Route 66 in St. Clair gets its eclipse kicks

Pacific, Villa Ridge, Cuba, Sullivan, Bourbon, Stanton, Eureka and a few southwest suburbs of St. Louis along Route 66 experienced a total eclipse.

But leading the way was St. Clair, Missouri, which had the longest total-eclipse duration on the route of 2 minutes, 41 seconds. Here’s a report from KPLR-TV in St. Louis:

KSDK-TV in St. Louis also filed this report from St. Clair:

KOCO-TV of Oklahoma City ventured all the way to St. Clair to see the phenomenon:

St. Clair even organized an eclipse festival using Route 66 as part of the theme.

Swa Frantzen of Belgium — best known for his pioneering Historic Route 66 website — happened to traveling during his regular Route 66 trip and decided to take photos of the eclipse from the VFW Post in St. Clair, better known as the former Skylark Motel.

Here is one of the eclipse photos he posted on Facebook:

Another view from Facebook of the eclipse in St. Clair:

The view of the near-total eclipse in St. Clair through a filter:

A photographer in St. Clair shot this video as he was shooting still images of the eclipse. It shows how quickly it darkened once the eclipse became total. The still photos he got were excellent, too.

This videographer snagged some good images, and it’s also worthwhile to hear the reactions of children and adults:

This also shows the darkness of the eclipse in St. Clair, and how quickly the light begins to return once totality ends:

Here’s another video from St. Clair. Listen to the people’s reactions when the eclipse goes total:

A map of the next total eclipse in the U.S. in 2024 indicates it will miss Route 66. However, almost all of Route 66 at that time will experience at least a partial eclipse.

(Except from video of the total eclipse in St. Clair, Missouri, by franseag)