A recent broadcast focused on early 20th-century architect Mary Colter, widely recognized as one of the greatest of the Southwest. A longtime architect and designer for the Fred Harvey Company, Colter’s best-known works exist at La Posada in Winslow and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, both major attractions for Route 66 travelers.

Here’s the broadcast about Colter:

The radio station also posted bonus audio segments. This one delves into the condition of many of Colter’s hotels:

More about Colter’s career with the Fred Harvey Company:

And a short history of the Fred Harvey Company:

A very good book about Fred Harvey and his company is Stephen Fried’s “Appetite for America.” My review of the book is here.

A photo illustration of the proposed Route 66 museum inside the Ilfeld-Johnson Warehouse in Santa Rosa, N.M.

The New Mexico Legislature was set to give $325,000 to help revitalize the historic Ilfeld Warehouse in downtown Santa Rosa and create a Route 66 museum there, according to the town’s newspaper.

The Guadalupe County Communicator, in its print edition, reported that the legislation would “set aside the funds toward creation of a Route 66 museum in the old railroad warehouse,” along with several other county projects.

Now owned by the City of Santa Rosa but sitting on railroad property, the building is being eyed for a transformation into a museum, with officials hoping it would help bring new life to the economically troubled downtown business district. [...]

Historian Johnnie Meier, proprietor of the Classical Gas Museum in Embudo, N.M., is proposed leasing the Ilfeld, bring his vas collection of antique gas pumps and other vintage memorabilia to jump start a New Mexico Route 66 Museum modeled after other state museums along the old “Mother Road.”

One document on the Legislature’s website indicates only $150,000 for the Ilfeld Warehouse. However, that document is dated Feb. 10, and may not reflect later amendments to the proposal.

Both houses of the Legislature approved the capital-outlays package that contained the Ilfeld proposal. However, Gov. Susana Martinez vowed to veto any line item she deemed as “pork.” The governor has until March 7 to decide.

The city of Tucumcari, about 55 miles to the east, also is trying to woo Meier’s collection for its own Route 66 museum. Santa Rosa also applied for a National Scenic Byways grant to help fix up the warehouse.

The capital-outlays bill also contains at least $250,000 in improvements for Santa Rosa’s Blue Hole, which is a Route 66 attraction.

An artist's rendering of the proposed history and Route 66 museum in Litchfield.

The group that’s seeking to build a Litchfield Museum and Route 66 Welcome Center in Litchfield, Ill., seems to be fairly well-organized.

According to a report in The Journal-News, based in nearby Hillsboro, the group has:

• Landed a general contractor, who pledges to use subcontractors and supplies entirely from Litchfield, except for the neon lighting.
• The contractor showed a detailed blueprint of the building, including each room and its purpose.
• Fund-raisers for the museum are planned, including a golf tournament, bowling tournament and Andy Ritchie’s cross country cycling trip.
• Paperwork that would make the museum group a nonprofit has been filed.
• A website for the museum is being set up.

The hardest part will be actually raising enough funds. Once the money’s there, the contractor estimates the building can be finished within 120 days. The museum will be directly across the street from the historic Ariston Cafe on Route 66.

Here’s the video report:

Bridge Boulevard was Route 66 from 1926 to 1937, when the Route went southward to Los Lunas before resuming its westward direction. The better-known Central Avenue alignment didn’t become Route 66 until 1938.

According to the station:

Planners see broader sidewalks in the future, with benches shaded by big trees and more restaurants and shops in a pedestrian-friendly environment. [...]

The federal government has kicked in $500,000 in grant money for planning, while the county is chipping in another $380,000. Construction on the Gateway Park/ Bridge-Isleta part of the project will start next Monday. The rest of the makeover is still in the planning stages.

The county meeting was still in session at the time of this writing. I sorta hope the makeover doesn’t make the area too nice — that part of town has a gruff, non-yuppie charm that’s refreshing.

The Illinois Route 66 Association reported Mowery’s death today on its website.

Mowery was among the very first members inducted into the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame in 1990.

Mowery was living in a nursing home in Fairbury at the time of his death. The funeral will be Tuesday at Trinity Lutheran Church in Fairbury.

His career with the state police started in 1941; according to the Pontiac Daily Leader, he was a member of the first-ever Illinois State Police cadet class. Save for a time when he re-enlisted in the Marines in World War II, his state police career continued through his retirement in 1974. He was a captain the last eight years of his tenure.

The current Illinois State Police District 6 commander, Capt. Sue Jansky, heaped praise on Mowery:

His Illinois State Police career spanned 33 years and is testimony to a living history, Jansky noted.

“He began his service operating a motorcycle and near the conclusion of it, survived a helicopter crash,” she said.

Jansky went on to say that while she is 50 years his junior, opposite his gender and “with a world less experience and he is as gracious and accepting an individual as I have experienced in my career.”

Mowery’s office was the unique, Art Moderne-inspired Illinois State Police District 6 building near Pontiac, built the same year he began his police career. The building also was next to Route 66:

Traffic along Route 66 continued to increase throughout the 1940s, and the headquarters was busy round the clock.  In 1944, the route was widened to four lanes through this region of Illinois, and two additional highway lanes were constructed directly in front of the building.  Speed limits were imposed during the 1950s.  By then, officers drove distinctively marked black and white cars with crackling radios and flashing blue lights.  Their work had a clear focus–reducing the rapidly rising death toll from highway accidents.

The construction of Interstate 55, about a half mile to the west of Route 66 during the 1970s, led to a decrease in traffic on Route 66.  The Illinois State Police remained headquartered in the building until 2003 when the police moved to a new facility in Pontiac.  The historic headquarters is vacant today, but remains an important local landmark.  It was listed in the National Register in 2007.

Mowery’s obituary also is posted at the Duffy-Pils Memorial Home website.

It’s effective, regardless.

The video was created by Petroglyph Pictures, which proclaims to be “capturing America’s stories.”

Petroglyph also produced this video about the Walnut Street Inn, a bed-and-breakfast just south of Route 66 in Springfield, Mo.

This is a little off-topic, but Route 66 fans often are fans of other historic highways, including U.S. 40, aka the National Road. Brusca also has inspired a great many Route 66ers, and vice versa.

Here’s the video from Kickstarter that explains his project:

In essence, Brusca seeks to publish before-and-after photos of U.S. 40, comparing them to images from the 1953 George R. Stewart book, “U.S. 40: Cross Section of the United States.”

At each scene I have been shooting high resolution digital images, 35mm B&W negatives and chromes, and 360-degree virtual reality images. I am also shooting medium format B&W negatives and chromes using a camera that is an exact clone to the one used by Stewart. My goal is to have these images published in the first complete update to Stewart’s original book.

This work is being coordinated with the George Stewart estate.

Brusca seeks to raise $22,000 within 21 days. He’s offering goodies for financial backers, depending on the pledge amount.

In my personal library, I own a book called “U.S. 40 Today,” by Thomas R. Vale and Geraldine R. Vale. It had a similar format as Brusca’s project — comparing old Stewart photos to latter-day ones. However, the book was published in 1983, and in black-and-white photos only. Brusca’s project is going the extra mile — and more current, obviously.

Brusca’s project is much like Russell Olsen’s much-praised “The Complete Route 66 Lost and Found,” which combined two of Olsen’s earlier before-and-after photo books.

More about Brusca’s project can be found here. His U.S. 40 website also is worth checking out.

According to KOTV in Tulsa:

Vandals wrote what is believed to be their names on the cultural icon, which was built in 1972, and Catoosa police are investigating. Police are not releasing photos of the graffiti because they feel it will hinder the investigation.

It is unknown when the act occurred, but a member of the Catoosa Arts and Tourism Society/Fins of the Blue Whale took to Twitter Saturday afternoon to address the situation.

“I’m kinda sad….some vandals have defaced my new paint job. I don’t know why people feel the need to do that, I’m just so disappointed.”

According to another report by KTUL-TV in Tulsa, the Route 66 landmark had 15 areas of graffiti.

I happened to be at the Blue Whale that morning to help volunteers remove Christmas lights from it and the nearby Ark. A few observations:

• As indicated in the KOTV report, the vandals very likely implicated themselves with their own graffiti. Within an hour, locals already had a pretty good idea who at least two of them were.
• Members of Catoosa Arts and Tourism Society/Fins of the Blue Whale initially didn’t want to publicize the vandalism, but had a change of heart by afternoon.
• It probably would be overstating it to say the vandalism “defaced” the Blue Whale. The graffiti was done with what appears to be a Sharpie marker over small areas. The graffiti isn’t apparent until you get close to the whale.
• I’ve visited the Blue Whale site dozens of times over the years, and this was the first incident of vandalism I can recall to the whale since it was restored in the late 1990s. The Blue Whale is such an icon, the perpetrators will become pariahs in their community if they’re caught.
• Even before the graffiti, the Blue Whale was scheduled to get another coat of paint within a few weeks by the Bill Haynes Co., which made some much-needed initial repairs to the landmark last summer.

In this episode, he cowboys up at a ranch in the Amarillo area:

This is my favorite episode so far. Yamashita is clearly thrilled to be on the back of a horse; it’s something he’ll remember the rest of his life.

The station said:

Three years ago the museum bought the old Barth’s department store building on the northeast quadrant of Park Central Square.

Construction on a new museum was slowed down because of the economy.  There was also less money rolling in from donors, the city, and county.

But the project is once again well underway.  Leaders of the museum say the new “Downtown History Center” will have twice the exhibit space, and will be a lot more visible for visitors.

The square also is on the original Route 66 alignment in Springfield, and the museum contains plenty of artifacts from the Mother Road.

According to the museum’s website, the new museum location will feature “hands-on” history for kids, walking tours, costumed re-enactors, and additional history exhibits. The museum also seeks to add more traveling exhibits.

Here’s an artist’s rendering of the renovated building:

The Barth’s building, by the way, is listed on the city’s historical sites and landmarks list. A Google Street View image of the building now can be found here.

A video report can be viewed here.