we all know it but but here's another article.... i would have loved to have smelled the foods, taken in all the sights and sounds......what a time http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/apn_forgotten_motels
By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS, Associated Press Writer Mon May 21, 1:19 AM ET MIAMI, Okla. - The Riviera Courts motel is crumbling away and nobody seems to care. Once a stop along Route 66, the 2,400-mile neon carnival that connected hundreds of communities from Chicago to Los Angeles, this late-1930s Mission Revival is just a weather-worn building on the side of a country road in far northeast Oklahoma. Next door, soybean farmers Richard and Rosemary Woolard watch the place deteriorate from their front porch. "Been a lot of changes in this old county," 77-year-old Richard Woolard says plainly. The Riviera Courts is among hundreds of mom-and-pop motels that met their demise along the ribbon of Route 66 as America's interstate system siphoned traffic off the Mother Road onto a four-lane, divided highway called progress. In Oklahoma, with more Route 66 miles than any of the eight states it flows through, many motels are derelict or abandoned, used as junk yards, makeshift car lots and flophouses. Owners who inherited these historical footnotes have no use for them, and would rather sell the properties to a developer if the price was right. Today, many structures that made the road what it was the diners, family-owned service stations, barbecue joints have fallen apart. With efforts to fix up these architectural landmarks scarce, time has become the road's worst enemy. The nonprofit National Historic Route 66 Federation in Lake Arrowhead, Calif., estimates at least 3,000 motels along the route are in various states of repair or disrepair. Route 66, immortalized in John Steinbeck's 1939 novel "The Grapes of Wrath" and crooner Nat King Cole's catchy tune, debuted in 1926, instantly becoming a slice of Americana. The road meant steady work for scores of unemployed men who built it in the 1930s; an avenue for thousands of Okies who migrated west to escape the Dust Bowl and a post-World War II playground for millions of Americans looking to roam in the 1950s and '60s. With the interstate came the Holiday Inns, chain gas stations and drive-thrus, popping up overnight. Neon and quirky were on the outs. Pre-fab and fast were in. The business model for the motels became outdated, too. How was a place built in the 1920s to accommodate 11 to 20 patrons to compete with a big-box motel that could cram 10 times more customers in? By 1984, the interstate had bypassed the last bit of 66 in Arizona, ending America's romance with the iconic highway. The handful of motels that survived fight a stigma they are no-tell motels, offering no-frills accommodations. "Motels are such a part of our recent history that it's often hard for people to view them as historically significant," says Kaisa Barthuli, with the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program in Santa Fe, N.M. To drum up support for these forgotten properties, preservationists in Oklahoma recently added Route 66 motels to a list of most endangered historic places. "People say, 'it's a nice sign, but I would never stay there,'" says Jim Gabbert, an architectural historian with the Oklahoma Historical Society. "There are dozens of old motels ... fighting the perception that these are rat traps." Traveling west from the Riviera Courts, the Chelsea Motel about 45 miles down the road seems in worse shape. A couple beat-up cars are parked on the grass in front of the wood-frame structure. Dandelions and shards of glass carpet the courtyard. In Room No. 6, there is noise from a TV or radio and a couple bottles of shampoo on the window sill, but nobody answers the door. Suddenly, John Hall (news, bio, voting record) pops out from behind the building. He is tall, gray-haired and shirtless, and could pass for a tattooed department store Santa Claus. The 62-year-old owns the motel with his wife, a pack rat who uses most of its rooms as storage and wants to sell the place to build an Indian tobacco shop. The motel was built around 1935 to cater to the traffic moving west. By the 1970s, it was headed downhill. Holding on to a piece of history isn't in the Halls' blood, even though it's in their backyard. Restoring it would cost tens of thousands of dollars. "I hope we sell the whole place and move into the country," he says. There is some magic left in this town. A couple blocks from the Halls' place, Frank and Trudy Jugler opened the Chelsea Motor Inn, a six-room, Route 66 tribute motel. They have plans to put up teepees where guests can camp out, and they are restoring an adjoining 1890s house as a bed and breakfast. In keeping with the traveling circus atmosphere so vital to luring tourists along Route 66 in the old days, the Juglers own a pet bison that roams in the backyard. It's named, aptly, Chelsea. "We thought, man, it would be cool to be sitting on a chair in front of a motel on Route 66," says Frank Jugler, a fast-talking, 48-year-old Maryland native. Like the Juglers, some folks are slowly reclaiming the few miles of Route 66 history that run through their city limits. In Flagstaff, Ariz., residents are taking advantage of a facade improvement program that helps Route 66 building owners restore their neon signs. In Albuquerque, N.M., the city bought the historic De Anza Motor Lodge several years ago and recently selected a developer to restore the landmark as an upscale Route 66 destination. A few places are getting by on America's Main Street. Elm's Motel in Claremore, 30 miles west of Chelsea, is a series of modest yellow and brown cottages, with ivy creeping along the sides. Garages used to be attached to each cottage, but proprietors figured they could squeeze another room in and they were yanked. "There's not that many old places left in Claremore," laments owner Tommy Copp, 68, who bought the place about 30 years ago. "They're pretty much gone by the wayside. That's called progress." The story becomes sadder with each mile marker. Canute, a dusty town of 500 or so about 105 miles west of Oklahoma City, hides a Route 66 landmark in the Cotton Boll Motel. With its classic red, white and green neon sign shaped like a tuft of cotton, the Boll is one of the most photographed along the route. Its owner, Pat Webb, checked into the 16-room building in the mid-1990s and never left. The 55-year-old oil field pipe inspector turned part of it into his private home and playground for his grandchildren. But he has no plans to reopen the place to the public. Liability insurance alone would eat up profits, he figures. "I just leave the sign up so people can take pictures," he says with a shrug. Forty more miles west, and another unhappy ending. When 62-year-old retiree Klaus Battenfeld bought the Westwinds Motel 12 years ago, he didn't think fixing it up would turn into such a hassle. But the adobe-style structure in Erick, a town of 1,000 located near the Texas border, proved too much work. It needs a new roof, electric, air conditioning. He is selling the overgrown property, where tumbleweeds blow across the courtyard like in some Wild West movie. Then, back to Germany. "It's written in the big book, maybe it's not designed for me to stay here for the rest of my life," Battenfeld says in a thick German accent. Retirement is on hold. There was a detour on Route 66.
I truly love this road and have made the journey end to end Five times....including a stop so Brian Everrett could do a rt66 tat for me,maybe someday we could set up a rod tour end to end and just pick up guys on the way across...if ya get a chance read anything on the road by Micheal Wallis,he was the voice of the cop car in the movie CARS. Like the broiler in Califorina we need to save as much of the mother road as we can .......our past is our future
In 1955 my family moved with everything we owned in a 1950 chey window panel van from Pa. to Ca. on route 66. took us twelve days we stopped at alot of Indian trading posts and stayed in some neat motels including the TP motel.My mom made an album of all the places we stopped and post cards with pictures of the places we stayed in.We broke 3 wheels cause my dad overloaded the van.He built boxes on top to hold all our stuff.I was pretty young and can`t remember everything but the album is great! My mom even kept a reciept from a gas station, removed the spark plugs and clean them,reset the points and filled the tank one quart of oil, total cost.......$4.75 One of my favorite stops was at the Garbage Can Cafe it had a giant garbage can painted on top of the building,I was kinda scared to eat there,but the pie was great
We are planning an end-to-end Route 66 run in the very near future, possibly in Flower's roadster. I can't wait!
I am planning a little reliability run on route 66 during the HAMB drags. I want to do a 3 state run with just a little of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. About an hour and a half. Come and go with us. John
We run some of 66 on the way back from Stray Kat 500, every year. This year we had our 90 year old Mother with us. Her first time on 66 she said.
Hey, Wuz-Junk, If you need any help in just might around. Let me know if i can do anyting on the Run.
Kent, I too truly love the mother road, I remember being a kid about 14 reading about guys cruising across the country in their rods and vowed that someday that I'd do the same. I got that chance in 1993 during my return trip from the 1st Americruise. Did it in a highboy 34 3W coupe, at the time I was making a mad thrash to make it home to the last day of the LA Roadster Show,-didn't make it and killed a bitchen set of very rare dirt track tires in the process. Had the time of my life though taking in all of the stops and staying off of I 40. Infact, Lisa & I drove that very stretch of 66 mentioned in the article. You can read about our trip to Americruise coincidently in the very same Rod & Custom issue that The Broiler is featured on the cover in Thom Taylor's synopsis of the initial cruise there to Springfeild,MO. We're losing this stuff like this everyday,fight for it people, this is something that you will wish that you as a rodder had a chance to experience.
Dwight, IL has a good diner off I-55 and a GREAT diner off of Old Rt 66. Pontiac, IL has an excellent Rt 66 museum and it's run off of memberships to teh rt66 society and donations. Here in IL it's easy to find Rt 66 once you're south of Joliet. It's the crumbling roadway to nowhere where it's cut off and local county roads where it's not. I so have to get pics of my 5 yr old standing on Rt 66. A fair stretch of Rt 66 goes through downtown Bloomington, IL as well.
I did Rt 66 from Joplin to Santa Monica last year, Oklahoma seems to promote it more but do less to save it then anywhere west of Joplin. Go figure? New Mexico as a whole and particularly the small towns is doing a good job of saving whats left, the NM Rt 66 Assn. even put together a program to finance restoring historical neon signs. Unfortunatly Albuquerque's current admendstration feels the old 66 thru town is a eyesore and attracts "undesirables" so they are condemning and tearing down all the old motels and such they can.
I've always been in love with Rt. 66 ever since my big sister moved to Seligman, Az when I was a kid. They had a lot of 66 pride and they keep it up over there. I live in New Mexico now and they do a lot here to keep the Mother Road alive. I hope one day to make the trip from LA to Chicago...
..."an avenue for thousands of Okies who migrated west to escape the Dust Bowl "... Dust Bowl? Al Gore hadn't made his award winning movie about global warming and there weren't any SUV's or too many incandescent light bulbs to destroy the planet...how could there have been a "dust bowl"?
The yellow truck in the picture is my son's. We got it 13 years ago from the original owner and hauled it home in pieces. When we were cleaning it up and storing pieces until it could be put back on the road we found the glove box liner with all of it contents in one of the boxes. Along with the original warranty documentation, owners manual and other dealer crap we found two old road maps from the 50s. Hugh and Jenny (the original owners) drove the truck to California in July of 58 on vacation with their two kids. Hugh built a wood frame and covered it with canvas (ala camper shell) for the trip. Jenny faithfully marked each days travel on the map with a red pencil noting where they stayed and the date. We used to place the maps in the open glove box at shows until I caught a guy trying to lift one of them. The truck came from Morris Chevrolet in downtown Oklahoma City, Hugh bought it with the 235 CI inliner and passed up the oil filter option because he couldn't afford the $25 it cost. He drove the truck over 110K mile before giving it to my son. Larry CB_Chief
I live in Lexington (between Pontiac and Bloomington) and occaisionally hop on 66 to take a more relaxed ride into town instead of using 55. There's lots of buildings like in the article, even in the small stretch that I traverse...
I am doing a westward end to end run of Rt. 66 just before the HAMB drags. Chicago to Santa Monica. Filming it all too. Going to be a blast.
Ya know if you really have the time...look for the 1926 alingment of the road in Ill. it is mostly cobble stone and winds through some beautiful farm land ending up in some small towns,I found it by mistake the first time.....maybe next summer we should try to do a rt66 run if gas is'nt $5 a gallon.And those doing it this year if I can help drop me a pm..Like Kevin said earlier Ya gotta do this once in you life.............its our history
During our move to W.V. from Cali. we whipped the ol U-Haul off I-40 whenever we could to get a bite or a room on old Rt.66. I use to drive out to Amboy, Ca. to play in the sand back in the late 60's from Orange County where I lived at the time. Man I Love That Stuff!!!
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