giant, colorful totem pole poking out over the treetops. And if you’re not expecting it, it’s quite a surprise. It’s incredible, and it never gets old going out there and looking at it. I’m typically with someone who’s never been there before, so I get to relive the experience through their eyes.”

The park’s grassy lawn, leafy trees, and fourteen concrete sculptures — including the main totem pole — provide a place of tranquility for its visitors. There is a sensation of peace, and ease and the mood is almost similar to a place of worship. But peaceful vibe aside, visitors are generally immediately drawn to the massive totem pole adjacent to the sleepy road. They stroll around its 54-foot base and catch a glimpse of the year “1948” inscribed and painted in red, with Native American busts carved directly above it and a lobster and lizard to the left and the right. Surrounding the totem pole are other smaller concrete sculptures and a small house where Ed did most of his work.

The Man Behind the Pole

Nathan Edward Galloway was born in a log cabin near south Springfield, Missouri, on February 18, 1880. As a teenager, he developed an interest in carving objects, initially whittling buttons for neighbors. After the eighth grade, Ed followed his father into the blacksmith trade until he abruptly enlisted in the military at the age of 21. Ed’s grandfather on his paternal side, Captain Jesse Galloway, had been killed during the American Civil War in September 1861. Ed’s grandfather on his maternal side, James D. Gideon, also served in the

war. Whether his motivation was inspired by a family military tradition or boredom, Ed left for Joplin, Missouri, and enlisted in the U.S. Army on May 13, 1901.

Ed found himself at war with Muslim guerilla fighters in the southern Philippines — dubbed the Moros. These ferocious warriors donned menacing bright colors and carried edged weapons and wore body armor into battle. He arrived at Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippines, with a detachment of the 28th Infantry Regiment in September 1902. Instead of seeing action right away, Ed and his comrades exchanged their rifles for shovels and axes and spent six months constructing a military road through the jungle from the port of Iligan to the northern shore of Lake Lanao at Camp Marahui to help pacify the Moros. After finishing the road, Ed and his comrades were involved in a series of engagements to suppress the Moro insurgency. After being discharged in May 1904, Ed returned to Missouri a battle-weary soldier. He married a local girl named Villie Hooten in Springfield a month later and settled down in a number of odd jobs in the years following his military service. These included working as a miner, farmer, blacksmith and wagon maker.

Meanwhile, he continued to pursue his passion for wood carving.

David Anderson, the Co-Director of the Ed Galloway Totem Pole Park, describes how Ed became involved in a chance to enter his work in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition that was scheduled to be held in San Francisco during the winter of 1915: “At one time in Springfield, Missouri, one of the state legislatures saw some of his carvings, and he wanted him to go to the World’s Fair in 1915 to represent Missouri.”

But disaster struck Ed’s workshop in Springfield when it caught fire in July 1913, destroying most of his pieces and ruining this rare opportunity to showcase his creations.

“Just before that, there was a fire in his studio, and he lost most of them,” Anderson stated. “He was getting ready to take 200 or so. He was able to save a few of the big ones.”

Some of the most impressive sculptures that he lost included a nine-foot statue of a snake wrapped around a woman, life-size figures of a fisherman and a hunter, and a table carved with elaborate motifs. Ed managed to save a few pieces, including a lion in a cage carved from a single sycamore tree and a 29-foot sculpture of a snake coiled around a sycamore log, which he pushed out the shop’s window while the building was engulfed in flames and rolled down Jefferson Street to safety.

The snake and log sculpture was later displayed in the Getman’s Drug Store in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where it attracted the attention of Charles Page, founder of the Sand Springs Children’s Home, during the summer of 1914. “This man was a philanthropist; he was a rich man, and he had a home for single parents,” Anderson said. Page had established an orphanage and a sanctuary for widows west of Tulsa and asked Ed if he would be interested in working there. Ed accepted Page’s generous offer. “He hired Ed to teach those boys industrial arts, which was mainly building things out of wood.” The boys would go on to regard Ed as a father figure. In 1937, at age 57, Ed retired and moved with his wife Villie and adopted son Paul — who he adopted in 1918 — to settle on a plot of land that he had purchased between Foyil and Chelsea. Ed and Villie remained on this plot of land there for the rest of their lives living off Ed’s army pension and social security checks.

Ed’s Vision Becomes a Reality

Ed did not live out the rest of his days in relaxation. Sustaining himself on a diet of milk, cereal and quinine, Ed went to work for twelve hours a day, seven days a week on various sculpting projects over the next twenty-five years. He began his most imposing sculpture, a totem pole, in 1937. Sporting a dirty wool hat and faded khaki shorts, the native Missourian began building it from the ground up, starting with a large concrete turtle as its base. “He would build it about ten feet a year,” Anderson said.

He made all his equipment and tools and did not buy any materials. He used scrap wire, metal fragments and boulders that he got for free, to build the infrastructure, and then coated the outer layer with cement mixed with sand that he retrieved from a nearby creek. He then painted the exterior in over eighteen vibrant colors. “He would etch into the concrete pictures of Native American-type icons,” Anderson said. “There are about 200 on that large totem pole.” These included four nine-foot Indian figures near the very top — representing the Apache, Sioux, Nez Perce and Comanche tribes. Ed also incorporated carvings influenced by Southeast Asian art, picked up while he was in the military overseas.

It is estimated that Ed used twenty-eight tons of cement, six tons of steel and 100 tons of sand to complete the massive totem pole in 1948. “It took him eleven years to do this thing, because he kind of just did it at his own pace,” Martin stated. “It’s very lovingly made. Eleven years is a long time to dedicate to build a single item.”

Ed did not hold a celebration when he finished. Instead, he continued to work on other projects, building a little park around the main attraction. He added a picnic table and thirteen other smaller concrete sculptures. Ville grew tired of Ed’s carvings cluttering her home and visitors trekking

in to see them, so she insisted that her husband store them somewhere else, causing Ed to build a workshop on the grounds. The eleven-sided building — also called the “Hogan” since it looked like a traditional Navajo home — was dubbed the “Fiddle House” because on the back-wall Ed hung around 300 fiddles that he carved using different types of wood. “Some of those boys ended up in WWII, all over the country,” Anderson stated of his former students from the Sand Springs Children’s Home. “They would ship pieces of wood back to Ed and he would build fiddles out of that.” Ed also carved twenty-six wooden portraits of the U.S. Presidents from George Washington to John F. Kennedy, as well as frames and chairs, which were also on display to the public.

Word spread of Ed Galloway’s Totem Pole Park, and people began to visit the site. By 1962, hundreds were visiting this attraction each weekend. Despite its growing popularity, Ed refused to charge admission to the park. “I like for them to stop and talk and enjoy seeing it,” he reasoned. “That’s worth more than money.”

John Wooley, author of Ed Galloway’s Totem Pole Park , grew up in nearby Chelsea and remembered visiting the site as a boy. He had the chance to meet the enigmatic Galloway when he picnicked there with his mother and brother:

“I remember very well, he had a jar for change — he would never ask anybody for anything - and it had something on it about helping to keep the electricity on and people could throw change in there if they wanted to. But mostly, he just sat there and held court. And he was like a mythical figure to those of us growing up around here. Really, he is still like a mythical figure to me.”

All these years later, Wooley is most enamored with Ed’s perseverance: “Ideas are a dime a dozen; execution is what matters,” he declared. “Many people may have had grandiose ideas, but very few people ever executed them. And he

The giant totem under construction.

Ed with a totem.

executed his. He was willing to do whatever it took to turn his vision into reality.”

The great mystery surrounding the park is why Ed chose to construct the totem pole. Some cited his love for the Native Americans or Oklahoma heritage, but as stated by Martin, “No one really knows. He [Ed] was kind of cryptic about it. For me, it was just a way for him to continue his love of crafting and his love of carving and putting it into something that might last a little longer than a piece of wood that’s more susceptible to the elements.” Anderson attributed it to Ed being a workaholic. “I think he had to occupy his artistic ability. I think he just wanted to have something for people to enjoy.”

Ed’s Wonderland Threatened with Extinction

Ed Galloway passed away from cancer in November 1962 at the age of 82. Two years before, Villie had passed away at the age of 76. She died a month before their fifty-sixth wedding anniversary. Before he died, Paul warned his father that he should remove the fiddles and other trinkets from the grounds to prevent them from being stolen. Ed, being the selfless man he was, responded, “Son, maybe those folks need these things more than we do.” And as Paul Galloway feared, his father’s fiddle house was ransacked around 1970, and most of his fiddles and sculptures were stolen.

Wooley, who had moved away from the area as an adult, returned to Foyil with his wife in 1979. He recalled the anguish he felt when he returned to the broken down and neglected place he had enjoyed growing up: “When I went over there, it was in terrible shape. People had come through and camped inside the totem pole, and there was broken glass, and it smelled like a bar, and it was nasty. Pigeons had roosted in the top of it and droppings were all over. The glass was smashed out of the hogan and the fiddles had been stolen.”

Paul Galloway, who worked as maintenance electrician at Douglas Aircraft Co., and his wife, Joy, tried to maintain it as best as they could: “People just tear it apart,” Joy reported in an interview in the Tulsa World . “They throw rocks at the windows, throw trash on the property. We used to mow and have trash cans there, but we don’t get any support in trying to keep it up and we are too old to do it anymore.”

Paul died in May 1982 at the age of 65, leaving Joy to look after his father’s deteriorating park.

Saving Ed’s Legacy

In 1988, The Kansas Grassroots Art Association (KGAA) of Lucas, Kansas — dedicated to preserving, documenting

and promoting grassroots art — luckily stepped in to save the property. A year later, the land was acquired by the Rogers County Historical Society. “When the Grassroots took it over is when things really started happening,” Wooley recalled. “By the time the Kansas Grassroots Association got their hands on the project, I think it had been close to twenty plus years since the structure has been touched,” Erin Turner, the artist and preservationist now involved in the most recent restoration effort of the totem pole, declared. “Most of the paint had deteriorated to such a degree that you couldn’t really find the same pigment.”

The KGAA meticulously compared paint chips located inside the fiddle house to match those to the faded colors on the totem pole. They also worked with local paint companies that operated during Ed’s lifetime to locate the original colors he may have used. They successfully completed the rehabilitation after sixteen years — five more years than it took Ed to originally construct it. Joy Galloway lived to see its rehabilitation, living to the age of 91 and passing away in June 2008.

The totem pole is currently undergoing another restoration. The sun has faded the paint and caused it to chip since the KGAA completed its revival roughly two decades before. Erin Turner became involved in this second restoration effort about four years ago. “Instead of restoring it to its original material, we went with a silicate-based paint which is not going to fade over time,” Erin said. The benefit of using this type of paint is that it will last much longer and create a vapor-permeable barrier. “Concrete is very porous, so moisture is a thing. Silicate lets vapors through, while latex is just a plastic layer on top.”

Turner spent two summers painting the totem pole. During the first summer, she tackled the middle section. The second summer, she completed the top half. Turner will hopefully embark on the last section, around the base, if funding permits. Turner explained how she felt a deep connection to Ed when restoring the totem pole: “At the bottom, which Ed started working on when he was younger, is very polished and detail-oriented. [But] as you get to the top, you can see his hands getting older, which I thought was so beautiful, to see him aging as he is putting this together.”

A True Roadside Attraction

Martin recalled the English-based graffiti artist Banksy’s quote, “…they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.” He associated this same quote to Ed Galloway, who may have passed away, but who lives on through his artwork. For Martin, preserving Ed’s memory is just as important as protecting the totem poles. But as long as the totem poles continue to soar over Foyil’s horizon, Ed Galloway will continue to impress visitors.

“My hope, as an Oklahoman,” Martin declared, “is that people will come to Totem Pole Park, learn about it, learn about Ed, and then take the lesson of his life and apply it somehow to their own.”

Ed wanted to bring people joy through his art. Fortunately, the Ed Galloway Totem Pole Park is still able to do so every day. Ed would be humbled to know that Martin, Turner, Anderson, and many others still appreciate his vision and have worked to preserve the park so that it can still serve as a sanctuary and paradise to all visitors.

The Welcome Center.

LIFE UNDERGROUND

Along with its sister cities in Cibola County, Grants, New Mexico, shares the longest uninterrupted stretch of Route 66 in the state. The town, originally named after three Canadian brothers— Angus, Lewis and John Grant who were contracted by the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad — flourished as a railroad town. As railroad logging declined, an agricultural boom, ignited by the construction of the Bluewater Reservoir followed, giving the town the moniker “Carrot Capital of the United States”. However, Grants’ historical prominence runs much deeper — literally. The town’s story roots itself in the uranium imbedded within the earth of its mountainous terrain.

The radioactive element was first discovered near Grants by a Navajo sheep herder named Paddy Martinez, who encountered the yellow rock while prospecting Haystack Mountain in 1950. Martinez’s monumental detection drew nationwide attention, putting into motion a wave of change that would forever alter the physical, cultural, and commercial landscape of the area. Five years after Martinez’s discovery, oil entrepreneur, Stella Dysart, unearthed a well of uranium on her property during a hunt for black gold in the Ambrosia Lake area. While not exactly the treasured resource she originally set out to find, what Dysart did detect made her plenty wealthy; she uncovered the richest deposit of high-grade uranium ore in the world. It wasn’t long after these two historic discoveries that mines began cropping up all around Grants, quickly earning the town the title of “Uranium Capital of the World.”

The rapidly growing business prompted the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to assume control over the industry and institute regulations that helped bring in revenue but failed in creating safe working conditions for Grants’ miners. The AEC neglected to warn laborers of the stark dangers in uranium mining and omitted the establishment of laws to keep miners safe from harm. Many men lost their lives in the mines due to this, but once the AEC’s ownership contract ran its course, the state and federal government, along with the support of activist miners, generated laws to increase worker safety.

One of the miners who fought for this safety addendum was Jack Farley who, even at 87 years old, still maintains an active and lively voice within the mining community as a board member and volunteer tour guide at the New Mexico Mining Museum in Grants. No matter his role, Farley takes his job seriously; he never missed a single day of work during his 43 years of hard labor in the mines — 28 of which were mining uranium. But despite the rigors of his commitment and the demands of his occupation, Farley never lost his signature

sense of humor. From scaring fellow miners with a dead bobcat propped up behind a door to creating a ‘ghost miner’ by dressing up and suspending a coat hanger with a jug for a head, he was never short of pranks. “We played a lot of tricks on each other,” exclaimed Farley. “You didn’t turn your back on nobody underground. They tried to turn their light out and sneak up on you and jump and grab you and finally scare you and all kinds of things.”

The last of Grants’ uranium mines closed in the late 1980’s, ending generations of well-earned labor and practical jokes in the process. While most mines in Grants remain derelict, one continues to operate — not for the sake of extracting uranium, but rather to educate and illustrate history through creative and interactive means. “The inspiration for the Museum came [from] a casual conversation between [locals] Marian Barber and Ray Gunderson in 1964,” explained Tammy Legler, Executive Director of the New Mexico Mining Museum. “At some point in the conversation, Marian got the inspiration to create the only simulated uranium mine in the world,” she continued. This idea permeated through local governments, which resulted in the establishment of the Museum and its simulated uranium mine only years after the industry’s boom finally fizzled out.

The lobby level of the Museum houses displays of rare artifacts; a plethora of items discovered around Grants such as petrified wood, dinosaur bones, and ancient native crafts. However, this area is only the tip of the iceberg. The truly authentic experience strikes when you enter the Museum’s underground portion via a recreated mineshaft. This immersive portion vividly portrays the sights, sounds, and sensations of a real uranium mine. As you navigate through the different tunnels, complete with ore carts, dynamite drilling, mucking tools, and a mock lunchroom, you get a real sense of what it must have been like to work in a mine. Each of the various sections of the mine has been fitted with information panels where, with a push of a button, visitors get to listen to audio stories from former miners themselves. Listening to their textured voices, it is easy to picture the men, working amongst the dust, radon and diesel fumes, in the confined spaces. It really brings home the risks and hard work that these old-timers encountered.

Accompanying the Museum’s absorbing collection is the dedicated staff, which includes Farley, who volunteer their time, teaching all who pass through about the history of uranium mining. So, when you enter the southwestern portion of your next Route 66 road trip, make a point of swinging into historic Grants and head underground for yourself.

Image courtesy of Efrain M. Padró, Padró Images.

Route 66 and the WILDEY THEATRE

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

Created back in 1909, the theatre was built by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a national organization that helped create civic projects in the U.S. The Odd Fellows used the third floor of the Wildey as a meeting room while the first floor served as a 1,150-seat theatre, all done up in Victorian style. Back then, one could see vaudeville shows and musicals, along with more community-based events, such as school plays and band concerts.

Since its inception, the Wildey has been renovated extensively, with its initial look getting a facelift in 1937 to give it the more popular art deco style. Besides its physical appearance, the number of seats in the theatre also shrank. “It went down to 826 [seats] when it became a movie theatre [in 1937],” noted Al Canal, the general manager and talent buyer of the Wildey Theatre. Since then, the number of seats at the Wildey has continued to reduce to a cozy 325. “I joke that when they redo the theatre again, [there will] only be 25 seats in the place.”

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

Another former Wildey employee, Joan Evers, is a local Wildey historian with an impressive collection of Wildey artifacts. “She always had a deep love for the theatre,” said Canal. “I’ve been here with the theatre for 5 ½ years. Joan told me the history of the theatre. She showed me her deep love and passion for the building, and it rubbed off on me.” Evers also shared her knowledge of the Wildey by giving tours of the theatre, and while she has retired from this job, she is still known to pop into the Wildey every once in a while.

Despite its vintage appeal, cozy ambiance, and charming personalities, the Wildey closed its doors as a full-time theatre in 1984 — their last movie seating over 400 people for a showing of The Big Chill. The theatre remained relatively untouched for more than a decade until the city of Edwardsville purchased it in 1999 and began renovations. But this was met with some local criticism. “There was some pushback,” noted Canal. “It was expensive, it was an expensive proposition for the city.” Despite the criticism, the Wildey was able to proudly reopen its doors to the public in 2011.

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

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

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

WHERE THE MOTHER ROAD BEGINS

TEXAN

By Melanee Morin

Photographs courtesy of Bobby Lee

STYLE

ou’re sitting at a cowhide table on a raised platform in front of two hundred other diners. In front of you is a perfectly grilled, sizzling 72-ounce steak, shrimp cocktail, a baked potato, salad, and a bread roll. A musician strums a guitar in the background, while a live rattlesnake and a 12-foot bear statue look on disinterestedly; they’ve seen this almost 100,000 times before. The clock begins to count down, and you have an hour to eat what is on the table.

This is The Big Texan Steak Challenge, one of the most famous eating contests in America, and it has been enticing people from all over the world for over 50 years. Some might say it’s just a kitschy tourist trap, but behind The Big Texan’s bright yellow exterior and over-the-top persona lies a struggle for success, a tribute to Texas’ Western roots, and a family legacy tied to Route 66.

The Mother Road was aligned through The Lone Star state in 1926, running from Texola to Glenrio across the Texas Panhandle, with Amarillo at its heart. Unlike other Route 66 states that have jutting mountains and vast canyons, the Panhandle is as flat as a pancake. But the wide-open plains and expansive blue skies have their own type of majesty; some claim that during an Amarillo sunrise and sunset, you can see the curvature of the earth because of the almost limitless view afforded by the even terrain. Bob Lile, artist, historian, preservationist, and Vice President of the Historic 6th on Route 66 Association (they work to preserve the historic Route 66 district in Amarillo), notes that the Texas stretch of Route 66, the second shortest after Kansas at 178 miles, might not have the prettiest scenery; “But, we’ve got the friendliest, best people along the whole route. And we’ve got some really good history too.”

An important part of that history began, and still lives on, in Amarillo: the place Lile calls the unofficial capital of Route 66 in Texas. The southern plains meet the desert in Amarillo, and the wide-open spaces provided the perfect place to raise large amounts of cattle. In 1893, Amarillo’s population was listed as “between 500-600 humans and 50,000 head of cattle.” A few years later, Amarillo had become one of the world’s busiest cattle-shipping points, and that heritage lives on today; Amarillo is the beef capital of the world, with over 4 million head of cattle and many large ranches, including the still-running JA Ranch founded in 1877. Today, you can still find cowboys gathering their cattle by horseback. Eric Miller, Director of Communications at the Amarillo Convention and Visitor Council, says the town is very proud of its Western heritage. “We really are the Texas that many people grow up thinking about, with ranches and cowboys and pickup trucks, horses, it all exists within 15 miles of our downtown.” Route 66 helped bring visitors to Amarillo hoping to capture the authentic Texan experience, and The Big Texan Steak Ranch is a big part of that. Miller notes that Amarillo has 2 to 3 million visitors per year, and The Big Texan and Route 66 are

two of the biggest draws. But originally, it began with a man wanting to make a better life for his family, taking America’s highway to Texas to experience true Western hospitality.

It All Started With a Dream(er)

R.J. Lee was living with his wife, Mary Ann, and their young children in Kansas City, Missouri, when they decided to move to Amarillo in 1958. R.J. had grown up enthralled with Texan cowboys and ranchers, and with a young family to support, he saw Amarillo as the ideal place to experience the Lone Star atmosphere while laying down roots for the future. While Texas lived up to his dreams and more, the one disappointment he had was that he couldn’t find a first-class Texas-style steakhouse in the area. So, R.J. decided to build it himself, right on Route 66.

This was in 1960, and the Mother Road’s revival hadn’t begun yet. For R.J., Route 66 was simply the highway that went through Amarillo, from which he could attract tourists. As Bobby Lee puts it, son of R.J. and Mary Ann and co-owner of The Big Texan today, if you’re in the boat business, you need to be on the Mississippi River. If you’re in the hospitality business, you need to be on the highway. But simply being located on Route 66 wasn’t enough; Lee had to offer visitors an authentic taste of Texas that would draw them in and keep them coming back. “My dad didn’t have a real good grip on what a real cowboy was or wasn’t until he started working with the area’s stockyard producers,” Bobby elaborates. R.J. enticed local cowboys to stop in after work by offering big, juicy steaks and an ice-cold beer. He also knew that they would be the big draw for tourists, so he reserved a huge 12-person table for them in the middle of the dining room, centre stage for the cowboys to show off their bravado and antics to the other diners, while he plied them with excellent food and drink. Bobby adds, “I remember as a kid watching him see the reaction in the diners, how powerful it was whenever they would see a real cowboy ... That was the whole scheme behind The Big Texan originally. Bigger steaks and bigger cowboys.” Little did R.J. know just how big the steaks would get.

The Birth of the Biggest Challenge Around

The cowboys at The Big Texan spent their evenings challenging each other’s virility — whether it was who ate the most food, drank the most beers, or had the bigger muscles, the cowboys loved a challenge. One Friday night in 1962, R.J. pushed a few tables together in the middle of the dining

One of the original Route 66 billboards for westbound travelers.

room and challenged his favorite patrons to the ultimate contest. Whoever could eat the most one-pound steaks in an hour would win, and get his dinner for free. One ambitious hostler ate 4 and a half one pound steaks (72 ounces), and complained that he was still hungry, so R.J. brought him a baked potato, shrimp cocktail, salad, and a bread roll. This seemed to hit the spot, and when he was finished, R.J. announced that anyone who could eat what that cowboy just ate would get their meal for free. Bobby recalls, “My dad never thought he would have a taker, but the next week we had two cowboys come in wanting to try the thing, and the place went crazy!” Tourists were talking about it, the newspaper came out and took pictures, and an immemorial challenge was born.

To this day, The Big Texan gets three to four challengers a day, notes Danny Lee, co-owner of The Big Texan and younger brother to Bobby. They’re approaching 100,000 steaks served, and only about one out of every nine challengers finish the steak. The odds are better for women, about one in two, adds Bobby: less women overall take the challenge, but the ones that do are very confident, and not egged on by ego or dares. In fact, the record-holder, Molly Schuyler, a 120-pound mother of four, ate three of the 72-ounce steak dinners in twenty minutes.

When asked if he had ever attempted the challenge himself, Danny admits, “When I attempted it, I failed miserably. Bobby ate it and we went out and played racquetball and he still beat me in the game.”

Home and Away

Bobby and Danny spent their childhoods living and working at The Big Texan. In the early years, playpens and bassinets filled the kitchen, and when they got older, they were put to work.

Westbound Route 66 Big Texan Cowboy. 1961. He was named Bull, because his tobacco in his shirt pocket had a round tag that read Bull.

Newspaper photo of the Lee family. 1978. (R-L) William, Diana, Danny, Bobby, R.J. (Bob), Mary Ann, Teresa, Becky, Douglas and Richard.

When they were four and five years old, they learned how to wrap baked potatoes, peel shrimp, and buss tables — all for a dollar a day. The first head chef, Mr. Vance, gave them kitchen assignments that they completed while standing on vegetable crates to reach the counters. All holidays were spent working at the restaurant, including Thanksgiving and Christmas. Danny notes that, “Still to this day, my kids and my wife, Bob’s kids and Bob’s wife, we all go to work on holidays.”

What is now a privilege and part of maintaining a legacy became a relentless chore for the young brothers. Bobby excelled in athletics so that he could go and play sports after school, instead of going to work at the restaurant, and both boys left Amarillo after high school, searching for purpose outside of the restaurant business. “The second I got a chance to get out of town, I got out of town, and stayed away,” recalls Bobby. He went to college and Danny got into electronics after graduating in 1979 and worked for a big company in Dallas for a number of years.

A similar uprooting happened to The Big Texan a decade earlier, when the Interstate Highway 40 replaced Route 66 as the major thoroughfare of the country in 1968. Overnight, business at The Big Texan came to a halt. “One day he had a full dining room and the next day there were two people for the whole day,” says Bobby. But R.J. had eight kids to feed, and he had to adapt to survive. Unable to get a loan from the bank, R.J. took his sons out to an old army barracks they owned, and they pulled it apart, piece by piece, preserving every scrap of lumber and nail to rebuild The Big Texan along the I-40. The new restaurant, where the current one stands today, was built out of love, tenacity, and desperation. Danny recalls his father driving by newspaper stands, asking if the local boys needed jobs, thus he rounded up a bunch of day laborers and built The Big Texan from the ground up.

R.J.’s limitless reserves of tenacity were tested frequently: he attempted to open another restaurant in Lubbock, Texas, in 1975 to appeal to the Texas Tech crowd, but it was unsuccessful and closed after two years; and, The Big Texan built out of scrap lumber, burned to the ground in a fire in 1976, except for a banquet room that was built in 1972. However, R.J. always adapted, and The Big Texan re-opened shortly after and continued to be a smashing success.

Passing the Torch

After spending most of the 80s in Dallas, Danny moved to his father’s hometown of Kansas City to work with his uncle at the Savoy Grill, an upscale dining landmark in the city since 1903. Danny had always loved working in the kitchen, and rediscovering his family’s roots caused him to fall back in love with the restaurant industry.

On a cool Sunday afternoon in 1990, February 4th to be exact, Danny had gone to see a matinee movie with his wife, but he remembers feeling weird all day. He had an apartment in the Savoy Hotel above the restaurant, and the phone was ringing incessantly. He ignored the phone because he thought it was just another call about inventory, but finally someone came to his door to tell him that his mom was on the phone. R.J. and Mary Ann were in Hawaii on vacation with some fellow restaurateurs at the time. His mother told him that his father had died of a heart attack while swimming in the ocean, spending his last moments on earth enjoying the warm water, The Big Texan far from his mind. All of a sudden, Danny went from talking to his father on the phone every

day to losing his father unexpectedly at the age of sixty. He believes that it was all the hard work that did his father in, the stress of numerous setbacks and pushing himself to succeed for the family he loved. “And he just, he just didn’t stop,” says Danny. “He didn’t stop.”

When Bobby heard the news of his father’s passing, he decided to move his family back to Amarillo and continue his father’s legacy. Bobby and his seven brothers and sisters were consumed with grief and confusion after their father’s sudden death, making it difficult to know what needed to be done to preserve The Big Texan, so Bobby stepped into the leadership role. Knowing Danny’s extensive experience at the Savoy Grill, Bobby knew he could bring a lot to the table, and so Danny moved back to Amarillo to be co-owner of The Big Texan in 1997.

Opposites Attract

Bobby and Danny’s combined experience and distinct skill sets create a special sort of magic for The Big Texan, and the family legacy not only continued to succeed, but expanded and flourished under their leadership. And it was a key lesson Danny’s uncle had taught him at the Savoy that laid the groundwork for their unparalleled hospitality: “Always take care of the next person in the front door, and everything else will fall into place.”

They may sometimes fight like brothers, but Bobby and Danny also succeed because they are opposites. Danny describes it as the combination of internal marketing and external marketing. Bobby focuses on promoting the restaurant and keeping the legend alive, whether it’s with billboards or social media. Meanwhile, Danny focuses on service, making sure salad plates are cold, dinner plates are hot, the steaks are aged properly, and bought at a competitive price. As they explain it, Bobby keeps them on the front page, and Danny keeps them off the obituary.

Ultimately, the foundation of their success is keeping alive the mystique of the cowboy that their father first started. “The cowboy never goes out of style,” remarks Danny, “and do we embellish about the cowboy and make it bigger than what it is? Hell yeah we do! You know, big steaks, we got a big boot that’s two stories tall, we have a rocking chair that you can get 23 people into ... Do people get up on the table and drink whisky and dance? Well, if that’s what people want to see in Texas, then hell yeah we do it. You know, we give people kind of a blank canvas and let them draw in what they feel Texas is, and what we do is deliver it.” Or, as Bobby puts it, “It’s always the real deal and it’s cozy and right in your face with it.”

Ingenuity and Expansion

Bobby thinks that if his father could see what The Big Texan has become today, he would be really surprised at the national and international audience it has developed, as well as how much the business has expanded. The Big Texan compound now includes a motel designed to look like an Old West main street, an RV park, an outdoor concert venue called Starlight Ranch, a brewery, and a fleet of limos to bring customers to the restaurant. It is this entrepreneurial ingenuity that keeps The Big Texan successful and ahead of its competitors. But while everything is changing, everything is also staying the same.

“I remember as a kid the smell of the cocktail sauce,” says Bobby. “I remember the taste of the salad dressings and it’s still the same. Everything is expensive as hell to make, but you know, it’s about those people when they taste it, they say, ‘You know, this is exactly how I remember this thing.’” Keeping that original quality is one of the most rewarding parts of the business for the brothers, and it’s what keeps customers coming back.

Bobby and Danny both have adult children of their own now, but they are not pressuring them to join the family business. Most important is allowing them to spread their wings and have new experiences like they did once, because a return home is all the sweeter when you’ve been away and choose to come back.

But what does it really feel like to be a caretaker of an internationally-known Texas legend? “I’ll answer that in a strange way,” replies Danny. “Kansas City, this one kid that used to deliver food to us, he was a purveyor, and he told me one time that one of the jobs he had before was climbing those real tall radio towers and changing the light bulbs on top. And he said sometimes it’d take him three or four hours to climb all the way to the top, and then when he got to the top, the view was spectacular. And I always likened it to that, it’s a real tall ladder, and you start on the first rung at the very bottom, then you go to the second rung and you go to the third one. Then, sometimes you look down and you realize you could die if you let go. You know, you’re so high; you’re high enough where it’s dangerous. And you keep on climbing, and you just don’t look down and all of a sudden one day you

happen to look around and you realize that you’re above the clouds. You can see forever. Then one day we realize we’re not really owners of this business, we’re curators.”

As Bobby adds, “It’s a one-of-a-kind place, you don’t see this kind of place very much and when you do, you get that feeling that it’s a landmark, you’re going to do something special.” And do something special they did.

To the Brink and Back

After completing the 72-oz Steak Challenge, winners get a chance to leave a comment for posterity, as recorded in the Hall of Fame on The Big Texan’s website. Some did it for family: “Father-in-law challenged me to do it.” (Chuck Barsness, 1975); “Had to call my mom to get encouragement.” (George Rutherford, 1988); “My son will be back in 20 years.” (Greg Schrop, 1997). Some became philosophical: “The will to succeed is the first condition of victory.” (Richard E. Primeau, 1987); “You define the moment and the moment defines you.” (Paul B. Thacker, 2003); “Vedi, Vidi, Vici. (I came, I saw, I conquered.).” (Jason Apodaca, 2011). While others found a sense of humor: “A steady chew got me through!” (Ken Wareham, 1976); “I thought it would shrink when it was cooked.” (Steve Evans, 1982). Many claimed to have turned vegetarian over the incident, and it provided a once in a lifetime experience for others.

But, the most common comment has been, in fact, a question:

What’s for dessert?

Original Route 66 Big Texan. 1965.

BEAUTIFUL FOR SPACIOUS SKIES, FOR AMBER WAVES OF GRAIN, FOR PURPLE MOUNTAIN MAJESTIES ABOVE

THE FRUITED PLAIN!

WHEN THE HIGHWAY GOES SILENT

The romance of Route 66 often lies in the quirky marvels that lie almost hidden to the casual observer. Just east of Albuquerque, Route 66 winds through the small but charming village of Tijeras (meaning “scissors”), New Mexico. At the crossroads of Route 66’s 1937 alignment and the Turquoise Trail Scenic Byway, its mountains and canyons offer breathtaking views. Leading west, Tijeras Canyon divides the Sandia and Manzano mountain ranges, whose forested peaks loom between 6,000 and 10,000 feet. Heading south, Cedro Canyon runs through the Manzano Mountains. Nearby, you can explore the crumbled remains of the Pueblos’ adobe buildings or enjoy recreational opportunities at Cedro Peak.

But if you find yourself driving eastbound on Route 66/HWY 333, tucked up into Tijeras Canyon between mile markers 4 and 5 lies one of those special surprises unique to the Mother Road. On either side of this stretch of highway, the rocky, sandy hills are sparsely dotted with short grasses, trees, and the occasional yellow wildflowers. Coyotes traipse across this terrain looking for food, while owls soar overhead. And if you’re not careful, you might strike a leaping pronghorn antelope that tries to dart across your path. But if you’re lucky, you might still hear one of the last fading notes from the Musical Highway, aka the Singing Road.

In 2014, the National Geographic Channel series “Crowd Control” designed a social experiment that would encourage drivers to obey the speed limit — and to bring some excitement to this pretty but quiet stretch of New Mexico road. In collaboration with the New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT), they contracted the San Bar Construction company to place special rumble strips just inside the line that marked the road’s edge, with grooved metal plates hidden below the pavement. Because the strips were placed at precise distances from one another, if a car drove over them at exactly 45 miles per hour (the posted speed limit), the resulting vibrations would clearly play the notes to “America the Beautiful.”

To ensure that drivers would find the musical highway, NMDOT placed blue roadside signage to alert them when they were approaching this unusual Route 66 experience. When the highway opened to traffic on October 1st of that year, motorists found that the song sounded slightly different depending on the make of the vehicle and the size of its tires. But it always rang out clear as a bell.

Over the years, many dedicated roadies have posted YouTube videos of their trips to the singing road, in celebration of their cars driving over the rumble strips and playing such a beloved patriotic anthem. Many have even doubled back for a second try at making the pavement sing.

“We do not keep track of the number of people that have driven this stretch, but we are sure that most have enjoyed it,” said Kimberly Gallegos, the Public Information Officer of NMDOT District Three.

Unfortunately, in 2015, the NMDOT decided not to maintain the highway due to the exceedingly high cost involved. Additionally, because the highway had deteriorated to such a large degree, the NMDOT decided to permanently remove the roadside signage that had previously guided drivers to the experience. Understandably, however, many people were not willing to see the road disappear so easily.

This past winter, Bernalillo County expressed interest in maintaining the highway, though no actions have resulted from that interest — nor from the efforts of a Route 66 advocacy group called RETRO Relive the Route. In March of 2020, State Highway 333 underwent a $114,264 Fog Seal project between Mile Marker 0 — at the mouth of Tijeras Canyon — and Mile Marker 16 at Barton, New Mexico. As part of this project, the highway department applied an asphalt emulsion to the Musical Highway, which significantly dulled its tune. Bernalillo County officials are still meeting with NMDOT representatives, but no plan is currently in place to either re-do or relocate the unique feature.

“We do not have the funding to cover what it would take to re-do the roadway,” explained Gallegos. “In order to rehabilitate the road, it would have to be completely redone.”

And so, the only sounds that will ring out in Tijeras Canyon will be those of nature — the whistling winds, accompanied by the natural noises of wildlife. In the United States, other musical roads can only be found in California and Alabama, and international travelers can seek out a half-dozen in Europe and Asia. But now, the New Mexico musical highway's tune is fading away. However, according to Gallegos, NMDOT is still willing to work with the village and county to rebuild the musical highway elsewhere in Tijeras. Perhaps one day, then, a tiny stretch of iconic highway will play once more.

AMERICA! AMERICA! GOD SHED HIS GRACE ON THEE. AND CROWN THY GOOD WITH BROTHERHOOD. FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA!

Image courtesy of B. Hammond.

RELIGHTING

By Alex J. Rodriguez

Photographs by David J. Schwartz - Pics On Route 66

HISTORY

R

oute 66 basks in the brightness of summertime; it savors the brilliance cast by summer sunshine that washes its historic pavement in an almost holy radiance. Within its elongated days, summer offers road trippers extended light, intensified warmth, and a deepened desire to experience a world outside the generic drone of everyday life. Travelers feel compelled to hop on America’s Main Street, to embrace the thrill of the open road, to search for adventure and an experience that will live long in their memories.

The old road is blessed with countless towns that define the magic that we are all seeking, but destinations like Missouri’s Civil War town of Carthage may best represent the ideal theater to soak in Route 66. The town is home to the quirky attraction of Red Oak II, their very own drive-in theater, and is packed with fascinating history and culture. There is even a terrific square, packed with fun shops and a historic courthouse that is simply astounding. But perhaps the centerpiece of the little town is an unassuming venue that is still drawing in visitors, 80 years after it first opened: Boots Court Motel.

With its hallmark Streamline Moderne architecture, this historic lodging site not only offers plenty of sincere hospitality, but also serves as Carthage’s testament to the Mother Road. Moreover, Boots acts as a beacon, a flare brightening the town’s nights with a serene florescence. Its beauty transports observers to the look, sound, and feel of a time when cars were painted pastel, music blared solely through the radio, and the closest thing to a TV was the rolling scenery beyond the frame of a rolled-up window. However, the longstanding presence of Boots Court wouldn’t be possible without the passionate effort of three women. The story of Boots is also theirs. It is a story of two sisters and their dearest childhood friend who, after decades of separation, were brought back together by chance, circumstance, and a united desire to restore something meaningful. Their names are Deborah “Debye” Harvey, Priscilla “Pixie” Bledsaw, and Deborah “Debbie Dee” Real. They are the ones who brought Boots back to life; they are the mothers of Boots Court Motel.

Laying the Groundwork

The namesake of Boots Court originated years before these women were even born. It was derived from Mr. Arthur Boots, who constructed the establishment in 1938 and opened it for business a year later. According to the accounts of his son, the late Bob Boots, Arthur’s nature was that of a meticulous and cunning entrepreneur. Bob recalled in interviews with the aforementioned Debye Harvey that his father, a former farm machinery salesman, spent his days in Kansas City chewing over maps, surveying and scrutinizing numerous locations to find the ideal venue for a new

business venture to accommodate the millions of displaced Americans roaming the country as a result of the Great Depression.

Route 66 played a pivotal role during this period, providing a system of mobility and migration to those looking for a fresh start. Arthur Boots saw an opportunity lying within the promise of the Mother Road, which led him to choose a small stretch of road located in Carthage, Missouri, where U.S. Route 66 and U.S. Route 71 briefly converged. Boots referred to this specific point as “The Crossroads of America” and considered it the perfect spot to erect a motor court for weary nomads combing the plains for any sort of work — or shelter.

The original blueprints, all conceived by Boots himself, featured trendy characteristics of Streamline Moderne, a style of architecture that emerged during the latter years of Art Deco’s heyday in the 1930s. Streamline Moderne took the extravagant qualities of Deco and applied them to a simpler, more “streamlined” appearance. It is often associated with the sleek, bullet-like physique of an old-school sports car, or a funky roadside diner, or an illustrious, bronzed movie theater straight out of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

However, despite having rapid success and doubling its capacity to a total of eight rooms, Arthur Boots spent a mere three years running his business before a divorce and an entrepreneurial itch propelled him to move on. “Arthur Boots was a free spirit, and he didn’t take well to staying in one place,” explained Debye Harvey. “He liked to build things, but then he liked to move on and build something else. He was only the owner of the Boots from ’39 to ’42.”

After Arthur’s departure, Boots Court entered a perpetual state of change, bouncing around from owner to owner, each of whom remodeled the Court to their individual liking. As the decades piled on and the proprietors revolved in and out, so did the structural changes, obscuring the motel’s architectural heritage and dulling the sheen of its classic charm. Eventually, during the early 2000s, possession of the property fell into the hands of a real estate investor whose aim for the iconic landmark involved demolishing its two huddled buildings and selling it to a drugstore chain.

Luckily, due to some corporate complications, the plan never materialized, forcing the investor to declare bankruptcy and leading the bank to repossess the property. For a number of years, Boots Court Motel stood in limbo, growing decrepit as the wear and tear of neglect lagged on — that is until two sisters decided to take a trip down Route 66.

A Tale of Three Women

The deep-rooted relationship that Debye Harvey and Pixie Bledsaw share with their beloved friend, Debbie Dee, burrows all the way back to their childhood in the early 1950s when they all lived on the same block in the small town of Quincy, Illinois. “They lived next door to me in a lovely part of town on Jersey Street,” reminisced Debbie Dee. “It was a lovely place to grow up — full of kids and trees. We met when they moved in and we were very little. We became friends and spent a lot of time together and had a lot of fun [playing] games and all kinds of things.”

Right away, the three bonded over their youthful energy and a mutual love for plants and animals, which, ironically enough, influenced Debye and Pixie’s family to move away from Quincy when the girls were in junior high. “We moved out into the country because my mom wanted a pony,” laughed Pixie. “My mom was an animal lover and Debbie Dee was an animal lover, so she encouraged our friendship. That was probably why we ended up staying friends with her, even after we moved away.”

The sisters ended up relocating to Decatur, Illinois, where they spent their young adult years together before Debye

moved down to Georgia during the early 80s to pursue a career in mechanical drafting. Meanwhile, Debbie Dee managed to sustain her relationship with the sisters for a number of years until she set off for South America in 1978. “I went out to visit quite a bit, and we had adventures out there—just a jolly good time,” she recalled. “Then years passed; I moved up to Chicago for a while, married a man from Venezuela, then went down to Venezuela where I lived for quite a few years. I loved it. I was in the water as much as possible. If you didn’t like water sports [there], you were S.O.L.”

Pixie stayed in Quincy, where she entered the jewelry industry, inevitably opening a business of her own during the early aughts. “It was just a natural attraction to things that sparkle,” she chuckled. “When I was growing up, it wasn’t easy to get things with sequins on them. I was in dance for eight years before I got a tutu, and that was the only reason I wanted to get into dance—to get that tutu.”

While down in the Peach State, Debye worked for a contracting firm that landed some business with the National Parks Service. “We got the job to do a condition assessment on a building that the Parks Service wanted to convert [into]

Priscilla, Debbie Dee and Debye standing on Route 66.

a historic site. The project also included [writing] a history of the complex, so I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ I gathered together all this information, wrote that article, and the Park Service accepted it,” she mused. “We got another project of a similar type, and I just kept doing the work until one of the Park Service guys [asked], ‘Where did you get your degree in History?’ I said, ‘I don’t have a degree in History!’ and he said, ‘Well, we require that our historians have a degree in History.’ So, I went back to college, [and] ended up with a master’s in Historic Preservation and a bachelor’s degree in History.”

Through this winding journey, Debye unraveled a calling that intertwined her love of history with her curiosity about the innerworkings of buildings. “I want to know how things got to be the way they are,” she mentioned matter-of-factly. Unbeknownst to her, this appetite for preservation and engineering would ultimately persuade Debye to purchase a rundown motel in the middle of America’s Heartland.

How Did We Get Here?

In June of 2006, Debye and Pixie carried out their longtime wish to experience America’s Main Street together. “It was a mind-boggling trip,” Pixie exclaimed. “There was so much to see and do that it took us three days to get to Pontiac, Illinois, from Chicago. We decided that we better step up the pace or we were going to use up our three weeks and not even get out of Illinois. Heck, we lived in Illinois! We

could’ve started in Missouri! But we did Route 66 and just loved it.”

Along the way, the pair found themselves in Carthage staring at the dilapidated facade of Boots Court Motel, which had caught their eye because of its signature Streamline Moderne design. “This particular style of building was something I always liked. They always looked like giant blocks of ice cream,” said Pixie. While attracted to the structure’s architecture, at no point during their encounter did it occur to the sisters that this establishment was something worth pursuing—commercially or otherwise. “It really looked like the wrath of God when we first saw it,” Pixie lamented. “[We noticed] how sad it was that something this neat looking was being neglected beyond, what we thought at the time, the point of no return.”

Years later, in 2011, a life-changing opportunity presented itself and changed the sisters’ perspective. “I saw that Boots was about to be auctioned off by the bank that owned it,” explained Debye. “This was just by chance. Because of my career, I have the Preservation Magazine from the National Trust, and there was this tiny little article in there that talked about it. I thought that was interesting, so I contacted my sister. [She] was very excited about buying it. I’d retired by then and thought it’d be fun to take this building and return it back to the way it looked in the 1940s. [I thought], I’ll restore it and open it up again as a motel for Route 66 travelers. In life, if you only see one door, that’s the one you take.”

Priscilla and Debye. Nights are quiet in Carthage, Missouri.

Debye made a commitment there and then, throwing herself and her retirement into purchasing Boots Court with her sister. They carried a determination to reanimate the glory days of this historic motel as vividly and authentically as possible. Utilizing her historic preservation expertise in tandem with her engineering wherewithal, Debye began to reevaluate the structural integrity of the motel, assessing what measures needed to be added in order to bring its appliances into the 21st Century, while also poring over stacks of historic documents and conducting hours upon hours of interviews.

“I looked at the Boots and [realized] its problems were cosmetic,” she elaborated. “There was plaster falling off of everywhere, the neon was all broken and falling off, and the electricity was old and needed to be upgraded to meet code. So yes, there was a lot of expensive work that needed to be done, but [we] didn’t have to rebuild the building in order to restore it — to plaster and paint, get rid of all the excess foliage, and repair the windows—that kind of thing.”

Little by little, week by week, removal and addition after removal and addition, Boots Court Motel began to regain the subtle magnificence of its prime. The now seven operational rooms (one of which is the exact same room Clark Gable stayed in 80 years ago) each adhere to the historically accurate guidelines that Debye defined through her research: hardwood floors, chrome light fixtures, chenille bedspreads, built-in dressers, and an antique radio tuned to a station playing only ‘40s hits.

However, even with all the detail paid to restoring its interiors, Boots’ external architecture needed some drastic changes, too. “The main building had an inappropriate roof that got put on it during the ‘70s, and it just killed it,” exclaimed Debbie Dee. “It didn’t look like Streamline Moderne with that roof up there, so we were able to get a grant from the National Park Service to get the roof restored to the original roof, so you could see the beautiful lines of the building.”

“The second thing we did was our upgrading of the green architectural neon,” added Debye. “Some of the neon that was on there when we bought it still worked, but our architectural guy said that it was not in good shape and our best bet was to reproduce it, and we did. He actually restored it to the historic green color [using] the original materials. Now we have the original green color.”

Over the course of five years, these much-needed rejuvenations took place. After countless hours of sweat and labor poured into this rehabilitation, Boots Court Motel had finally reached the point where it could reclaim its status as Carthage’s shining jewel on Garrison and Central. Yet, in the midst of all this restoration, Debye and Pixie actually needed to run the place. After all, it was supposed to be a fully operational motel.

Reuniting for Boots Court

Out of necessity and circumstance, the sisters required an onthe-ground operative to make sure that the venue functioned

properly and professionally. “We had no idea about what it took to run a motel — I mean absolutely none,” joked Pixie. “When we purchased Boots, my sister was living in Georgia, and I was living in Illinois, [but] Debbie Dee was sort of in between jobs, so we said, ‘Do we have a deal for you!’ We’d known her all our lives; we knew the kind of person she was. She [was] ideal because she just thinks everybody’s life is the most fascinating thing she’s ever heard. That’s kind of what people on Route 66 really like, because they want to talk about their experiences and what they’ve seen.”

“I was kind of at loose ends,” added Debbie Dee. “I hadn’t decided what to do or what I wanted to do, or where I wanted to go, but then I got a call out of the blue from the girls saying ‘How would you like to go down to Missouri and take a look at this property we just bought?’ When I went down there, [I] walked up to this beautiful Streamline Moderne building, and just fell in love with it. I thought it was irresistible. So, I gave it a little thought and [decided] I could do this.”

Despite her complete enthusiasm, Debbie Dee still had to bear the weight of being the sole on-site employee. “The first couple of years took quite a lot of time and energy — usually 16-hour days,” she admitted. “You’d get up in the morning to see all of your guests off, and then you turn back and clean as fast as you could. Then three o’clock is when our doors open for guests again, so at three o’clock I had to get back to the office and start taking care of guests again. It was still a lot of fun.”

Much of the joy and fulfillment Debbie Dee gets from her job stems from the opportunities she has to genuinely connect with each guest. “There are some definite perks to this business. Just meeting people from around the world is a wonderful experience,” she expounded. “People who are traveling Route 66 tend to be a little bit outside the box. They tend to be intelligent and all of them have that spirt of adventure. People who have written books about the Route — or are artists or biographers on the Route — have all stopped here and shared their wealth of experience, history, and knowledge. We even had guests from a research station down in Antarctica! It’s such a thrill to meet people from everywhere.”

Without Debbie Dee’s pure kindness and intrigue towards her guests, the 24/7 management lifestyle might have led to a serious case of burnout. Yet even after all the years of long, strenuous days, the appreciation and compassion she radiates hasn’t faded one bit, just like the neon that illuminates Carthage’s nights.

A Retirement Well Spent

Sitting on the front porch of her home that sits just down the street from Boots Court, Debye can still see the neon come to life as the sun sets. “It’s almost an emotional experience because it’s so gorgeous,” she ruminated. “It just makes me happy to have that neon come on. We have put a lot of time, effort, thought, and money into the motel, and we like looking at it and thinking, We did that. And boy, did we do a good job.”

To picture Boots Court Motel is to picture the enchanting ambiance of summertime. During the day, its white walls reflect the light beaming down from above, making it glimmer and blend into the rays of sunshine. At night, its emerald glow coats the darkness in a calm incandescence. When you hear the story of Boots Court and the three lifelong friends who revived it, it’s hard not to see that same light emanating from the warm smiles that these remarkable women wear on their faces every single day.

Unforgettable at 70 Years

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

Located near the 1954 alignment of Route 66 in Collinsville, Illinois, this kitschy bottle began its journey out of necessity, as the processing plant for Brooks products in Collinsville needed a water tower for plant operations and fire protection. At that time, the president of Brooks, Gerhart S. Suppiger, had the fun idea of using their Catsup Bottle shape for the water tower, and the colorful bottle has been pulling people off of the road ever since.

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

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

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

While the preservation group was receiving outside support, some of their local officials were not overly optimistic about restoring the historical structure, but this did not stunt their efforts. “There is always that somebody that objects. If you know what you want to do, don’t let them impact your goal,” notes DeMoisy and Mike Gassmann, who was also a part of the preservation group and is copresident of The World’s Largest Catsup Bottle Fan Club Inc. “People would be negative about it and we would just say, ‘It’s kind of their loss,’ and keep on going.” The preservation group responded to the negativity with a community petition drive, which garnered 3,000 signatures. While this didn’t necessarily change people’s minds, it did spread the word in Collinsville about the Catsup bottle preservation efforts and helped get the ball rolling.

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

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

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

HORSEPOWERED HEARTBEAT

Remember when driving was a joy? Back when you drove to escape, to feel that rush of freedom, or to connect with the person across that bucket seat from you. You’d share a smile when that one song came on; the stereo would get turned up, and windows would get rolled down. You can recapture that moment—or find it for the first time—on Route 66. Feel that horsepowered heartbeat that you’ve been missing in America’s Heartland.

Take the Scenic Route: VisitLebanonMo.org

THE CHASE PARK PLAZA ROYAL SONESTA ST. LOUIS

A historic, 100-year young Landmark Hotel located in the heart of St. Louis’ Central West End neighborhood. Often referred to as a “city within the city,” the hotel features three on-site restaurants, a 5-screen movie theater to enjoy new releases, outdoor heated swimming pool, 18,000+ square foot fitness center, barber shop, and so much more. Discover endless options for dining, shopping and entertainment within steps of the hotel. Across the street is Forest Park, home to three museums and the famous Saint Louis Zoo, all of which are free to enter. Additionally, you can find miles of jogging trails, golf courses, a seasonal ice skating rink, and The Muny amphitheater.

“In telling the story of his African family’s journey on Route 66, Brennen Matthews has made an important contribution to the legacy of the highway. He offers both a new voice and a new look at the Mother Road.”

—from the foreword by Michael Wallis, New York Times bestselling author of Route 66: The Mother Road

“Hop in and buckle up. Brennen Matthews’s Miles to Go is a ride you won’t soon forget.”

—Richard Ratay, author of Don’t Make Me Pull Over! An Informal History of the

Family Road Trip

“Miles to Go awakens fond memories of my many road trips by car and Greyhound bus along the ‘Mother Road,’ Route 66!”

—Martin Sheen

“In Miles to Go, we don’t just drive the highway looking out the window. We stop, interact with people, and learn things we were not expecting. . . . This Route 66 journey doesn’t just immerse us in the sights, sounds, and experiences of the road. As guests on the journey, we’re encouraged to think about what it means to live in America and be an American.”

—Bill Thomas, chairman of the Route 66 Road Ahead Partnership

Miles to Go is the story of a family from Africa in search of authentic America along the country’s most famous highway, Route 66. Traveling the scenic byway from Illinois to California, they come across a fascinating assortment of historical landmarks, partake in quirky roadside attractions, and meet more than a few colorful characters.

Brennen Matthews, along with his wife and their son, come face-to-face with real America in all of its strange beauty and complicated history as the family explores what many consider to be the pulse of a nation. Their unique perspective on the Main Street of America develops into a true appreciation for what makes America so special. By joining Matthews and his family on their cross-country adventure, readers not only experience firsthand the sights and sounds of the road, but they are also given the opportunity to reflect on American culture and its varied landscapes. Miles to Go is not just a travel story but a tale of hopes, ambitions, and struggles. It is the record of an America as it once was and one that, in some places, still persists.

VISIT AMAZON.COM AND ORDER A COPY OF MILES TO GO NOW AND JOIN BRENNEN MATTHEWS AND HIS FAMILY AS THEY SET OUT TO DISCOVER AMERICA ALONG HISTORIC ROUTE 66

Experience America and Route 66 through a lens never seen before.

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.®