Early Route 66 advocate John T. Woodruff of Springfield, Missouri, was the man responsible for the naming of the city’s Glenstone Avenue, a prominent alignment of that historic highway.
That was revealed in a recent Answer Man column by Steve Pokin for the Springfield Daily Citizen, a new media outlet. Pokin also was the Answer Man for the Springfield News-Leader for many years before he left the newspaper.
Pokin said he began looking through his archive of questions to his column and found he had not answered a question from 2016: What’s behind the history of Springfield’s Glenstone Avenue?
First, Pokin found the first newspaper reference to the street in 1915.
A bit more digging around unearthed that Woodruff, a key figure in officially creating U.S. 66 in 1926, was behind the naming of that street.
Woodruff wrote an unpublished, 322-page manuscript kept by the Greene County Archives. There, Pokin found this:
“We laid out on the eastern boundary, a highway called Glenstone Road. That road is the eastern boundary of the city and extends beyond the limits both north and south.
“The word ‘Glenstone’ was used because (sic) rather alluring. I sought to imitate the name of the great author, Shenston. I believe he wrote:
“Who’er has traveled life’s dull round,
“Where’er his stages may have been,
“May sigh to think he still has found
“The warmest welcome, at an inn.”
Pokin wrote that Woodruff misspelled the last name of William Shenstone, an 18th-century poet. Woodruff coined the word “Glenstone” for the street because it rhymed with the poet’s surname.
Thomas A. Peters of Missouri State University several years ago wrote a biography of Woodruff (review here), who not only played a crucial role in developing Route 66 but Springfield in general. Woodruff died at age 81 in 1949.
As for Glenstone Avenue itself, it served as a City 66 alignment from about 1930 to 1977. It still is the path often used by Route 66 adventurers today.
(Vintage image of Glenstone Avenue from St. Louis Street in Springfield, Missouri, courtesy of 66Postcards.com)