What to do about the Route 66 State Park bridge

Kip Welborn, who is a Route 66 enthusiast in St. Louis, has been keeping up with the grave situation over the dilapidated Route 66 Bridge at Route 66 State Park near Eureka, Mo., that is scheduled to eventually be torn down for safety reasons.

Here are excerpts of an e-mail Welborn sent:

… I talked to Mark Miles, the director of the State Historic Preservation Office in the Department of Natural Resources.  I have worked with him for years and think highly of him.  He told me that MoDOT is well aware of the National Register listing of the bridge.  He also reminded me that MoDOT has an excellent record of working within the rules of the National Historic Preservation Act, including the Section 106 review process.  Here in St. Louis County, they took pains to save as many historic buildings and neighborhoods as possible when designing the new I-64, including some even I didn’t think were that important.  So Mark feels that the review process will be thorough, and it won’t be completed overnight.

Now, here are the issues that we should be addressing, as I see them:

1.  The park is an important economic generator for Missouri, one of the premier attractions along the whole length of the road.  Therefore it is in the state’s economic interest to see that visitors have the best possible experience so that they want to come back and tell their friends.

2.  Having the visitors center cut off from the rest of the park is unacceptable, regardless of how well marked the alternative routes are, for several reasons: It will result in lowered attendance to the visitors center, even if overall park attendance remains the same.It will diminish the visiting experience significantly. It will break the regional trail network that is being developed.

3.  If a bridge is necessary at this location, a restored bridge following the existing design is preferable to a new bridge following a different design, because it will retain its Route 66 significance that is the primary attraction of the park.  The argument that so many materials will have to be replace that it will no longer be the same bridge is not valid; replacement materials are acceptable if necessary under the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for both Rehabilitation and Restoration.

4.  Even if it is determined that restoration of the existing bridge is not feasible, that does not eliminate the need for a bridge of some type at this location.

5.  Because of the importance of this bridge to the park, these decisions about its fate should not be exclusively the prerogative of MoDOT.  The Division of Parks in DNR must also be involved, which doesn’t seem to be happening now.

6.  The current condition of the state budget should not determine the fate of the bridge.  Funds not available now may be available in future budgets, but once the bridge is gone, it is gone forever.

Mark Miles of the State Historic Preservation Office agreed that we should be expressing our opinions about this as strongly as possible.

With that, it was recommended that letters with these bullet points be written to Gov. Jay Nixon; Pete Rahn at the state Department of Transportation; Mark N. Templeton at the state Department of Natural Resources, Rep. Michael Vogt, District 66; Rep. Chris Carter, District 61; Rep. Rachel Storch, District 64; Rep. Michele Kratky, District 61; Rep. Jeanne Kirkton, District 91; Rep. Dwight Scharnhorst, District 93; Rep. Mike Leara, District 95; Rep. Michael Frame, District 105; Rep. Scott Dieckhaus, District 109; Rep. Charles Schlottach, District 111; and Rep. Brian D. Nieves, District 98. I’ve included contact page links to each of these legislators.