Carthage Route 66 display proposal gets high marks April 16, 2008
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A proposed Route 66 display inside the Jasper County Courthouse in Carthage, Mo., was unveiled on Wednesday, and it drew a lot of praise — including the president of the Route 66 Association of Missouri, reported the Joplin Globe.
The description of the display:
Elements of the exhibit are to include a facade of the former Boots Drive-In in Carthage as a display case to secure Route 66 artifacts to be displayed; a vintage gasoline pump; a Missouri Route 66 sign; and model front ends of two vehicles from the early days of the highway.
The display will occupy space in the courthouse lobby just across from the elevator. On facing walls will be maps of Route 66 in the United States and in Jasper County, with information on communities through which the route passes. The exhibit also will include a flat-screen television for presentation of a slide show of Route 66 scenes from the early days to the present.
The proposal was developed by Brad Belk and Christopher Wiseman of the Joplin Museum Complex. Belk has received praise for previous museum work. Funding for the Route 66 display is set to come from a Missouri Department of Transportation grant. According to previous reports, Belk hopes to have the display ready later this year.
UPDATE: Here’s a video about the proposal from KODE-TV in Joplin.
Round Barn to hold renovation dedication April 16, 2008
Posted by Ron in Attractions, Preservation.add a comment
If you haven’t visited the Round Barn in Arcadia, Okla., in a while, you might ought to check it out.
A few months ago, it received a $50,000 grant from the Oklahoma Centennial Commemoration Commission to renovate restrooms, repave the parking lot, improve its signs, build a railing, lay a concrete pad for antique equipment, and add a sidewalk around the barn.
To commemorate the renovations, there will be a celebration hosted the Arcadia Historical Preservation Society, the Oklahoma Centennial Commission and the town of Arcadia at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 23, at the Round Barn. Tours of the historic barn will be part of the event.
According to the news release:
The famous historic Round Barn definitely qualifies as a Centennial icon, being built in 1898 by Will Odor and completely restored and open to the public in 1992. In the centennial year the Round Barn’s guest register indicated a record-high number of visitors — over 5,800. All 50 states were represented and 44 foreign countries. The states with the highest number of visitors came from Oklahoma, Indiana, Texas and California.
Plans ‘in the works’ to reopen bridge parking April 16, 2008
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Tucked into a story by the Granite City (Ill.) Press-Record about a litter cleanup event at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, once a part of Route 66, was this:
At this time, parking is available on the Illinois side, and has recently been improved by the city of Madison.
Except during special events, the Missouri entrance is locked, but there is still access to the bridge from the bike trails.
“There are a couple of plans in the works (to open the Missouri side), but I don’t know what the schedule will be,” Weilbacher said.
Parking on the Missouri side of the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge was closed in November after a number of vehicle burglaries. Trailnet, which oversees the bridge as part of a hiking and bicycling trail, said it didn’t have enough money to maintain enough security at the parking lot there.
So Route 66ers have been forced to park on the Illinois side to visit the bridge. That isn’t necessarily bad, but that location is considerably less accessible to travelers from nearby Interstate 270.
Perhaps Trailnet will announce a security pact with the St. Louis Police Department, and the Missouri parking lot to the bridge will reopen. Let’s hope so. The Old Chain of Rocks Bridge is a Route 66 treasure, and it deserves more accessibility for tourists.
Nice way to spend a summer April 16, 2008
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A schoolteacher in Indiana is spending this summer traveling on Route 66, taking art classes and following her muse, thanks to a grant, reports the The Post & Mail in Colombia City, Ind.
Sarah Corey, who teaches at Indian Springs Middle School, received $8,000 from the Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Fellowship.
Throughout the trip she’ll be stopping at workshops along the way and focusing on plein (open) air painting, murals, photography, ceramics and glass art. [...]
Taking in the various cultures, especially those of Native Americans, along the way will be one of the main focuses of the trip.
Corey’s grandfather, who recently passed away, was an avid learner of Native American cultures and Corey is looking forward to getting to know those same things her grandfather found fascinating.
The journey will start in Chicago with two days and nights of a glass works class, and from there it will be on to St. Louis for a stop at the city’s art museum before getting back onto Route 66 and heading to Tulsa, Okla. for an overnight stay and another stop at a museum.
Once she gets farther west the fun really starts, with the chance to paint the beautiful desert scenery and cliff sides while out in the environment with them, although Corey isn’t sure yet if she’ll be able to use her favorite oil-based paints in the desert heat. She’s got an assortment of water-based paints as a back-up just in case.
She plans to spend two or three days in Albuquerque, NM and reservations in that area before heading to the Grand Canyon and her the last two destinations of San Diego and Mission Viejo.
It should be a good trip. Route 66 brims with rich material for artists.
And I suspect that once she crosses the border into New Mexico and sees those amazing skies, she’ll never want to leave.
County seeks money for Route 66 bike trail April 16, 2008
Posted by Ron in Attractions, bicycling.1 comment so far
Here’s an interesting item from the Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph about the McLean County Board meeting on Tuesday:
Also at its meeting, the County Board voted unanimously to apply for $2.4 million in federal grant money to turn the abandoned sections of Old Route 66 near Funks Grove into a bike trail. Total cost of the project is estimated at $3 million.
If the county receives the grant, it would have to come up with the other $600,000, according to the grant application approved by the board.
County Board member Stan Hoselton of Chenoa said that by applying for the grant, the county may have an opportunity to move forward on the project that has been planned since 1999.
Under the proposal, about 7½ miles of new bike trail would connect to Constitution Trail at the southern edge of Bloomington. Constitution Trail is a 24-mile walking and biking trail that winds through Bloomington and Normal.
The proposed trail would follow the 1920s alignment of Route 66. The section connecting Funk Grove is the first part of five that eventually would use the highway to build a bicycle route from McLean to Chenoa.
This undoubtedly will be part of an improvement to the Route 66 Bike Trail.
