Missouri: Stanley Cour-Tel,
La Casa Grande,
Staebell Hotel,
Beacon Motel,
Arch Motel Sign,
Oak Grove Roadside Park,
Devil's Elbow Bridge,
John's Modern Cabins, Satellite Cafe Rocket,
Boots Motel
Oklahoma: Tulsa Meadow Gold Sign
California: Imperial 400 Motor Inn
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Photo Copyright ©2002 Carolyn Hasenfratz |
Stanley Cour-Tel
THE STANLEY COUR-TEL SIGN IS AGAIN WITHIN OUR REACH! A donation from you would be of great assistance in bringing the signs back to Route 66. Please make your tax deductable donations payable to Friends of the Mother Road, Inc. Please put on the memo line of your check "Stanley Sign" and the money will be earmarked for that purpose.
Please send all donations to:
Friends of the Mother Road, Inc.
3947 Russell
St. Louis, MO 63110
More detailed information on the Preservation News page.
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Photo Copyright ©2001 Jim Seelen |
La Casa Grande
Watson Road, St. Louis County, MO
The property is for sale. |
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Staebell Hotel
Manchester, Missouri
In January 2003, the City of Manchester Planning and Zoning Comission declined to approve a permit to demolish the Hotel. Read the meeting minutes here.
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Photo Copyright ©2002 Carolyn Hasenfratz |
Beacon Motel
Latest News on the Beacon Motel:
Most of the building has been razed, but the owner is planning to keep the distinctive sign on his business property.
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Photo Copyright ©1999 Jim Seelen |
Arch Motel Sign
St. Clair, MO
The motel building is gone and the sign has been moved to temporary storage until it can be installed where the public can enjoy it. Route 66 State Park in Eureka, Missouri is a possible future location. More details will be posted here when they become available.
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Photo Copyright ©2003 Carolyn Hasenfratz |
Oak Grove Roadside Park
Leasburg, MO
Barriers are up to prevent car access to the park due to illegal trash dumping. MODOT and preservation groups are trying to think of a way to keep the park clean AND allow full use of the park.
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Devil's Elbow Bridge
Here is a link to an article by Conor Watkins -
The Historic Devil's Elbow Bridge Is In Need Of Repair: Rusting Steel And Crumbling Concrete Threaten This Landmark
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Photo Copyright ©Shellee Graham |
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.
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.
Now Ross and her son, Kenneth, want to tear down the cabins, which are in
such bad condition that they pose a hazard to anyone who might venture into
them … and a liability to the Rosses.
Ross has said the cabins are beyond repair and simply aren't worth
saving. Route 66 enthusiasts disagree. 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. If on-site
preservation is impossible, we'd like to move the sign and one or more of the
cabins to another location so future generations will have a chance to see
them and imagine what Route 66 might have been like in its heyday.
Copyright ©2002 Emily Priddy and Ron Warnick
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Photo Copyright ©Kent and Mary Sue Sanderson |
The Satellite Cafe Rocket
This rocket formerly stood by the Satellite Cafe, which burned down in 1999. Located near Lebanon, MO, the land the rocket and the Satellite Cafe sign now sit on is fenced off and was being used as a cow pasture when last seen.
Here is another view of the rocket's setting.
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Photo Copyright ©Shellee Graham |
The Boots Motel
The Boots Motel in Carthage, Missouri has been sold. We don't yet know what the new owner intends to do with the property. Click here to see more photos of the Boots Motel and the former Boots Drive-In across the street. Click
here to read a news article about the Boots published in the Carthage Press. |
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Meadow Gold Sign
Tulsa, Oklahoma
The building that the sign is on has a new owner who wants the sign moved. He has donated the sign free of charge if funds can be raised quickly to move it to a new location. Details on the Freinds of the Mother Road web site. Here is a news article about the sign on the KOTV web site.
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Imperial 400 Motor Inn
Needles, California
Property for sale. More information here. |
