Memories of Route 66

By Hank Billings

With a move afoot to designate historic route U.S. 66 as a scenic byway, some U.S. 66 memories bear repeating.

U.S. 66 and I were both born in 1926.

As a kid, I was more familiar with the stretch between here and St. Louis, where my paternal grandmother lived.

I remember such 66 landmarks as the Pennant Restaurant and Service Station at Lebanon, the shady divided lanes through St. James, the Diamonds Restaurant and the bluffs at Pacific. ...

When my dad drove, he liked to (a) smoke a cigarette and (b) pass every car on the road -- diversions that could be hazardous to his health.

Once he ignored the matchbook warning, "Close cover before striking." The matches flared and burned his hand. We were near Marshfield, on a Sunday afternoon. There were no emergency rooms in the 1930s and no Sunday doctor as far as we knew. Dad found a drugstore open and a pharmacist who tended to his burns.

Some of our family's Sunday 66 drives went only as far as the Ranch Hotel, in the vicinity of today's Exotic Animal Paradise. While we waited for that melt-in-your-mouth fried chicken, I camped on the front porch, hoping a Frisco passenger train would come pounding down the track in front of the hotel.

After Dad's death and when I turned 16, I drove myself to St. Louis on occasion. Much of 66 paralleled the Frisco main line. On one trip, I began racing an eastbound freight.

I had to slow for towns and the train evidently didn't. So it gained on me, but I caught up in open country. Crewmen on the train cheered or jeered, depending on who was ahead. I broke off the race when I nearly hit a construction barrier.

That Great Train Race must have been after World War II. The wartime speed limit was 35 mph to save tires and gasoline.

Length limits were waived during wartime for trucks and trailers hauling airplane parts. They were bad news when you got behind them on hills of two-lane 66.

Sympathetic truckers set their throttles and steered with one hand as they stood on running boards to wave motorists around when the way was clear. ...

Memories of 66 would have been vastly different if not for Springfield developer John T. Woodruff and Tulsa businessman Cy Avery. Working from Woodruff's office in his Woodruff Building, they persuaded federal authorities to route 66 through Springfield and Tulsa rather than from St. Louis to Kansas City and across Kansas. ...

The 2,446-mile highway from Chicago to Los Angeles was known variously as "the Mother Road" and "the Main Street of America" in books, articles, videos, a song and a TV series.

In 1990, state Reps. J. Dan Woodall of Springfield and Jim Mitchell of Richland got 66 designated a historic highway.

That was five years after 66 was replaced by interstates and officially decertified.

Now, 66 boosters want the 78-year-old road designated as a scenic byway, a label expected to make surviving stretches of 66 a magnet for tourist bucks.

Eight hearings are being held to promote the tag. ... Input from the hearings will be presented to a state scenic byways advisory panel. It will make a recommendation to the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission, which has the final word. The next step could be applying for federal scenic byways status.

Only time will tell if Interstate 44 will inspire the same affection and mystique as 66.

Hank Billings is a columnist for the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader.