Joplin puts museum proposal on ballot January 20, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in History, Museums.2 comments
By a 7-2 vote, the City Council of Joplin, Mo., agreed to place a sales-tax referendum on the April ballot to fund the Joplin Museum Complex‘s proposed move to historic Memorial Hall, according to the Joplin Globe.
Voters will be asked to authorize a special museum sales tax of one-sixth of a cent to pay off $7 million in debt that would be used to remodel Memorial Hall for use as exhibit and meeting space for the Joplin Museum Complex.
After the loan was paid off, the tax would be reduced to one-eighth of a cent to support operations of the museum. Brad Belk, the museum director, told the council that the museum staff would increase from 4.5 positions now to about 12 for the larger Memorial Hall museum. Annual operating costs would increase from about $214,000 now to $1.3 million, according to information discussed at the council meeting.
The museum would include displays about the town’s Route 66 history. The Joplin Museum Complex has long been looking for ways to expand its space, as it has as much artifacts in storage as it does on display. Memorial Hall, which was dedicated to area veterans, also is being underused as a performance venue.
Severa members of American Legion Post 13 opposed the plan, even though the plan includes exhibit space to Joplin’s veterans and the town’s wartime efforts. The plan also would add two seats on the museum’s board to area veterans, and area veterans groups could continue to use Memorial Hall for meetings.
However, a representative from a veterans group in nearby Carthage, Mo., supported the plan.
A number of people asked whether the historic railroad depot was an option. It is not:
Asked by Councilman Bill Scearce whether the Union Depot would be suitable for the museum’s purpose, Belk said the museum board had looked at it five years ago and determined it was not large enough, was polluted with contaminants, would require extensive and costly infrastructure work, and was not as visible a location as Memorial Hall.
Fourteen people who attended the meeting voiced support for the Memorial Hall museum plan. Seven opposed.
Approving a tax increase amid a recession and changing the original purpose of Memorial Hall is going to be a tough sell. I’m not saying voters won’t approve it, but there had better be a lot of persuasion and education by the museum to get it done.
Historic Kingman hotel may close January 19, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Motels.add a comment
The historic Hotel Brunswick in Kingman, Ariz., may close its doors as early as next week because of rising costs and a poor economy, reported the Kingman Daily Miner.
Co-owner Debra Sixta estimated that the hotel is losing $4,000 to $5,000 a month amid rising utility costs and dropping income.
The hotel opened in 1909, and counts movie star Clark Gable and presidential candidate Sen. Barry Goldwater as former guests. The business has seen a flurry of different owners since it reopened after a 20-year hiatus in 1994.
Sixta didn’t say what would happen to the property if it’s shuttered, as expected.
The myriad of complaints about Hotel Brunswick in the newspaper story’s comments, plus poor ratings in Trip Advisor, possibly should be taken with a grain of salt. However, they may indicate that all Hotel Brunswick needs is a new and better owner.
Williams may change street’s name to Route 66 January 19, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Highways, History, Towns.2 comments
Tucked away in a story posted today by the Williams-Grand Canyon News about the Williams, Ariz., city council was this little item:
Council members also discussed whether to change the name of Mountain Man Trail to Route 66, or “Old Route 66,” during the Jan. 14 meeting, but decided to table the matter for discussion at a work session held Jan. 19.
Mountain Man Trail is a dirt and gravel road east of Williams that indeed was Route 66 and the National Old Trails Highway until about 1931. A map can be seen here. That alignment is more obscure because it essentially dead-ends at Interstate 40.
Since the traditional alignment of Route 66 in Williams is so well-marked, I had assumed that the town had already named one of the streets there after the Mother Road. However, the two main drags that were 66 are Grand Canyon Avenue and East Railroad Avenue.
Route 66 Multimedia update January 19, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Computer games, Road trips.add a comment
The students at California State-Hayward have posted a video update of their Route 66 Multimedia Experience project. Here, they show the nuts and bolts of how they’re making it function within the skeleton of a vintage Volkswagen Beetle.
Cost-share grant season begins January 18, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Preservation.add a comment
Now is the time of year in which you can apply for a cost-share grant from the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program.
These grants, which cover up to 50 percent of the cost of a project, mostly are awarded for repairs or improvements to historic properties along Route 66.
Applications can be found here, or you can e-mail IM_Rt66(at)nps(dot)gov to request a hard copy of the form. Applications can be submitted up to April 2. Cost-share grants will be announced after May 21.
If you have any questions about the program, don’t hesitate to call the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program office in Santa Fe, N.M., at 505-988-6027.
“I have a dream” January 18, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in History, Motels.12 comments
(This was originally posted three years ago. It’s appropriate to repost it for the holiday.)
This is the full version of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963.
So what does King have to do with Route 66? Well, there’s this passage:
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” [...] We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. [...] We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: “For Whites Only.”
I occasionally long to time-travel back a few decades to see Route 66 during its heyday, to see its restaurants, motels and businesses. But I hold no desire to stay in that time of widespread racial discrimination.
Michael Wallis, author of “Route 66: The Mother Road,” alluded to this during a speech in 2003:
… [T]he late great Nat King Cole, the man with the velvet voice who helped immortalize this very highway by singing Bobby Troup’s “Get Your Kicks,” [...] for way too long would not be able to check into even a modest tourist court or dine in a greasy spoon on the Mother Road or any other road in this country.
“As a boy, I saw the ‘No colored’ signs at gas stations on my Route 66 just as I did on the roads of the Deep South. I also saw signs in cafe windows declaring, ‘No dogs, No Indians,’ and only yards away a Native American craftsman sold his hand-fashioned art from the sidewalk. Black families traveling American’s byways packed their own food and often slept in their vehicles. They didn’t get their kicks on Route 66, or at least the kind of kicks I was getting as a youngster as a hitchhiking Marine. At highway stops such as the Rock Cafe in Stroud, Oklahoma, during the ’30s and ’40s and ’50s and into the ’60s, black travelers went to the back door to get their food to go. None of them walked inside.
I’ve noticed that racism along Route 66 nowadays is more subtle and has evolved, targeting Asian-Americans who actually own motels along the road. One of the more snide comments heard is: “If you smell curry, leave in a hurry.”
I’m not the only one who has noticed this unwarranted bias. Wallis saw it, too, and urged Route 66 travelers to “choose the high road” instead.
“… [J]ust look around you. Just look at our highway today. Read the … signs on motels and other businesses proclaiming in great big letters “American Owned.” … Signs that serve no good purpose except to divide us and slap us in the face.
“… Remember the many, many reputable motel owners and operators from Indian, Pakistan, and Asia who are doing their dead-level best to provide service in their adopted homeland. Many of them are American citizens. Most are well-educated and hail from the state of Gujarat in India. Many of these have the surname Patel, as common a name in that state as Martinez is in New Mexico. [...]
“So please, I ask you to make your decisions wisely. Mark Twain said, ‘Travel cures prejudice.’ That may be true, but still you have to consider your actions and the daily decisions you make as a traveler.
“You my good friends, my loved ones . . . strive to be all you can be. Take the high road whenever you can. Reject the ignorant and the ill informed. Turn your backs on the purveyors of hatred. Seek out the good in all people. Conform your actions to the good of all others. Release your righteous indignation. Admit when you’re wrong. Embrace your own humanity.
“Choose the high road. It takes strength and discipline to choose that path. Take a step in its direction — one step at a time, one day at a time.
“Make every single day your own masterpiece. Make wise choices but never be afraid of risk. Seek out the crooked paths, the roads of genius. Enjoy the journey.”
Harvey House in Barstow to mark centennial January 17, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Attractions, History, Railroad.add a comment
The historic Harvey House in Barstow, Calif., is set to mark the 100th anniversary with a series of events and celebrations this year, according to the Desert Dispatch.
The celebration is expected to kick off with a Harvey House Farmer’s Market Day on the third Saturday of every month until September, according to Sielski. Sielski said the chamber will host a Harvey House Centennial Celebration on August 14, and there are plans for an event to mark the anniversary of the grand opening in 2011.
“Our focus is to bring attention to the building’s history as well as trying to keep it going into the future,” Sielski said.
The Harvey House in Barstow is home to the Barstow Route 66 Mother Road Museum.
Railroad Harvey Houses were key to generating tourism in the desert Southwest, and helped pave the way for Route 66.
The grim state of the Route 66 Bridge January 17, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Bridges, Preservation.2 comments
A representative from the Missouri Department of Transportation attended the Route 66 Association of Missouri’s meeting this weekend and painted a grim picture of the state of the Route 66 Bridge near Eureka, Mo., adjacent to Route 66 State Park.
The state recently closed the bridge to the public and has proposed demolishing the dilapidated structure, for safety reasons. Preservationists hope that a third party could take over maintenance of the bridge and perhaps convert it into at least a pedestrian span.
Longtime St. Louis-area roadie and author Joe Sonderman attended the meeting and had this to say in an e-mail:
It appears a conscious decision was made several years earlier that may make it impossible to save the historic bridge. Karen Yeomans, P.E., area engineer for West St. Louis County, said that MoDOT has been working for the past six years to identify a funding source to repair the bridge. The agency encouraged listing on the National Register of Historic Places to increase opportunities for federal funding, looked into the possibility of Scenic Byway funds and twice offered to turn maintenance of the bridge over to the Department of Natural Resources and State Parks.
However, a decision was made in 2007 to not spend limited MoDOT resources on maintaining a bridge that does not link communities. That decision was made without consulting the public. Since then, the bridge has deteriorated rapidly. Yeomans pointed out that MoDOT is responsible for over 10,000 bridges, many of which are in substandard condition, while the state budget woes continue.
Efforts were made to extend the life of the bridge. The weight limit was decreased to 15 tons in 2005, ten tons in 2007, and five tons in the fall of 2009. It was restricted to one lane to keep loads in the middle of the span in 2007, and some repair work was done in 2006.
Harms detailed the problems with the bridge, including photos that showed entire sections of structural members eaten away by rust, buckled beams, deteriorating concrete and unsafe railings. He said not only could the bridge not be repaired at a reasonable cost, it can no longer even be inspected practically. According to Harms, the bridge can no longer support the weight of the “snooper” bucket trucks MoDOT uses to perform inspections. Summing up, Harms said to save the bridge, crews “would almost have to take it apart and put it back together.” He also added that left as is, the bridge could collapse under its own weight in two or three years, making it unsafe even for pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
And here are some photos of the bridge’s corrosion that were presented at the meeting:
As you can see, the photos paint a grim picture of the bridge’s condition.
However, if the bridge has to be removed, Sonderman said MoDOT historian Jane Lee is holding her employer’s feet to the fire, making sure the agency is following all the rules to do so. That includes consultation and public meetings with all interested parties, including the state Route 66 association. Lee and Yeomans suggested contacting the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Missouri Historic Preservation Office and MoDOT to voice concerns about the proposed demolition of the bridge.
I suspect MoDOT took the bridge off the maintenance list in 2007 for pragmatic reasons. The current recession began in late 2007, and signs were abundant well before then that the economy was faltering. Therefore, it would have seemed sensible, at first glance, to not dedicate dwindling repair funds to a bridge that was seeing fewer than 500 vehicles a day.
However, I’ll bet a number of folks at the Department of Natural Resources are not on speaking terms with MoDOT. The decision to not maintain the bridge ultimately has hurt Route 66 State Park. The lack of a bridge has left the park’s main office on a dead-end road. To access the rest of the park, one has to take a convoluted route on Interstate 44 and frontage roads. Had there been public oversight on the decision to defer the Route 66 Bridge’s maintenance, the DNR undoubtedly would have protested the decision. Instead, this was a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul within Missouri’s state government.
Bob Waldmire interview to be replayed January 16, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Art, People, Radio.add a comment
A one-hour radio interview conducted with late Route 66 artist Bob Waldmire in 2008 will be rebroadcast over the Internet on Monday afternoon on BOUNCE Talk Radio.
The broadcast time is 3 p.m. Eastern, noon Pacific time, Monday on the “Route 66 Radio Show.” The show is hosted by Bob Moore, former executive editor of Route 66 Magazine.
The original broadcast of the Waldmire interview was April 25, 2008, with Moore presiding over the interview. Waldmire, a longtime ambassador of Route 66 and an acclaimed artist of the historic road, died of cancer last month.
BOUNCE Talk Radio can be found here.
Logan County sees huge jump in tourism dollars January 16, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Attractions, Motels, Preservation, Restaurants.1 comment so far
Geoff Ladd, tourism director for Logan County, Ill., saw an unprecedented jump of 30 percent in tourism revenue in 2009, and Route 66 played a role in that, reported the Lincoln Courier.
There were a number of reasons cited in the rise in motel tax revenue: the opening of a Hampton Inn and the reopening of the Lincoln Inn as a Best Western.
“Other reasons for the increase were all the activities related to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial, the continued strong presence of Route 66 travelers and a record setting year for the Lincoln Art & Balloon Festival,” said Ladd. “We also had the amazing renovation of the Lincoln Inn, now a beautiful Best Western.”
Ladd said he has seen a significant jump in the numbers at the Best Western, and he expects an even bigger jump from that facility this year.
“The addition of the world’s largest covered wagon to the facility will help establish the Best Western as a great Route 66 hotel experience,” said Ladd.
Considering the increase occurred during one of the worst recessions in U.S. history, Logan County’s performance is very impressive.
Ladd deserves a lot of the credit. Motel-tax revenue has risen in each of the four years he’s been county tourism director. It’s not a coincidence that he’s a big Route 66 booster — The Mill in Lincoln probably would be gone if it wasn’t for his efforts.