Nearly 18 months ago, Phil Gordon contacted me about his Route 66 Matchbook Cover Database and was asking for more submissions to it. At the time, the website contained 600 images of matchbooks from various businesses, past and present, along the Mother Road.
Gordon recently informed me the database has swelled to more than 2,500 uploads of those matchbox images from Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Texas. He stated in an email:
In fact, matchcovers are so prolific we are adding a dozen new matchcovers every month to the database from just these four states so the database is growing all the time. We will be adding matchcover images from the next four states over the next year. Very soon we will be uploading hundreds of matchcover images from Route 66 in Oklahoma.
He also advised that visitors to this website should use a desktop or laptop computer only.
“Using a personal device like a phone or tablet, especially one running the Android operating system, will frustrate visitors. (Devices from Apple do much better than those running Android.)” he wrote.
Though looking at the matchbooks primarily exists for amusement, he said the collection can have some historical value, as well:
For example, the earliest matchcover that we have found from the Dixie Trucker’s Home in McLean, IL, actually states that the business was first called the “Trucker’s Dixie Home” an early reference name that I can not find in any Route 66 book and on only a few websites.
Another example is from the famous Ariston Restaurant. It was begun by Pete Adam in Carlinville, IL, and everything that I have read states that when Route 66 moved to the east in about 1930, Pete Adam “moved” or “relocated” the business to Litchfield. Well, to me “moving” means you close down one location and move the restaurant equipment, fixtures, seating, etc., to the new location. Every Route 66 book that I have read (I have not read them all) and website that I visited (I have not visited them all) uses some take on the verb “move.” Then why does the earliest matchcover we can find from the Ariston list two locations (Carlinville and Litchfield)? The matchcover seems to be proof that both locations were once open at the same time. And speaking of the Ariston, what’s with the matchcover that says the “Boyd’s Ariston Restaurant”? Every book and website declares that the business had been run by members of the founding Adam family until they sold it five years ago. I contacted the present owner of the Ariston who forwarded my email to a local historian who in fact did confirm that the Boyd’s did lease and operate the Ariston for five years in the early 1960s.
(Matchbook cover image of the U-Drop Inn in Shamrock, Texas, via the Texas Route 66 matchcover database)