Tucked away in a city parking lot in Springfield, Missouri, is a small stone building that serves as the last vestige of a tourist camp that served travelers for years before Route 66 was federally certified.
The building once was a bathroom for the long-gone Long Memorial Park, though it’s slated to be used as storage for the city’s planning department after some renovations.
Steve Pokin, the former Answer Man for the Springfield News-Leader and now the Pokin Around columnist for the Springfield Daily Citizen, unearthed obscure facts about the tiny building in a lot at the Springfield-Greene County Health Department and a police station along Chestnut Expressway (aka Route 66).
The city initially created Long Memorial Park after World War I to honor Springfield veterans. As Pokin writes:
It soon became a camping site for tourists either driving through or who wanted to spend some time in Springfield. Over 3,000 visitors used it in the summer of 1924.
I suspect some of them were traveling Chicago to Los Angeles along the roadway that would become Route 66 in 1926.
The City Council, park board and chamber of commerce loved the idea of the free campsite. Visitors could pitch a tent for up to two nights. […]
A 1922 news story stated that the park would have a cooking pavilion and an eating pavilion. The park board would install city water and put a fence around the tract; it would also provide the person who served as park keeper during tourist season. The park keeper would have a “lodge.”
Tourist camps once dotted the Mother Road during the 1920s and early ’30s before motels became more commonplace.
In Tucumcari, New Mexico, where I live, one local author reported a tourist camp existed on the city’s east side during the early 20th century, sometimes drawing even hundreds of cross-country travelers.
Pokin found a 1972 column by News-Leader reporter Lucile Morris Upton that uncovered vivid information about the park:
“Thirteen cars, each with two to five persons, were at the free tourist camp at Long Memorial Park back of the post office in one night this week.
“The many little fires dotting the lawn, together with the softened glow from kerosene lamps inside the tents, gave the place a cheerful and homey air,” said The Leader.
“Licenses on the machines show they came from Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Kansas, North Dakota and other states whose citizens have heard of the summer glories of the Ozarks and have come to see.”
Through the Newspapers.com archive, I found a 1925 article in the News-Leader that stated the park would charge 50 cents a day for its use. The city would let travelers stay a day or two before shooing them out. The article stated a few in previous years abused their privileges and partied at the park for days. Or they stayed for a week while working at jobs in the city.
Natural gas for cooking and electric lighting were free.
Hours were from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. After that, park supervisors closed the gates. The park also typically was closed during the winter.
I found another 1922 article where the city bought two lots to enlarge the park, making it capable of handling 300 vehicles per day.
By the 1930s, Long Memorial Park was converted into a park with a playground. A few years later, the land was used for athletics at Springfield High School.
To see the building, go to Springfield-Greene County Health (map here) and go to the rear parking lot. Given all the other development around it, it seems odd the Long Memorial Park bathroom building would survive. But there it is.
(Excerpt from Google Street View of the former Long Memorial Park bathroom building in Springfield, Missouri)
today the family friendly park of the 20’s and 30’s would be a homeless encampment filled with the mentally ill, needles, condoms, and drugs. Even with all our technological advancements since then have we truly progressed? Though certainly a more difficult time a century ago in many ways I believe (all things being equal) fans of Rt 66 still yearn for that slower, more simple time.