Ghost Towns of Route 66

By Jim Hinckley and Kerrick James

Explore the mystery and beauty of historic ghost towns from Illinois to California with this gorgeously illustrated guide to America’s favorite highway.

The quintessential boom-and-bust highway of the American West, Route 66 once hosted a thriving array of boom towns built around oil wells, railroad stops, cattle ranches, resorts, stagecoach stops, and gold mines. Join Route 66 expert Jim Hinckley as he tours more than twenty-five ghost towns, rich in stories and history, complemented by gorgeous sepia-tone and color photography by Kerrick James. Also includes directions and travel tips for your ghost-town explorations along Route 66.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781610602471

Book preview

Ghost Towns Route of 66

GHOST TOWNS

of

ROUTE

Text by Jim Hinckley

Photography by Kerrick James

Sun lights the front of a stone building in Afton, Oklahoma.

To the one who has been my source of encouragement and inspiration for more than two decades, my dearest friend, my wife.

—J. H.

To Julie Ann Quarry, who made the miles less lonely and the route traveled never far from her heart and smile.

—K. J.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: ILLINOIS

The Towns that Coal Built

Into the Land of Lincoln

CHAPTER 2: MISSOURI

Ghost of the Modern Era: Times Beach

The Ghost Town Trail of Missouri

Avilla

CHAPTER 3: KANSAS

CHAPTER 4: OKLAHOMA

Afton and Narcissa

Warwick

End of the Road

Foss

Texola

CHAPTER 5: TEXAS

To Amarillo

The Staked Plains

CHAPTER 6: NEW MEXICO

Introduction to the Land of Enchantment

Montoya, Newkirk, Cuervo

Ghosts of the Santa Fe Trail

The Timeless Land

CHAPTER 7: ARIZONA

Ghosts of the Painted Desert

In the Footsteps of the Camel Corps

Chasing Louis Chevrolet

Route 66, the Forgotten Chapter

CHAPTER 8: CALIFORNIA

Goffs

Ghosts of the Desert Cauldron

Daggett

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

SUGGESTED READING

INDEX

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND PHOTOGRAPHER

A roadside ghost in Plano, Missouri.

INTRODUCTION

ICONIC ROUTE 66 is more than a mere highway that connects a metropolis on the shore of Lake Michigan with a metropolis on the Pacific coast. It is the stuff of dreams. It is an icon of epic proportions that lures travelers from throughout the world to come experience American life as it once was and to seek the roadside ghosts from an era when Studebakers still rolled from the factory in South Bend.

The old highway is more than a 2,291-mile (according to a 1936 map) ribbon of asphalt lined with dusty remnants, ghostly vestiges, and polished gems manifesting more than eighty years of American societal evolution. Along Route 66, from Chicago to the shores of the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica in California, whispering breezes carry the voices of ghosts from the Civil War that blend with those of French explorers, Native Americans, Spanish conquistadors, and pioneers fulfilling a young nation’s Manifest Destiny.

To drive Route 66 is to follow the path of a new nation on its journey of westward expansion. The signs bearing the double six mark the path of an American highway that is but a modern incarnation of the Pontiac Trail, the Osage Trail, and the old Federal Wire Road; the Beale Wagon Road and the El Camino Real; the National Old Trails Highway; and the Santa Fe Trail.

This long and colorful history makes the ghost towns along Route 66 unique because they are ghosts of the modern era with roots that reach to the nation’s earliest history.

There are territorial-era mining towns where men who came West on horseback cheered Barney Oldfield and Louis Chevrolet as they roared through town. There are quiet farming villages that once played center stage in the bloody conflict of the Civil War and dusty, wide spots in the road where centuries-old churches cast shadows over the ruts of the Santa Fe Trail as well as the broken asphalt of Route 66.

In the ghost towns of Route 66, the old road will forever be America’s Main Street. In the empty places along America’s most famous highway, the ghosts whisper on every breeze, and the swirling sands of time blur the line between past and present.

chapter 1

ILLINOIS

At Shea’s in Springfield, Bill Shea has created a shrine to the gas station, the oil company, and the American love affair with the road trip.

In Funks Grove, the bucolic world of the nineteenth century blends seamlessly with the world of the Model T, with Route 66, and with the modern era of the mini van.

ROADSIDE GHOSTS and roadside time capsules abound in Illinois, but ghost towns are a rarity and are of a different nature than those found farther west on the plains and desert sands. The rising tide of urban sprawl that spawned the interstate highway and that swept Route 66 from center stage during the last half of the twentieth century began here with the transformation of the venerable two-lane into a four-lane super slab.

As a result, the ghost towns that survive along Route 66 in Illinois do so as dots on a map, made manifest in a service station, transformed into a home or a quiet café, shadowed by centuries-old trees. In most of those that remain, the darkened neon and façades that seemed modern and chic during the era of the Edsel and tail fin often obscure vestiges from the town’s long history that predates the automobile by decades.

THE TOWNS THAT COAL BUILT

MINING GAVE RISE to a small cluster of towns between Dwight and Wilmington. Of these, only Braidwood and Gardner have survived into the modern era with relative prosperity. The others—Godley, Braceville, and Mazonia—are a string of tarnished gems along old Route 66 with but the faintest of hints that they were once more than dusty, wide spots in the road.

Jack Rittenhouse, in his 1946 classic, A Guide Book to Highway 66, writes that Godley was Once a booming mining community. Now only a few homes remain. South of the town are more slag heaps. Of Braceville, he says, Like Godley, this town is but a remnant of a once thriving coal town. As you leave town, the typical slag heaps still blot the countryside. Mazonia did not warrant mention, and even less remains today.

Kaveneys drugstore, now an antique shop, is just one of the many jewels found in the heart of historic Wilmington.

Wilmington, with a population of more than 5,600, may not be a ghost town per se, but ghostly remnants from an earlier time abound.

In Wilmington, the Dé-Ja-Vu store sign encapsulates the essence of a drive on the iconic highway.

When You Go

From Wilmington, drive west on State Highway 53 approximately eight miles. Braidwood is north of the tracks on Highway 113. Godley, Braceville, and the site of Mazonia are on Highway 53.

The resurgent interest in Route 66 has spawned time capsule re-creations and restorations, such as this circa-1933 service station in Dwight.

The Java Stop in Dwight exemplifies life as it once was along America’s highways before the dawn of the generic age.

A colorful but forlorn old eatery in Dwight reflects the transformation the interstate wrought in the small towns along Route 66.

Jack Rittenhouse and His Classic Route 66 Guidebook

The 1946 Route 66 guidebook that author Jack Rittenhouse envisioned as the modern-day equivalent to The Great West (written by Edward H. Hall in 1866 and instrumental in fueling westward immigration) only sold a dismal three thousand copies. However, with the resurgent interest in Route 66 that began in the 1980s, Rittenhouse’s A Guide Book to Highway 66 was reprinted, is now sold at gift shops all along the highway, and provides an invaluable snapshot of Route 66 as it was in the immediate postwar period.

An interesting footnote to the guide and the expedition that led to its creation is the vehicle Rittenhouse selected for the roundtrip journey: a 1939 American Bantam coupe. These diminutive cars with seventy-five-inch wheelbases and twenty-two-horsepower engines were very fuel efficient, but they were also quite spartan and anemic, especially for a trip that included climbs to elevations exceeding seven thousand feet.

In his preface to the 1989 edition, Rittenhouse notes that his car had no trunk, no trip odometer, no radio. He also notes the car had a 1,200-pound curb weight and would often deliver almost fifty miles to a gallon of gasoline.

Braceville, originally

Reviews for Ghost Towns of Route 66

[pomo58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ghost Towns of Route 66: The Forgotten Places Along America's Famous Highway by Jim Hinckley is a nostalgic yet sad trip through the past along a largely forgotten (as far as use goes) highway.I remember many trips along Route 66 between about 1963 and 1974, some years more of the road, some less. My family vacations were spent in a car going from family home to family home, with the two constants being Maryland and California (Van Nuys specifically). When we visited northern family we used all or most of the highway, when we visited southern family, we usually just used the western part of the highway. But it was always an interesting trip and it wasn't until the late 70s that I made my first trip as a driver on the road. Fond memories, many of which this book brought back to me. Just about everyone from that time period has a "street corner in Winslow Arizona" story, and a friend of mine called me in 1998 when he was traveling just to use that line. These types of national memories are priceless.This book highlights both how things were as well as how things are now, so while we visit and see the empty and broken remnants, we also read a little about how these towns flourished. While a very attractive book, I don't think of it as one that is necessarily about the pictures first and the text second (as many coffee table books tend to be), in fact, I would say the text is actually the key to the book while the pictures help to create a more rounded experience.Definitely recommend to anyone interested in Americana as well as those who remember the time when it was a major road.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.