Johnny Mango at the Duke City Fix collective blog reports that Albuquerque’s historic Lobo Theater at 3007 Central Ave. NE, aka Route 66, is hosting a 7 p.m. Saturday screening of “Iraq for Sale,” a documentary about the corporate profiteering of the Iraq War and its effect on the people who are involved in it.

That in itself isn’t all that unusual. What is unusual is that the Lobo Theater is owned by a church called City on a Hill.

Mango’s analysis of the situation is thoughtful and provocative. Read it.

A group of people on a LiveJournal community site called Found Photos looks for unwanted photos at antique stores and goodwill shops and posts them on the site. The results range from the mundane to a moment in time from a long-ago era. It’s a fascinating site.

One contributor, Zinger, tells about about the latest find:

Several months ago, during a spree at the Goodwill Bins, I found a slew of loose photographs all over the store. A non-English-speaking gentleman was very kind in helping me find as many as possible. [...]

The remaining appear to be from a middle-aged couple’s roadtrip along Route 66. They were processed December 19, 2001. I was lucky enough the batch numbers are printed on the back of photo and was able to place them in order that way. [...]

I will be scanning and posting the rest in the days to come. Some of them are pretty great.

The first photos are here, with only one that appears to be significant. That I’m certain is of the Black Mountains of western Arizona, on an old alignment of Route 66 leading to the town of Oatman.

The second batch are here, with a number of photos of dead cars that appear to be at the Texas-New Mexico ghost town of Glenrio. I’m also fairly certain that the flowers are along the semi-obscure Route 66 gravel-road alignment that links Glenrio to San Jon, N.M.

The apparent picture from Vaughn, N.M., is not on Route 66, but it’s close. It must’ve been a brief side trip on U.S. 54.

More photos are coming, by the way. I’ll keep you posted.

UPDATE: Zinger has posted photos from Roll 2 of the Route 66 trip.

Patrick Whitehurst of the Arizona Daily Sun has the rundown on a bunch of paranormal activity in the Route 66 town of Williams.

You have the wailing woman of the Santa Fe Dam, the lucky feather of downtown, the spirit of a Harvey Girl at the railroad depot, a ghostly woman at a B&B, and another apparition named Chu-Chang at what now is an Italian restaurant.

You can read about Williams’ ghosts here.

Yep. The herd of bison are owned by the Route 66 town of El Reno, Okla. The city wants a local American Indian tribe to place the herd on its land, according to a report in the Associated Press.

A little factoid about the El Reno buffalo that I didn’t know:

The bison are descendants of a herd which, along with longhorn cattle, zebras, donkeys and deer, were a roadside attraction along old Route 66. The city sold the other animals, but the buffalo remain on 15 acres on the west side of Lake El Reno.

According to Jim Ross’ book “Oklahoma Route 66,” there once was a Grace’s Museum and Curios on the west side of El Reno. I wonder whether the buffalo came from that roadside attraction.

It looks like the Cheyenne-Arapaho tribe can take the bison on 1,200 acres near Concho. The city council will decide on the buffaloes’ fate next month.

I’m not sure when this Rolling Stones live-in-concert video was shot, but I’m figuring late 1970s to mid-1980s because Ronnie Wood is playing guitar and Bill Wyman is still playing bass.

The fellow who posted it is named “berrychuck,” which seems appropriate, as the Stones borrowed a lot of licks from Chuck Berry.

I was able to procure handout artist’s renderings of the Cyrus Avery Centennial Plaza planned near the Route 66 museum and interpretive center that’s going to be built at 11th Street and Southwest Boulevard in Tulsa. It’s all part of the Vision 2025 master plan for Route 66 in Tulsa County.

The first image is of the plaza from an overhead view. The second image is mainly of the overpass over Route 66 that leads to the plaza. The second image is of the plaza itself. These are thumbnail images that you can click on and get a better look. Note the long pedestrian walkway and overpass that links to the museum. The flags represent each of the eight states in which Route 66 goes through.

Also, the statue you see in the one image is of the old meeting the new — a horse pulling a carriage that’s startled by the horseless carriage. This essentially matches the history of early Route 66 — where dirt roads were replaced by modern highways.

The historic Hiland Theater, built in 1951 along historic Route 66 in Albuquerque, is considered a local landmark, but it needs some repairs.

To do those renovations, the county-owned building, a $1.1 million bond question needs to be passed by voters on Election Day, reports the Albuquerque Tribune.

This theater is Route 66,” Archuleta said. “There is so much rich history here. Losing the Hiland would be like losing the Alvarado all over again.”

The Alvarado, a stylish Fred Harvey hotel Downtown, was demolished in 1970 for a parking lot.

Archuleta said plenty of developers would be happy to bulldoze the Hiland and adjacent buildings and replace them with loft apartments. And she concedes that might be a more profitable way for the county to go.

“We could make money selling to developers,” she said. “But is that what our job as a government is - to make money? Or is it to serve the community?”

Archuleta’s hope is to turn the Hiland and two adjoining buildings, which the county also owns, into a performing arts space and a center for neighborhood functions.

Here is more from the county’s Web site about the Hiland.

So if you live in Albuquerque and are registered to vote there, you know what to do.

In case you missed it, a Route 66 town has just won the World Series.

That is all.

Remember the hit movie “National Lampoon’s Vacation”? Remember the Griswold family heading west to find misadventures in an ugly station wagon?

Here’s the original story that inspired it all, written by John Hughes. It’s a hoot.

Warning: Although the story takes place on and off Route 66, don’t try to duplicate this on your own vacation, kids. And some the language is what a lot of adults use.

(Hat tip to Tim Steil.)

Two couples recently purchased The Nut House on Route 66 near Claremore, Okla., and the business will re-open Thursday.

The Nut House gift shop, at 26677 S. Highway 66, was purchased at an auction by Darryl and Hazel Ward and Fred and Joyce Hannah, all of Claremore. Its hours will be from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Sunday until Thanksgiving. After that, it will be open during those hours seven days a week until New Year’s.

Hazel Ward told me that while the complex will continue to be renovated, The Nut House will sell all kinds of nuts (including Oklahoma pecans), candy and fudge. It also eventually will sell “gift-type items,” she said. In the spring, they tentatively plan to have an herb festival.

“We’re really excited about this” business, Ward said. “I think there’s a lot we can do with it.”

The Nut House’s phone number is 918-266-1604. Its Web site is at www.66nuts.com.

Here’s a clip from an old St. Louis public access television show called “World Wide Magazine,” in which Vince and Marty stoll across the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge that once carried Route 66 from Madison, Ill., to north St. Louis.

Vince and Marty are a coupla goofs, but the footage from the bridge is nice, and so is the “Old Man River” soundtrack.

The Clinton (Okla.) Chamber of Commerce needs volunteers for 2- to 3-hour shifts to help man a promotional booth at the Best Fest at Riverparks West Bank Festival Area in Tulsa on Nov. 17-19.

The Chamber will be there to promote the 2007 Route 66 Festival. Here’s an Acrobat file of the Best Fest brochure that provides more information about the event.

If you can help e-mail Erin Adams, president of the Clinton Chamber, at erinadams(at)clintonok(dot)org , or call 580-323-2222.

It’s true. But it’s not as sinister as it first appears.

Fellow road warrior Tim Steil pointed out this Arizona roads site, which shows a scan from a 1927 Rand McNally atlas. And look on the lower right corner of the page — a swastika on the Arizona highway marker. I included a close-up excerpt of the page.

The Arizona roads site explains:

This was actually taken from a Native American design. It was removed in the 1940s, after it became associated with the Nazis.

There are many reasons for despising the Nazis. One of them includes appropriating an otherwise-harmless symbol of the American Indians and a slew of other cultures and turning it into something that’s associated with death, hatred and bigotry.

Wikipedia has a more clear-headed history of the swastika.

Michelle Thompson is cycling on part of Route 66 during a 2,500-mile trip from Glen Ellyn, Ill., to Costa Mesa, Calif., to raise money for her brother, who is being treated for oral cancer, reports the Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph.

The trek is expected to take six weeks, and Thompson, 35, hopes to raise $50,000.

The cross-country trek came about when she saw how cancer affected every aspect of her brother’s life after he was diagnosed last year. His first round of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation didn’t halt the cancer’s progress.

He underwent a second surgery which led to the loss of parts of his palate, tongue and jawbone. The latest surgery was to open his esophagus to make it easier for him to eat and drink.

“It’s a health issue. It’s a financial issue. It’s a social issue. He is relearning how to talk,” she said. “On a personal level, I want to help him fight this. I couldn’t sell enough brownies to make a difference so I decided on the bike-a-thon.”

Thompson reportedly has launched a Web site, route2outsmartcancer.com, but it’s not up yet as of noon Thursday. Donations can also be mailed to Thompson at P.O. Box 142, Glen Ellyn, IL 60138.

UPDATE: The Pontiac (Ill.) Daily Leader caught up with Thompson for a story. And her Web site is up.

If you’re traveling Route 66 in Oklahoma and need a haircut, a historic, Route 66-themed barbershop recently opened in Yukon, according to the Daily Oklahoman.

Bob Jeffrey, 60, moved from New York to Yukon to be closer to his daughter and her family. So he acquired the 70-year-old Midway Barbershop at 432 W. Main St. in Yukon, which is right on Route 66. It’s been renamed the Colonial Barbershop.

Bob Jeffrey has an affinity for the old. He collects barbers’ antiques, such as backward clocks that reflect correctly in the mirror, shaving mugs and brushes and rare street poles, and just about everything has a story.

A copy of Norman Rockwell pencil sketch “First Haircut” hangs on the shop’s wall. It’s a copy of the original sketch Rockwell gave to his barber Archille “Scotty” Cibelli, who is pictured in the sketch. Cibelli gave it to Bob Jeffrey in 1997 after the Jeffrey’s visited his barbershop in Stockbridge, Mass.

Best of all, a haircut is just $11.

I stumbled across this obituary for Glen Leonhardt in the San Bernardino County Sun. He held the somewhat ordinary job of a mechanic, but his deeds and experiences made his life extraordinary.

His ties to Route 66 were multiple: He helped build that road in Vega, Texas; he married a woman from the Route 66 town of Tucumcari, N.M.; and he eventually settled in the Route 66 town of San Bernardino, Calif.

But that’s not all, by a long shot. Just read about Leonhardt’s story.

The Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program Advisory Council is scheduled to meet Nov. 8-9 at the Best Western Saddleback Inn at 4300 Southwest Third St. in Oklahoma City.

Here’s more from the press release about the council and the meeting:

The Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program Advisory Council was established to consult with the Secretary of the Interior on matters relating to the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, including recommendations for ways to best preserve important properties along Route 66, recommendations for grant and cost-share awards to eligible applicants owning or administering historic properties along the Route 66 Corridor, and recommendations for technical assistance provided by the National Park Service to partners along the route.

The matters to be discussed include:

• committee report on accountability and measurement
• committee report on education and outreach
• committee report on preservation management
• strategic media initiative

The meeting will be open to the public. However, facilities and space for accommodating members of the public are limited, and persons will be accommodated on a first-come, first-served basis. The public comment period is scheduled from 9:00 – 10:00 AM on Thursday, November 9. Any member of the public may file a written statement concerning the matters to be discussed with Michael Taylor, Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program Manager.

If you want to pipe up at the public-comment portion of the meeting, you can contact Taylor on the Corridor Program’s site here to let him know.

The chamber of commerce in Clinton, Okla., sent out a press release about the Route 66 Festival in June. As you’d expect, stateside media picked it up in a few places.

But here’s more proof about how internationally famous Route 66 is: A British site, Easy Travel News, is publicizing it, too.

The City of Tulsa Board of Adjustment unanimously classified the Meadow Gold sign as a historic monument on Tuesday, thus clearing another hurdle for its restoration and re-erection on Route 66.

The sign will be placed on a new building at the southwest corner of 11th Street (aka Route 66) and Quaker Avenue, just a few blocks west of where it once stood. Blueprints and an artist’s rendering can be found on this Acrobat file on Pages 13-16 from the application.

The historic Meadow Gold neon sign, built in the 1940s on Lewis and 11th, was taken down in 2004 (shown above before it was dismantled) and placed into storage to keep a nearby car dealership from razing it to make way for a parking lot. The dealership then moved to a suburb barely a year after that sorry episode.

There was a smidge of concern whether the Meadow Gold sign would be able to conform to the city’s zoning code, especially since the sign could be considered outdoor advertising. I attended the BOA meeting in case my input was needed. Representatives from the Oklahoma Route 66 Association, Route 66 Business League of Tulsa, and the city also were there.

But I quickly knew there would be no problem when one of the board members asked Route 66 supporters in the audience whether there would be any objection to the Meadow Gold sign being classified a historical monument.

When the board was told this was agreeable, they enthusiastically endorsed the classification and the Meadow Gold sign’s restoration plan.
“It will be a great asset on Route 66,” Board chairman Frazier Henke said. “There will be a lot of people coming from out of town to see this.”

The board also noted that the outdoor advertising classification no longer applied because Meadow Gold products haven’t been sold in Tulsa for years.

After the meeting, I was told that the city will open the project for bids within the next few weeks and that groundbreaking likely will commence in January.

There is a cemetery just off Route 66 in Livingston County, Ill., that was devoted exclusively for the area’s poor-farm residents. I didn’t know about it, nor did many other people for a long time, because the Poor Farm Cemetery had been neglected for years.

That has changed. For the past two years, volunteers have helped clean and tidy up the grounds, which were the the final resting place for about 120 poor-farm workers from about 1860 to 1934, according to an article in the Bloomington Pantagraph. A new marker commemorating those who were buried there was added.

The cemetery is close to Livingston Manor in Pontiac, which is the county nursing home.