This year, America’s most iconic highway is celebrating its 100th birthday. Established in 1926, Route 66 was one of the first national highways, extending all the way from Chicago to Santa Monica. The historic route ran through eight states, covering a total of 2,448 miles. Only 13.2 of those miles are on Kansas soil. But there’s no shortage of fascinating sites and stories along our state’s short section of the Mother Road.
Baxter Springs, one of only three Kansas towns on Route 66, is a good place to start a road trip. It sits down in the southeast corner of our state, next door to the Missouri state line and even closer to the Oklahoma border. If your Model T loses its radiator cap in Baxter Springs, it could easily bounce into the Sooner State before rolling to a stop.
Motoring north through Baxter Springs, you’ll see a beautifully restored 1930 Phillips 66 station in the distinctive Tudor Style. It now houses the Kansas Route 66 Visitors’ Center, and it’s on the National Register of Historic Places. This is a great place to pick up some tourist tips and Route 66 souvenirs. But it’s staffed entirely by volunteers, so if the visitors’ center happens to be closed, head over to the Baxter Springs Heritage Center and Museum.
You’ll probably find Mary Billington at the front desk. She’ll provide you with a Route 66 map and passport guiding you to all the local sights. Mary can also answer pretty much any question you have about the history of the area.
In 1863, a massacre by Quantrill’s Raiders took place here. After the Civil War, Baxter Springs became Kansas’ first cowtown — the end of the trail for Texas longhorns on the Eastern Shawnee Trail. Soon afterward, it became a thriving zinc-and-lead mining town, attracting new residents, new merchants and a few unwanted celebrities. In 1933, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker held up Ray Kirkendoll’s Baxter Springs grocery store two Saturdays in a row. They didn’t get away with much, though. Kirkendoll had heard rumors that the notorious couple were in the area, so he’d taken the precaution of pulling nearly all the money out of his cash register and burying it under the big pile of pintos in his dry bean bin.
There are 23,000 square feet of exhibits in the museum to explore, so you might need some refreshment by the time you leave. You’ll find just the right stuff at the Monarch Pharmacy, a small brick building with the huge Coca Cola mural on the side. Inside, there’s a nostalgic soda fountain that still serves the kind of treats that motorists enjoyed during Route 66’s heyday. Indulge in a Brown Cow, a Green River or a Cherry Rickey, and it’ll be like taking your tastebuds back in a time machine.
Just north of Baxter Springs is the graceful Rainbow Bridge, built in 1923. The concrete Marsh arch bridge is the last of its kind on Route 66. It’s now a Kansas state landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.
The next stop on the tour is the town of Riverton. To get there, you’ll loop around the big metal Route 66 shield created by Riverton High School welding students. It’s one of the largest sculptures along the Mother Road and it’s made, appropriately, of recycled automotive rims.
In Riverton, motorists have been stopping at Nelson’s Old Riverton Store since 1925. It’s an old-fashioned mom-and-pop grocery store, gift shop and deli. You’ll find enough Route 66 magnets here to cover every square inch of your Frigidaire and your dishwasher, too. Visitors from all over the world pull over for a soft drink and a freshly carved roast beef-and-munster sandwich.
The last stop on the Kansas Route 66 day trip is Galena, the town that inspired some key parts of Pixar’s animated blockbuster “Cars.” The movie takes place in a forgotten little town along Route 66 called Radiator Springs. The construction of an Interstate highway had bypassed the fictional town, so its glory days were in the rear-view mirror. When the Pixar creative team toured Route 66 for ideas, they saw that Galena’s story was much like that of Radiator Springs. Interstate 44 had sliced through Joplin on the way to Tulsa in 1958, bypassing the little corner of Kansas entirely. Animators saw the faded ghost signs on buildings in Galena, and similar signs found their way into the movie. The character of Tow Mater was born in Galena, too.
Mater, a tow truck who could travel backwards at high speeds, was inspired by an abandoned 1951 International boom truck and a local man called Dean “Crazy Legs” Walker, who can turn his legs backwards. Animators met them both in Galena. The original old truck is still parked outside a restaurant, gift shop and Route 66 welcome center called Cars on the Route. The shop is in a restored 1938 Kan-O-Tex gas station, and Dean Walker occasionally makes an appearance here. He’s a widely known ambassador of Kansas Route 66 and was honored two years ago with a lifetime achievement award from the Kansas Historic Route 66 Association.
“People know me because of the legs,” Dean says. “But I’m double-jointed and bow-legged, so it pretty much comes natural.”
As Route 66’s 100th anniversary and America’s 250th birthday draw near, celebrations will be held all along the 13.2 miles of the Mother Road in Kansas.
Galena will host “Movie on Main” under the stars on June 3, “Dancing Thru the Decades” on June 5 and a big car show on June 6, all part of the Galena Days celebration.
On June 23, classic car enthusiasts will be lining the sidewalks of Galena, Riverton and Baxter Springs to watch a parade of antique, vintage and collector cars motor through on their way to California. The Great Race begins in Springfield, Ill., on June 20 and follows old Route 66 all the way to Pasadena. It’s a nine-day controlled-speed endurance rally, not speed competition, so the winners in previous years have included a 1907 Renault and a 1914 Model T.
The Great Race dust will barely have settled before Galena’s Big Bang Independence Day celebration kicks off on June 27. And on July 3, the day before America blows out 250 candles, Baxter Springs will host Freedom USA, a day of live music, food trucks and fireworks displays.
If you’re lucky, you might run into Dean “Crazy Legs” Walker, too. But if you want to see his namesake leg trick, have your camera ready before you ask him to strike the pose.
“I can only hold that position for about 10 seconds these days,” Dean says. Like Route 66, Dean’s got a few miles on him now. And like the iconic highway, he’s beloved by everyone who prefers the quirky authenticity of a two-lane to the bland efficiency of an interstate.
Contact Joe Norris at joe.norris47@gmail.com.
