Founder of famed Albuquerque restaurant dies December 6, 2007
Posted by Ron in People, Restaurants.add a comment
Pete Powdrell, founder of Mr. Powdrell’s Barbecue, which has a longtime location on Central Avenue, aka Route 66, died on Sunday at age 86, according to the Albuquerque Tribune.
He started the restaurant in 1962 just a few years after moving to Albuquerque from Texas. He used his grandfather’s secret recipes, and it’s been consistently hailed as the best barbecue in town ever since.
And here’s a nice excerpt from the Journal article:
… [H]is son Joe Powdrell said his father’s spirit lives on in the community and the restaurant.
“I tell you, I can’t walk in that place and not smell him,” Joe Powdrell said.
Powdrell’s legacy, including a slew of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, is two restaurants that employ 60 people and a lot of respect in the community.
Here’s another story about Powdrell in the Albuquerque Journal:
“We came here with nothing but a boot and a shoe and a lot of determination,” Catherine Powdrell told the Journal in a 1981 interview. She died in 2004, after 65 years of marriage.
Within two years, they had opened a takeout barbecue restaurant on South Broadway, although their previous experience was limited to family and neighborhood cookouts in Texas.
“We just felt that if we made good food, everybody would eat it,” Pete said in the same interview.
They did. And I’ll stand on Charlie Vergos‘ coffee table and say that Mr. Powdrell’s has some of the best barbecue in the country. We have a case of Powdrell’s barbecue sauce to prove it.
(Hat tip: Duke City Fix)
Edgewood may buy wildlife park December 6, 2007
Posted by Ron in Attractions, Businesses.add a comment
The Mountain View Telegraph reports that the city of Edgewood, N.M., may buy the property on which the Wildlife West Nature Park animal sanctuary sits, just off Route 66.
The owner thinks having it municipally owned would mean a more stable long-term situation for the park’s operations.
The 122-acre park is owned by a group of private partners who each own a percentage and have a vote in what happens to the park according to how much they own. Alink owns 15 percent.
He said he’d rather see the land owned by Edgewood.
“Any private partnership is subject to change,” Alink said.
Alink works for the New Mexico Wildlife Association, the nonprofit organization that leases the land.
The nonprofit has an option to buy the land for $2 million, a set price that can be changed in August 2009. Alink thinks the price may triple at that point.
“It’s a good deal to exercise that ($2 million) option,” Alink said.
The story goes on that anyone can assist the wildlife association in purchasing the land. A lobbying firm has been hired to help find money to buy the land.
Cussing and discussing a sign ordinance December 6, 2007
Posted by Ron in Businesses, Signs, Towns.1 comment so far
A while back, the city of Albuquerque was considering a strict sign ordinance that would severely curb the size, type and placement of businesses signs.
Because of opposition from the business community and from a fair number of Route 66ers who fear for the fate of the neon along Central Avenue, the proposed ordinance has been revised to the point where it makes you wonder why the city bothered at all.
If there’s anyone left in the Duke City who still thinks that tough sign laws are a good idea, here’s a cautionary tale from the Mountain View Telegraph about nearby Route 66 town of Edgewood:
Business owners in Edgewood say they are losing money, and fast, due to the town’s sign ordinance. [...]
Raymond Seagers said the current ordinance is doing harm to the town.
“We don’t need a 34-page sign ordinance,” he said. [...]
“It (the ordinance) is totally out of kilter,” Seagers said. “Finally we said ‘This thing is horrible.’ ”
Harlan Lawson, who owns the NAPA auto parts store on Old Route 66 west of N.M. 344, agreed with Seagers.
“We could not make the current ordinance work for the needs of the community,” he said.
The ordinance limits off-site signs, which Seagers said limits a business’s exposure to potential customers. In addition, the size and type of signs at any business are also limited.
“You can see the urgency here,” Seagers said. “We’re in the Christmas season.”
Jerry Gevedon, an owner of DJ’s Doghouse on N.M. 344 and Dinkle Road, said he’s been in business for nearly a year and still has people from the area come in saying they’d never seen his store before.
The story goes on to report that revisions to Edgewood’s sign ordinance are all but certain, and that a moratorium on the rules is possible.
Texaco memorabilia on display in Oklahoma December 6, 2007
Posted by Ron in Attractions, Events, History, Preservation.add a comment
Jim Conard has donated his extensive collection of Texaco memorabilia to the Dobson Museum and Library of Miami, Okla., a block off Route 66.
According to the Chevron Retirees Association’s newsletter, Conard, who now lives near Atlanta, had quite a personal history with Route 66 in northwestern Oklahoma:
The display is in that locale because it’s where his father, Odell, owned and operated a Texaco station in the 1940s through 1960s and where Jim was born and worked as a teen and college student at his dad’s service station. It’s also where Jim attended college and taught for two years at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M. A regular service station customer was Mickey Mantle, the New York Yankee outfielder named to the Baseball Hall of Fame, who lived in nearby Commerce.
Conard says, “I could have sold my extensive Texaco memorabilia, a collection that spans decades, for quite a bit of money on eBay. Instead, I donated it to the Dobson Museum. Additionally, the collection was assembled with the aid of several former Texaco wholesalers. And Chevron Global Marketing provided a small grant to help me organize and initiate the project and Web site.”
The Web site for the Texaco display at the Dobson Museum is here. The museum is open from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The address is 110 A St. Southwest (map here).
Illinois Route 66 receives two grants December 6, 2007
Posted by Ron in Highways.2 comments
U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Ill., announced today that a series of grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation had been awarded to the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Two of the grants included:
- $235,000 for implementation of the Marketing Program for Historic Route 66, which includes 421 miles in Illinois from Chicago to Metro East St. Louis, roughly parallel to I-55.
- $25,000 for implementation of the Corridor Management Plan for Historic Route 66, which includes 421 miles in Illinois from Chicago to Metro East St. Louis, roughly parallel to I-55.
These two grants tie into the byways program, of which Illinois’ portion of Route 66 joined a few years ago.
For fans of other historic roads, there’s this:
- $212,000 for implementation of the Marketing and Awareness Initiative for the Historic National Road, which runs roughly parallel to Interstate 70 from East St. Louis, IL to Terre Haute, IN (Madison and St. Clair Counties).
This is talking about old U.S. 40, aka the National Road. It’s the granddaddy of all U.S. roads, as it was funded in the 1800s.
“Chicago” December 6, 2007
Posted by Ron in Music, Towns.add a comment
For over a decade, I wrote weekly music reviews for a newspaper in Illinois. In 2005, I heard a mighty buzz about folk-rocker Sufjan Stevens and his album, “Illinois.” There was a lot of interest in the project, partly because Stevens has vowed to record an album inspired by each of the 50 states. Michigan was his first; Illinois was the second.
For the Land of Lincoln, there were songs about the Sears Tower, Superman and Metropolis, Casimir Pulaski Day and an unsettling tune about serial killer John Wayne Gacy. But it was about Chicago, the easternmost city on the Mother Road, that gained the lion’s share of attention. You know when Robert Christgau, the “Dean of Music Critics,” was calling “Chicago” the best song he’d heard that year, it was something special.
And it is. It’s as if Phil Spector had been loosed in the Windy City. “Chicago” captures the energy and glory of the City of the Big Shoulders better than any song I can think of.
Regrettably, Stevens never produced a video for it. But this simple footage of someone driving through that city’s busy streets, with “Chicago” as its soundtrack, does well enough.
