The landmark Elbow Inn restaurant and bar in Devil’s Elbow, Missouri, that was damaged by unprecedented floods set up a crowdfunding site today to help rebuild.
The website has been set up through Youcaring.com, with a $50,000 goal.
The restaurant also posted this message on its Facebook page:
Please help us rebuild The Elbow Inn!!! So many have offered help and we are so very grateful for each of you and your words of support!!!
A YouCaring Compassionate Crowdfunding page has been set up to assist in deferring some of the costs to get us rebuilt and reopened. Please click the link below to donate or visit www.youcaring.com and search for The Elbow Inn.
We are in the process of setting up an account for local and cash donations. For more information, please contact us at TheElbowInn@gmail.com.
Again, the direct website to donate is here. The widget to the site is below:
Flooding at the Big Piney River shattered all records, going more than eight feet above the previous worst flood more than 100 years ago. Virtually every building in the old Route 66 village of Devil’s Elbow is damaged or destroyed.
Apparently cleanup of the Elbow Inn began Tuesday. Jack Fenton Jr. posted a few photos on Facebook, including this one:
He also wrote:
I personally wanna say thanks to everyone that came together and offered their help today there’s so many showed and worked hard from early till dark god bless you all it’s amazing how people come together to make things happen! There was 3 hard days work completed in just this one beautiful day we’ve had so far! The Elbow Inn will be back to its historic glory again in time and it’s thanks to the big hearts that are willing to give their time and strength doing the things nobody would want to but know it has to be done!! You all are amazing!!
The Elbow Inn location dates to the 1930s, when it was the Munger-Moss Sandwich Shop. Built by Nelle and Emmett Moss, the business moved to Lebanon, Missouri, in 1946 after Route 66 became realigned and bypassed the town.
But the barbecue cooking eventually returned to that location, and it became known far and wide for it. The Elbow Inn also became known for the tradition of women stapling their bras to the ceiling.
The establishment has been well-known among Route 66 travelers, locals, bikers and Fort Leonard Wood soldiers for years, but it received a boost of new publicity in 2015 when a couple of models stopped there for a Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot — part of the magazine’s tour of Route 66.
UPDATE 5/4/2017: The Elbow Inn posted this message on its Facebook page this morning:
The support received from our friends and Route 66 Roadies in the last couple of days has been nothing short of humbling. We sincerely appreciate each and everyone of you for your support. We still have a long way to go, but with your support, we are on the way! We now have an account set up with Citizens Bank of Newburg in Saint Robert for Corporate, Business, and Cash donation. Please note your donation is for “The Elbow Inn”.
Special thanks to all that have donated on our YouCaring site. If you have not yet made a donation, you can do so by clicking the link and typing “Elbow Inn” into the search field.
We would also like to thank KC Keefer and Route 66 Pictures for the generous donation of proceeds from the sale of the film The Missouri Maze. You can get your copy by visiting https://www.facebook.com/groups/Route66Pictures/permalink/1421703827867685/ […].
(Image of a flooded Elbow Inn and cleanup efforts in Devil’s Elbow, Missouri, by Jack Fenton Jr. via Facebook)
Knowing that there has been this devastating flood, does it make sense to rebuild Devil’s Elbow on the same site? How sensible was it to rebuild San Francisco across or near the San Andreas Fault line after the 1906 earthquake and fire?
Considering how prosperous San Francisco has become, I would say the decision to rebuild was a very good one.
Ron,
You do great charting of past and current history of Route 66. Thank you for your selfless dedication.
There’s a price to history, and a price to the value of a nation under siege by weather changes in our world’s current climate issues and natural environment. The flooding in Devil’s Elbow at this river height and flow capacity has never happened before…. EVER! Sometimes we need to suck it up and help those that make a difference be a difference and trust that the future will allow us to smile for many lifetimes of values once again delivered with help only caring humans could provide. Devil’s Elbow INN and surrounding community has given generations of people from the USA and around the world memories without any boundaries or conditions. God thank them for maintaining a site/area that brings the early 1900’s into the 2000’s with smiles for many generations that have passed and many more to come. Myself and 7 other vehicles traveled through this area in September 2016 from Canada to Chicago and cross country to LA and back home to Vancouver Island in Canada. Our next trip is scheduled for Sept 2018. MY DONATION IS EN ROUTE FROM A CANADIAN Hot Rodder with a 34 Plymouth Coupe and a passion for Route 66 being kept alive forever. I’m not even an American Citizen and I can see the value of this historical site. Join me now and Donate! Any amount will help. Stop the complaints and nay saying and join the value equation where everyone can make a positive difference to the here and now!
Art
For at least two decades I have read that the San Andreas Fault has been overdue for another “slip”. Mankind has a perversity to take on Nature, even though history shows man is no match for Nature when push comes to shove.
Every year in the USA rivers overflow their banks and people are drowned, solely because houses and businesses are built close to river banks. The Mississippi is the worst example, with its levees, along with the position of New Orleans. It is not as if there is a shortage of land in the USA on which to build in safer locations.
In England, with much less land to build on, there is the Thames Barrier, to be raised when London is at risk from flooding. It has been closed 176 times since being built in 1984.
When I worked in civil engineering, I learned of what is called “the 100 year flood” – that is building anything to withstand a once in 100 years flood. Perhaps Devil’s Elbow has suffered its own 100 year flood. Only time will tell.
This was a historic flood, no one in living memory has ever seen the floodwaters reach this elevation before. So yes, it does make sense to rebuild and repair.
If I understand Eric correctly from his responses….the human race should cave in to science, historical data, civil engineering, and any other reason to give up and back off making a difference for the future of mankind locally and internationally. I’m hearing that we should accept historical defeat. I refuse to accept that we should wait and see or give in to historical failure and not learn. I refuse to accept that there is no solutions but defeat. Build once, build again, build over and over. Learn from the past and make each change more resistant to the future! Make the future your friend while learning from the past. Make the impossible the possible! Make the future the change that makes a difference for everyone on this planet including yourself. Make Devil’s Elbow Inn a success!!!
Donate now!
Thanks,
Art
Thank you, Art, but I do not see it as “defeat” but common sense; once bitten twice shy. There were no fatalities at Devil’s Elbow, but there might well have been. In 2015 in America 176 people died in floods. In Asia and Australia, houses, etc are raised high off the ground built so flood waters pass safely through the support structures.
The data given by a government agency about water levels around Devil’s Elbow appears to have been wrong. The recent flood will now be part of the “historic” data, and it is from all the data now available that the decision to rebuild on the same site or build a new town on higher land away from the river should be made. Not on irrational sentimental grounds. Art says “Learn from the past”. I agree.
“Using sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts” is the definition of “Common Sense” Eric. That is never good enough when a situation is multi faceted. Solutions could include dredging the river or coming up with another approach to divert excessive water flows rather than taking a defeatist simple perception attitude under the common sense theme. Learn from the past and make each change more resistant to the future! Make the future your friend while learning from the past. Make the impossible the possible! Change the approach so the future makes a difference based on all intelligence available.
Art
I think Mr. Fee has the right approach. It’s obvious the flood in Devil’s Elbow is a very historic one, and an outlier at that. The chances of that happening again are about one in 100 — typical for a 100-year flood.
At the same time, it’s indisputable the Big Piney River needs to be dredged. If you don’t dredge a river for decades, it will fill up with silt or pebbles — the latter especially because limestone bluffs loom so close to the river there.
Where the money is going to come from for the dredging, I don’t know. But in the meantime, given the other facts above, I see why the owners of the Elbow Inn are so aggressive in rebuilding. They know such an event very likely won’t happen again in their lifetimes.
I don’t have money to help Elbow Inn but I can labor. I have been saving for a route 66 trip and plan to leave June 1st. I will be there to help around the 3rd or 4th.
i’ll send you some money john franklin
Since I met much of the family when they came to Florida a few years back (due to the loss of a brother), a visit to the Elbow Inn has been on my bucket list. If ever there was a family who deserves good things it is this family. My only regret is that I never visited the Elbow in it’s original state. It is still on my “list” and I’ll see the new and improved version. These are great people and deserve to get back a little bit of the love they give.