Notes from the road

The “East Meets West” sculpture at the Cyrus Avery Centennial Plaza at Riverside Drive and Southwest Boulevard (aka Route 66) in Tulsa is inching closer to being installed.

Dennis Whitaker at the city of Tulsa gave me this update, via e-mail:

[T]he artist is finished with the car group and the foundry has already cast it.  It is ready to be assembled; the wagon grouping is complete except for one horse, the balance of that grouping is at the foundry. Once the artist finishes the horse and has everything at the foundry to be cast, we’ll have an estimate of when it might be delivered.

The main artist, Robert Summers, suffered catastrophic injuries in a fall. It took him months to recover, or else the sculpture would have been installed long before now.

Whitaker also provided this update about the Route 66 museum that will eventually be built at the plaza:

PSA Dewberry will be the lead engineering / architectural firm for the Interpretive Center, but they will have a sub-consultant that specializes in program planning.  That is Phase I of the design process – to determine what will be housed in the facility (office, interpretive features, static displays, restaurant etc) and how much space it takes to do that.  Phase II will be the architectural design of the footprint, façade, approaches, rooms, spaces etc. which will lead to creation of construction drawings.

The City and the County have entered into a new agreement for the design funds.  The City Council has the second reading of the budget amendment ordinance on their agenda tomorrow.  Once we have the money in the City’s budget we can enter into a contract with Dewberry.

Both Phases of design, construction bidding  and then construction could take 36 months.

— A $180 million Navajo Nation casino north of Interstate 40 near the Twin Arrows exit soon will break ground and be finished next year, reported the Arizona Daily Sun. The development won’t have much direct impact on the historic and abandoned Twin Arrows complex off Route 66, mainly because it is south of I-40. (Hat tip to Bob Moore.)

— A long-vacant building in downtown Waynesville, Mo., is seeing new life, reported the Waynesville Daily Guide. The building, at Benton Street and Route 66, will be used for apartments and Lone Oak Printing Co.

— Claudia Heller’s latest in her ongoing series about Route 66 towns in the Mojave Desert concentrates on one of our favorites, the tiny burg of Ludlow, Calif.

— The Railsplitter Covered Wagon, also known as the world’s largest covered wagon, will be re-dedicated in front of its new home at the Best Western Lincoln Inn in Lincoln, Ill., at 4:30 p.m. March 19, reported the Lincoln Courier. Abe and the wagon were repainted, and plans include a Route 66 Scenic Byway Wayside Scenic Exhibit at the site.

— John Treadwell Dunbar has filed a comprehensive article for the Canada Free Press about the history and attractions of the Route 66 town of Oatman, Ariz.

— Needles Downtown Business Alliance members are installing metal signs and banners trumpeting the California town’s link to Route 66, reported the Needles Desert Star.

— Finally, Gordo at Handcolored66.com sent me this terrific photo of the 9-foot-wide Sidewalk Highway of old Route 66 near Miami, Okla. This recent image was captured at dusk:

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