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Route 66 Points of Interest in Missouri
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John's Modern Cabins - Newburg, Missouri
The History of John's Modern Cabins
By Emily Priddy and Ron Warnick
Obscured by a canopy of trees, six tiny, crumbling cabins sit next to a
quiet, dead-end stretch of Route 66 that runs parallel to Interstate 44 about
10 miles outside of Rolla, Mo.
Two outhouses stand behind the aging buildings; nearby, a faded, broken
neon sign identifies the little structures as "John's Modern Cabins."
Driving along Route 66 in front of the cabins, a passerby can read the
story of the road. To the right, termites and time quietly eat away at John's
long-abandoned cabins. To the left, truck drivers roar past at 65 mph,
oblivious to the old tourist court and the road leading to it, both
casualties of the mighty superslab beneath their tires.
John's Modern Cabins began as part of a somewhat seedy juke joint known
as Bill and Bess's Place. Six tiny log cabins flanked a shotgun-shack dance
hall that in the 1930s was home to music, merriment … and murder.
On Halloween night in 1935, 22-year-old Eugene Duncan fatally shot his
estranged wife, Billie, 18, and slightly wounded two others in the dance
hall's fireplace room. Duncan apparently was angry with his wife because she
had left him about 10 days earlier to live with her mother.
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John's Modern Cabins in January 2010.
Copyright © 2010 by David Eslick
Falstaff Sign
Copyright © by Kip Welborn
Rustic beauty set off by lush green vegetation typical of Missouri in the summer.
Copyright © by Shellee Graham
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Duncan initially denied killing his wife, but a week before his trial was
set to start, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and ended up serving
13 years of a 50-year sentence. He eventually remarried and died of a heart
attack at age 60.
Ten years later, Bill Bayliss -- who had owned the juke joint with his
wife, Beatrice -- sold the property. It changed hands three times before John
and Lillian Dausch, a middle-aged, childless couple from Chicago, bought it
in 1951 for $5,000.
Improvements to Route 66 forced the Dausches to move the business a few
feet north of their original location. John Dausch moved several of the
cabins but abandoned the shotgun shack and built three more cabins out of a
concrete-asbestos mix.
Dausch also built a larger log cabin to live in and another building to
use as a laundry room and snack bar, from which he also sold beer.
Ed Goodridge, owner of the nearby Vernelle's Motel, said Dausch's habit
of selling beer on Sundays -- in violation of local laws -- earned him the
nickname "Sunday John."
In 1965, the Missouri State Highway Commission bought some of Dausch's
property so they could make improvements to the road that eventually would
become Interstate 44.
With the arrival of the interstate, Dausch -- like so many other
mom-and-pop business owners along Route 66 -- saw his business begin to dry
up.
It was a bad year for Dausch; a few months later, his wife died of a
coronary thrombosis, and her death -- coupled with his own failing health and
declining business -- eventually prompted him to close his little
establishment.
Dausch continued to live on the property until he died of a stroke in
1971.
Another man, Arnold Noel, lived on the property for about a year after
Dausch's death. Then Noel died, and with no one around to maintain them,
John's Modern Cabins fell into disrepair.
In 1976, Loretta Ross of St. Charles, Mo., bought the property with the
intent of turning it into a hunting getaway for her family, but after her
husband died, those plans were scrapped, and the cabins spent the next 25
years quietly decaying.
The cabins may never be habitable
again, but they are a piece of history that tells the story of the Mother
Road better than perhaps any other single image on the highway, and as such,
they deserve to be preserved -- preferably on their current site.
Copyright ©2002 Emily Priddy and Ron Warnick
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