by Jim Hinckley
MISSOURI
Gary Turner’s re-creation of Gay Parita Garage and Sinclair station in Paris Springs Junction shows remarkable attention to detail.
From flood plain to resort, from small-town America to symbol of environmental degradation, from toxic site to state park, the site of Times Beach epitomizes the ever-changing face of Route 66.
IN THE SHOW-ME STATE, much of Route 66 follows the old Wire Road, a vital communications and transportation road that was at center stage in some of the bloodiest fighting of the Civil War. Many of the weathered headstones and monuments in shade-dappled cemeteries perched on ridges above the old road stand in silent testimony to these dark times.
In stark contrast is the colorful glow of neon, refurbished or remembered, that sheaths many towns along the double six in Missouri. This garish façade harks back to the glory days of Route 66.
Not all ghost towns in the shadow of the Ozark Mountains are tinged dark by the tumult of the Civil War, nor are they all memorialized with neon monuments. At least one began with the promise of good times before becoming a victim of the modern industrial era and environmental degradation.
GHOST OF THE MODERN ERA: TIMES BEACH
IN AN ODD TWIST OF FATE, the idyllic Route 66 State Park on the Meramec River mirrors the vision of those who established a small resort community on this site seventeen miles west of St. Louis in 1925. It also masks the tragedy that claimed the community of Times Beach.
After acquiring a 480-acre site on a flood plain utilized for farming, the owners of the St. Louis Star Times initiated an unusual promotional campaign to increase the newspaper’s circulation. For $67.50, a customer could purchase a 20x100-foot lot and receive a six-month subscription to the newspaper. There was a slight catch: to utilize the property and build a house required the purchase of a second adjoining lot.
Since this was largely a summer resort, and the area was prone to flooding, stilts were foundational elements of the cottages built. By 1930, residents were building more substantial homes, a reflection of the move from resort to community. This and a growing business district gave the town an atmosphere of stability.
The shift from resort to town marked a new chapter in the history of Times Beach. The next chapter began with World War II, gas rationing, and the postwar housing shortage that again transformed the character of “The Beach,” as residents called it.
By 1970, some 1,240 people called Times Beach home, and the town was slowly moving beyond its postwar image as a low-income community of mobile homes and cracker-box houses.
The most notable manifestation of this change was the decision to address the town’s 16.3 miles of dusty, unpaved streets. With a budget insufficient to meet the projected cost of paving, city administrators instead turned to oiling the roads to control the dust. Contracted for this endeavor was Russell Bliss, owner of a small company that hauled waste oils and other materials.
What city management did not know was that Bliss was also hauling waste for the Northeastern Pharmaceutical and Chemical Company of Verona, Missouri, a major producer of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. As a result, for several years, Bliss sprayed the streets of Times Beach with material laden with deadly dioxins.
In the fall of 1982, an investigative reporter turned his attention to Times Beach after establishing a link between Russell Bliss and the death of dozens of horses at stables he had sprayed with waste oil. This investigation was quickly followed by one initiated by the Environmental Protection Agency.
On December 5 of that year, the worst flooding in the town’s history forced an almost complete evacuation. Eighteen days later, the EPA notified residents and the community’s administration, “If you are in town it is advisable for you to leave and if you are out of town do not return.”
In an instant, the obscure little community of Times Beach dominated international headlines and became synonymous with deadly environmental degradation, the bane of the modern era. By 1985, the mandatory evacuation was complete, negotiated buyouts were underway, and the town site was quarantined.
In 1996 and 1997, the final chapter in Times Beach history began to unfold.
The banner headlines proclaiming the opening of Times Beach marked the beginning of one of the most unusual promotional campaigns in newspaper history. Missouri Department of Transportation
An incinerator built on the site at a cost of $110 million burned 265,000 tons of contaminated soil and materials. Upon completion of the project and certification that the site was clean, the property reverted to the state of Missouri, which, in turn, reopened it as Route 66 State Park in 1999.
There are but two remnants of the little town on the banks of the Meramec River: one a monument to Times Beach, the other to Route 66. Steiny’s Inn, a 1935 roadhouse, now serves as the park’s visitor center, and a beautiful steel truss bridge, closed in 2009, stands in mute testimony to the forgotten town’s ties to legendary Route 66.
Route 66 State Park, on the former site of Times Beach, is now a haven for wildlife, waterfowl, and those seeking a respite from the rush of the modern era.
These plans may soon be all that remains of Times Beach’s Meramec River Bridge, closed in 2009. Missouri Department of Transportation
Route 66 State Park, the site of Times Beach, is accessed from exit 266 on Interstate 44 east of Eureka.
THE GHOST TOWN TRAIL OF MISSOURI
ON THE SECTION OF OLD U.S. 66 between Springfield and Carthage, only the traffic keeps you anchored to the modern era. Here, the line between past and present is blurred. The ghost towns, ruins, and vintage bridges that frame timeless, bucolic scenes enhance the illusion that it is possible to step back in time.
The first hint that this drive will be special is the shade-dappled Yeakley Cemetery, established in 1852. Still used for services is the chapel that dates to 1887.
Plano, a few miles west, may have once been a prosperous little farming community or even a bustling service center meeting the needs of Route 66 travelers, but today only two hints of better times remain. One is the overgrown stone ruins that were once a mortuary and casket factory; the other is the former service station and garage that now serve as a residence.
If a town’s post office illustrates its life-line, the glory days in Plano were short. The post office opened its doors in 1895 and closed them in 1903.
The next stop is Halltown, home of the White Hall antique store housed in the former Whitehall Mercantile, which has cast its false-fronted shadow across the road for more than a century. In 1926, the year Route 66 debuted on the world stage, Halltown supported almost two dozen businesses, including the mercantile, several grocery stores, a blacksmith shop, and a drugstore.
As of the spring of 2010, the future of White Hall Antiques is unknown; the proprietor who opened the store in 1985 and co-founded the Route 66 Association of Missouri in 1990, Thelma White, passed away at the age of eighty-three.
The river of traffic that flowed east and west on Route 66 transformed towns all along the route by igniting the creative, entrepreneurial spirit of the common man. In Halltown after 1930, weary travelers could find rest at the Las Vegas Hotel. The name may have seemed out of place to those passing through, but locals knew that proprietor Charlie Dammer paid for the construction with silver dollars won in a lucky streak in Las Vegas, Nevada.
On his 1946 odyssey, Jack Rittenhouse notes that Halltown, population 168, consisted of “15 or 20 establishments that line both sides of the highway here: gas stations, cafes, antique shops, stores.” Today, traffic still flows through town on State Highway 266 but not in volume enough to support the businesses noted by Rittenhouse. Even with the resurgent interest in Route 66, Halltown slumbers.
The overgrown ruins of a former casket company are among the last remnants of Plano.
Join State Highway 266 at exit 72 on Interstate 44 west of Springfield. Continue west to Spencer and the junction with State Highway 96. Highway 96 continues to Avilla.
The remnants
from Halltown’s glory days, such as this stone duplex, stand in silent testimony to more prosperous times.
The stunning time capsule that is the refurbished Gay Parita Garage and Sinclair station dominates Paris Springs Junction. Many modern maps inadvertently list this as Paris Springs even though the site of the town founded in 1870 that lent its name to the junction is actually a half mile north of this intersection.
Name changes and confusion over them are merely part of the colorful history of the site. The first settlement, called Chalybeate Springs, became Johnson Mills after O. P. Johnson of Cherry & Johnson established a mill to grind flour and cornmeal, as well as a chair factory, a sawmill, and a wool mill on Clover Creek.
DON’T MISS
The Halltown Cemetery, also known as the Rock Prairie Cemetery, is a somber place that invites reflection amid the monuments under ancient trees. The cemetery dates to about 1840 and, during the Civil War, was used by both Confederate and Union forces.
The Whitehall Mercantile, now an antiques shop, has cast a shadow across the road for more than a century.
By 1872, when Eli Paris opened a spa and hotel to capitalize on the purported healing powers of the mineral-rich springs, the town also sported a wagon manufacturing enterprise and a profitable blacksmith shop. The spa led to the next and final name change.
When the newly built Route 66 bypassed the fading little community by half a mile, a number of entrepreneurial-minded citizens opened businesses at the junction—and Paris Springs Junction was born. This proved to be the death knell for Paris Springs, and today, very little remains to mark the site.
One of the first buildings raised at the intersection was a cobblestone-faced garage, followed four years later by a Sinclair station. Business was brisk at the Gay Parita Garage, and in the years that followed, owners Gay and Fred Mason added a small café and several cabins. But all good things must end, and for the Masons and Paris Springs Junction, the beginning of the end came in 1953 with the death of Gay and, two years later, the destruction of the Sinclair station by fire.
The decommissioning of Route 66 and the bypass by Interstate 44 completed the first chapter of the building’s history. Unlike many properties along the old double six, however, the Gay Parita Garage and even the old Sinclair station received a new lease on life with the acquisition of the property by Gary and Lena Turner.
West of Rolla, at the intersection of County Road T, is a well-worn wide spot in the road designated by a sign as Doolittle. Jack Rittenhouse notes in his 1946 guidebook that Doolittle is “a community loosely strung along about two miles of highway.”
Counted among the services strung along the road was Ramsey’s Garage. The 1946 edition of the AAA Service Station Directory lists this as the only recommended repair facility.
Originally called Centerville, the community found itself in the international spotlight for but a moment on October 10, 1946. That was the day Medal of Honor recipient General Jimmy Doolittle landed his plane on the eastbound lane of U.S. 66 to attend the ceremony in which the town was renamed in his honor.
Under the Turners’ careful stewardship, the store and café are now a residence, with the front façade appearing as it did during the 1930s. The garage and resurrected Sinclair station are carefully replicated time capsules providing a rare opportunity to step back into the world of Route 66 motoring, circa 1930.
The last vestiges of empty little Spencer—the next town to the west that was bypassed by the realignment of 1961—are carefully preserved in a state of arrested decay by the current owners, the Ryans, who have plans of refurbishing the property. The emptiness of Spencer is both comforting and haunting, feelings enhanced by lush landscapes framed by the 1923 steel pony bridge over Turnback Creek and the 1926 truss bridge over Johnson Creek.
The ghostly buildings that cast shadows over Route 66 date to the teens and early twenties, including the former café, barber-shop, garage, and service station built by Sidney Casey in 1925 and 1926. However, the town itself predates the remaining structures by decades, with the first post office opening in 1868.
The attention to detail in the Paris Springs Junction station re-creation results in an almost flawless time capsule from when legendary 66 was the Main Street of America.
Dating to the 1920s, the roadside remnants in Spencer are relatively recent additions in a town where the post office opened in 1868.
Vintage photos that reflect thriving businesses are in stark contrast to the empty and quiet place that is Spencer today. Missouri Department of Transportation, Francis Ryan collection
Heatonville also dates to 1868 and the platting of a town site by Daniel Heaton. Albatross, established the same year Route 66 was designated (1926), began as a bus stop for the Albatross Bus Lines. By the 1950s, it had morphed into a service hub with six gas stations.
Phelps, named for Colonel Bill Phelps, an attorney for the MoPac Railroad, predates the Civil War with a post office that opened in 1857. During the infancy of Route 66, travelers could avail themselves of a wide array of services, including a café, a barber-shop, a boardinghouse, a service station, a restaurant, and cabins.
Mr. and Mrs. Roy Rogers (no relation to the famous cowboy duet, who had a ranch along Route 66 near Victorville, California) put Rescue on the map for Route 66 motorists in the 1920s with a lodge, cabins, and a service station. This facility was later known as Reed’s Cabin Court and today survives in part as a private residence.
Officially, Plew dates to 1893, but settlement in the area began at least fifty years earlier. Today, it is not much larger than the dot on the map that represents it.
These small villages are now even less than the wide spots in the road they once were. Rittenhouse notes in his 1946 travel guide that Heatonville offered the services of garages, groceries, gas stations, a general store, and Castle Rock Cabins. The business district in Albatross consisted of a garage, several gas stations, and Carter’s Cabins. Phelps had gas stations, a café, a few houses, and “two very old store buildings.” Rescue was “a small village” with Brown’s Garage, Rescue Garage, and Reed’s cabins.
From Springfield to Avilla, a wide array of remnants and ruins dot the roadside, standing in mute testimony to this history. This is Missouri’s ghost town trail, where the vestiges of the modern era seem oddly out of place.
DON’T MISS
Missouri contains a veritable treasure-trove of roadside artifacts and towns that hover somewhere bet ween resurrection and obscurity induced by abandonment. A mply sprinkled among these are true time capsules, such as the recently refurbished circa-1934 Wagon Wheel Motel in Cuba and Meramec Caverns, a classic roadside attraction.
To cruise Route 66 through Hooker Cut and over the 1923 Big Piney River Bridge at Devil’s Elbow or grab a snack at the Circle Inn Malt Shop in Bourbon is to discover the very essence of the Route 66 experience. To cruise Route 66 from St. Louis to Joplin is an opportunity to experience a ghost highway where the past is never very far removed from the present.
AVILLA
INDICATIVE OF THE SLOW-MOTION slide to oblivion that marks Avilla’s past century is a population that today numbers around 120, compared to the 500 who resided here in 1874. Nestled in a rich agricultural district, the town began as a business and trade center established on the western fringe of the Ozarks in 1856.
On October 28, 1861, Governor Jackson met with the Missouri General Assembly in Neosho and declared Missouri the twelfth state to join the Confederate States of America. Upon hearing the news in Avilla, a group of leading men gathered in the park to hoist the stars and stripes of the United States. To defend their homes and farms from Confederate raiders and guerillas, Dr. J. M. Stemmons organized a militia that consisted of men deemed too old to serve in the military. On March 8, 1862, the reserve of this stalwart group was put to the test when a group of Confederate raiders under the leadership of William T. “Bloody Bill” Anderson moved on Avilla.
Killed in the ensuing action were Dr. Stemmons, thre
e of his sons, and at least two Avilla militiamen, but Avilla was spared the fate of Carthage, which was almost erased from the map in a skirmish. In the late summer of 1862, the Union Army took possession of the area, headquartered in Avilla in 1863, and authorized the local militia to patrol portions of Jasper and Lawrence counties.
Spared much of the destruction that neighboring communities experienced during the war, Avilla became a boomtown at the center of postwar reconstruction. By the early 1870s, the town supported boot stores and a cobbler, several dry goods stores, grocers, livery stables, a drugstore, doctors’ offices, and several attorneys. The town also had a school, three churches, an Odd Fellows Lodge, and a Freemasons Lodge.
The railroad that connected Springfield with Carthage and Joplin bypassed Avilla, and the town began a slide only briefly interrupted by the flow of traffic on Route 66, which sparked a resurgent growth in new businesses. Rittenhouse notes that the population in 1946 was 178 and that the town consisted of “Gas, café, stores. The lumber yard and farm implement stores here indicates its importance as agricultural trading and supply center.”
By the late 1970s, a decade after Interstate 44 replaced Route 66, Avilla was a ghost town. Just a few businesses remain in operation. Vacant lots now outnumber buildings, but the structures that remain are most interesting. The most notable is the bank building, built in 1915 and now serving as the post office, one block north of former U.S. 66.