A new wrinkle on Wrink’s Market July 19, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Art, Books, Businesses, Food, History, Museums, People, Radio, Restaurants.8 comments
For an all-too-brief period, Terry Wrinkle resurrected Wrink’s Market, the longtime Route 66 business in Lebanon, Mo., owned and operated by his late father Glenn Wrinkle.
When Terry shut down the business in 2009, the future of the building looked cloudy.
However, in recent weeks, the old Wrink’s Market has found new life with D.C. Decker’s Cowboy Emporium, which operates as a part restaurant, part art museum, and part western museum.
The restaurant part is tucked into a corner of the Wrink’s building, where “healthy” sandwiches are served with about a dozen varieties Arbuckle Mountain fried pies.
Decker’s also serves and is a supplier of Arbuckle’s Ariosa Coffee, “the coffee that won the West.”
The museum part includes a lot of Old West memorabilia, including a genuine 1896 Hickory chuckwagon.
Decker once was a custom boot maker. Some of his handiwork sits on the shelves.
And the store contains plenty of western-themed art for sale.
The proprietor is Don Decker, an expert on the culture and history the Old West and American Indians.
He once hosted a radio show in Arizona, and said he assisted “Route 66: The Mother Road” author Michael Wallis when Wallis was researching a book about Cherokee Nation chief Wilma Mankiller.
Decker is happy to show you around and tell stories. Don’t be surprised if you stick around longer than you thought — a common but happy problem with the many characters who inhabit Route 66.
(D.C. Decker’s Cowboy Emporium is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. It is in the old Wrink’s Market off Exit 130 of Interstate 44. The phone number is 951-219-0813. Don Decker also is on Facebook here.)
Two-steppin’ back in time July 18, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Businesses, History, Music, Television.2 comments
Someone posted a newscast video from circa 1987 by the now-defunct KTSP-TV in Phoenix about Bert’s Country Dancin’, a place that held dances only on Saturday nights on old Route 66 between Hackberry and Valentine, Ariz.
This site had a bit more information about Bert’s:
That was when Bert Denton, a retired cowboy and sometimes fiddle player, had his imprimatur on the place. A hound would greet guests at the door, and a draft beer could be had for a dollar. A sign on the wall notified guests of Bert’s credit policy, “The banks don’t sell beer. I don’t make loans.”
Regrettably, I think Bert’s no longer operates.
Route 66 Alliance update July 17, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Route 66 Associations.add a comment
Michael Wallis, chairman of the Route 66 Alliance, posted this video update over the weekend.
You’ll find a few tidbits of info on the clip, including donations to Harley and Annabelle Russell (aka The Mediocre Music Makers) during Annabelle’s cancer battle, and a 2012 cross-country caravan to mark the opening of Cars Land at Disneyland Resort.
Another piece of news is that the Route 66 Alliance’s website is truly up and running. I’ve already made a donation to the nonprofit through the site.
El Vado seen as catalyst for area redevelopment July 17, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Motels, Preservation.add a comment
It’s vague on plans for the historic El Vado Motel in Albuquerque, but a city official indicated that preservation would be a priority in whatever redevelopment plan comes forward, according to a report this weekend in the Albuquerque Journal.
Ben Ortega of the city’s Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency is set to propose to the city council a redevelopment around the property next month.
The initial plan won’t include development proposals for the motel itself, but will instead offer ideas for business incentives, boundary limits, street fronts and signage, Ortega said. [...]
Ortega visited the motel, a white adobe building with traditional vegas along the ceilings and Pueblo murals above each room, for the first time Friday. He said the city will try and preserve the Southwestern style in whatever application it finds for the historic building.
“I’m encouraged,” Ortega said after surveying the motel. “A lot of character-defining elements are still intact. … We would have an interest to keep those.” [...]
Since the city takes ownership of the motel and the area around it is slated to soon undergo major rezoning, many options are open for the old building, Ortega said.
“The city owns the property, and we can control the development on the property, rather than waiting for the private sector,” he said.
The 1936 El Vado Motel along Central Avenue (aka Route 66) closed in 2005 after new owner Richard Gonzales said he wanted to raze it to make way for luxury townhouses. The city seized the property a few years later after a long fight to preserve it, and the Journal reports that the city replaced the roof, stabilizing the structure.
Closed Silver Moon Lodge in Albuquerque is razed July 15, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Motels.1 comment so far
The closed Silver Moon Lodge along Central Avenue (aka Route 66) near downtown Albuquerque was razed Thursday to make way for a planned grocery store, retail space, and apartments, reported KOB-TV.
The motel, which dated to the 1950s, had been closed for several years. Longtime Route 66 roadie Mark Potter said back then, it was a Desert Skies Motor Hotel. Here’s a postcard when it later was the Desert Inn Motor Hotel.
The Duke City has seen another high-profile loss to the wrecking in recent months, including the Aztec Motel. Albuquerque has a unique situation in which at least two dozen vintage motels still stand along Central Avenue, and not nearly enough Route 66ers and other tourist traffic to keep them going.
So the owners are forced to use most of them as low-income housing or apartments, or convert them into something else entirely.
With Route 66 essentially being a cottage industry, Albuquerque for now seems to be focused a very few historic Mother Road motels, including De Anza and El Vado Motel.
(Hat tip: Mark Potter)
New 66-to-Cali structure dedicated July 14, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Businesses, Events.5 comments
Dan Rice had been looking for moving his 66-to-Cali souvenir shack into something more permanent on the Santa Monica Pier.
This week, the mayor of Santa Monica and other local dignitaries attended a ribbon-cutting Tuesday at the new, improved 66-to-Cali on the pier.
Rice wrote in an email:
The support we got from Santa Monica for finally putting a permanent shop on the pier for Route 66 after nearly 85 years was really great. We had people from all sorts of great organizations in the city show up and it was really a wonderful, collaborative spirit during the shoot. They’ve been really supportive of all we’ve started here in the last two years, and it’ll be fun to see what can come from this and all these relationships as they develop into the future.
In the photo, left to right, you’ll see:
- Lynne Miller, Treasurer of the California Historic Route 66 Association,
- Mat Blaine, new Sales Manager for us at 66-to-Cali,
- Misti Kerns, the President & CEO of the Santa Monica Convention & Visitors Bureau,
- myself, Jessica & our new little guy (one month old that morning!),
- Mayor Richard Bloom,
- Executive Director of the California Route 66 Preservation Foundation Glen Duncan,
- Carol Lemlein, President, Board of Directors at Santa Monica Conservancy
- John Madigan, Membership Director at Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce
- Jim Harris, Author, Community Venue Liason, and Santa Monica Pier Historian
- Steve Gibson, Interim Director of the Pier Restoration Corporation
- Tom Miller, Parliamentarian of the California Historic Route 66 Association
(Photo courtesy of Brandon Wise / Santa Monica Daily Press)
Motoring with the Motor City Madman July 14, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Music.add a comment
In this fascinating interview, Ted Nugent reveals that the Rolling Stones’ version of “Route 66″ inspired dozens of guitar riffs for his songs, then plays that Bobby Troup tune:
I’d always noted the resemblance. But the Motor City Madman confirmed it.
Needles will mark Route 66′s 85th year with festival July 13, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Events.1 comment so far
The city of Needles, Calif., is planning a Nov. 11-12 gala to mark the 85th anniversary of the creation of U.S. Highway 66, reported the Needles Desert Star.
Plans thus far are to have car show participants come into town around lunch time Nov. 11, sign into the hotel they are going to stay at and receive their “poker card.” They then will get ready to participate in a procession that will begin around the Burger Hut on Broadway. There will be a barbecue for the participants.
The second day of the event will feature a car show, a disc jockey playing 50s music and a street dance that evening. Group members are planning to have vendors at the event also. The event falls on Veteran’s Day weekend so the group intends to include some type of patriotic ceremony to pay homage to veterans.
While plans are being solidified, they are still subject to change. The location of the car show is yet to be finalized along with what vendors will be available and other details.
The report indicates that the organizers are being prodded by members of the California Historic Route 66 Association to get going on the event. Having been involved in other festival planning myself, I’d say the association’s polite-but-firm pleas are appropriate.
A tragedy to residents of Arizona’s Mother Road July 11, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in People, Religion.add a comment
A heartbreaking story in the New York Times on Sunday told about a Catholic priest, the Rev. Clement A. Hageman, who sexually abused boys in the Arizona Route 66 towns of Kingman, Winslow, and Holbrook from the early 1940s until his death in 1975.
The church claims its problems with priest abuse coincided with the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s. But much of the Hageman case predates that era.
The whole story is worth reading. I made a few observations of my own while checking other aspects of the report:
— Although the Times reports Hageman’s abuse goes to the early ’40s, diocese documents posted at BishopAccountability.org make it clear his problems with boys date to the late 1930s, at least. A cryptically worded letter indicated red flags in 1927, and it’s very likely he became a problem priest shortly after his ordainment in 1930.
— Those who aren’t familiar with the Southwest can’t conceive how much power Catholic priests wield, especially over local Hispanic culture. Because of that, victims and their families would have been much less likely to rat out abusive priests.
— Folks will claim Hageman was just one bad apple. That said, there must be a lot of bad apples. Even my central Illinois hometown of just 1,200 people fell victim during the 1970s to an abusive priest who — you guessed it — was reassigned by the diocese to another parish. He finally went to prison during the 1980s. (For the record, I’m non-Catholic, so I never had the misfortune of directly dealing with him.) The decades-long priest-abuse scandal will remain a black eye for the Catholic Church for a long, long time.
One has to wonder … how many men are still walking the streets of Holbrook, Winslow, and Kingman, filled with torment because of one man’s terrible actions?
Magic Lamp Inn will host preservation fundraiser July 10, 2011
Posted by Ron Warnick in Events, Gas stations, Preservation, Vehicles.3 comments
The historic Magic Lamp Inn on Route 66 in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., is hosting the Cucamonga Classics Route 66 Car Show on July 30 to help benefit the California Historic Route 66 Association‘s preservation fund.
The flyer for the event is at left (click to enlarge). It will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. that day in the restaurant’s parking lot.
Kevin Hansel, who’s on the association’s board again after a three-year absence, says the event was spurred by efforts to preserve the historic Cucamonga Service Station on Route 66 in Rancho Cucamonga. The group is called SOS Committee, or Save Our Station.
The back repair shop of the property collapsed during severe rainstorms last year, but the main service station still stands.
Proceeds from the event will go to preservation of Route 66 properties in California, Hansel said.
The entry form for the event is here; a donation receipt is here.