The Red Cedar Inn Museum & Visitors Center along Route 66 in Pacific, Missouri, has received a 2024 Preserve Missouri Award from the Missouri Preservation organization.
The awards were announced in an email from the organization on Wednesday. The Preserve Missouri awards has recognized outstanding efforts and projects around the state since 2002.
Here’s what Missouri Preservation said about the Red Cedar:
When Route 66 finally reached Pacific, Missouri in 1932, James and Bill Smith decided to build a restaurant along the newly designated thoroughfare. Completed in 1934, The Red Cedar Inn Restaurant was owned and operated by the Smith family for three generations and is considered to be one of the most intact historic destinations along the Mother Road in Missouri.
In 2017, the City of Pacific acquired the building with the promise to redevelop it into a shared community amenity. The rehabilitation took care to repair and restore the log walls which were selected by the Smith brothers to reflect Missouri’s pioneer days. The existing structure was stabilized while a new addition was built to the north and clad in western red cedar to complement but differentiate from the original log-clad structure. Existing tongue-and-groove subflooring was repaired, patched where needed, and refinished as newly exposed wood flooring. All of the building systems were upgraded and new insulation, gutters, and downspouts improved the building envelope and thermal performance.
Now fully restored and revitalized, the Red Cedar Inn serves as a welcoming community hub and anticipates future connections to the Meramec Greenway trail, becoming a new “Doorway to the Ozarks” and hopefully encouraging further investment along Route 66 in Missouri.
The Red Cedar Inn Museum & Visitors Center is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Wednesday through Saturday and from noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Its phone number is 636-271-0500, ext. 222.
(Image of the Red Cedar Inn Museum & Visitors Center courtesy of Missouri Preservation)