MISSOURI KICKS ON ROUTE 66!

By: Mike Marino

Long before the Joads took to Steinbecks "Mother Road" to escape the dust of Oklahoma for the greener gold of California...and long before Kerouac and Cassidy screamed through the mad, jazz, asphalt nights on "America's Mainstreet", leaving their youth in the East and heading towards their future in the West...and certainly long before Tod and Buz gave us our TV Kicks in black and white on America's most famous two-laner..Route 66 was a series of well worn game trails. No neon motels...no diners..no Phillips 66 stations. The only sound in the forest was that of mocassined feet pursuing game. Eventually, the sound of steel belts ripping down asphalt would would give birth to the legend that would forever etch itself into the American psyche and heart....The Mother Road or Route 66. America's Mainstreet passes through eight states but its humble beginnings in the State of Missouri gives a microcosm story of the growth of this two lane icon.

• THE OSAGE TRAIL...THE BEGINNINGS
• Prior to the 1700's the region that would eventually become Missouri was rich in resources and bounty. Abundant game shared the land with the Osage Indians who used the game trails to track and hunt their prey. The Osage culture prospered over the years and lived a somewhat idyllic life, but soon the winds of change began to stir in the forests as European powers struggled for supremacy in the New World. The land was ripe for conquest and France certainly wanted her share of the New World pie, so she mounted expeditions to explore the region along the Mississippi River. The French explorers, Marquette and Joliet were the first to reach the area in 1693. They found the area rich in resources and the seeds for settlement had been sown and the future of the Osage would change dramatically.
• St. Louis sitting like a jewell on the Mississippi River was first settled in 1763 and soon trade began between its inhabitants and the Osage to the west. The Osage were centered around a favored hunting and gathering area which later in history would become Springfield, Missouri. As trade opened between the two cultures the same time worn game trails would be used and expanded. It was these very same trails that later would be the basis for the railroad routes and ultimately Missouri's highway system...especially Route 66. As trade expanded, it became apparent that these same game-trade trails could be used for European expansion westward, but as the century came to a close, the sun was about to set on European expansion as it began to rise above the horizon for the fledgling United States.
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• THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE
• The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 signalled the beginning of the end for European dominance in the New World. The United States began to flex is muscle as it acquired the region from France..a region that included what would become Missouri. Overnight, the new nation almost doubled in size and the land rush was on. The US purchased large tracts of land from the Osage in 1808 and by 1813 The Missouri Territory was declared. Missouri entered the Union in 1821 when James Madison was President. Although St. Louis was hustling and bustling by this time it wasnt until 1830 that the first settlers arrived to carve the City of Springfield from the wilderness. Trade of goods exploded between the two cities and it was clear that an improved road system would have to be developed, and in 1837 the first state road was authorized and what was once known as the Osage Trail was now the Springfield Road.
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• THE BUTTERFIELD STAGECOACH LINE
• As these two population centers exploded with growth the need for improved communications was recognized and as a result of this need, Joseph Burdin of Springfield was awarded a contract in 1846 to carry the mail between St. Louis and Springfield using two-horse stage coaches. The whole country was experiencing unprecedented growth and Congress in 1857 passed a bill providing for a Transcontinental Mail System using stagecoaches. John Butterfield was awarded this lucrative contract and the first of the famed Butterfield Stage Coaches made its first stop in the town square in Springfield on September 17, 1858. The Butterfield Stage followed the time honored route between St. Louis and Springfield and the roads place in history would now grow in importance and play a decisive role in history as the Blue-Grey clouds of the Civil War began to form and darken the land.
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• THE CIVIL WAR AND THE WIRE ROAD
• The Civil War tore the the political and social fabric of the young nation in two. Conflicting ideologies collided and the North and the South sent the cream of its youth to bloody battlefields that roared with the pitched fury of cannon fire and battle cries that screamed across the land and when the battles ended there was an awful silence as the smoke and haze cleared to expose the dead of both sides, Blue and Grey alike. Missouri was a key battle state and it became clear to the Union that improved communications were neccessary between the port city of St. Louis and the large military depot in Springfield. The Springfield Road was about to fill this need and take on new importance.
• As early as 1846, the first Transcontinental Telegraph Line began in New York City and reached St. Louis in 1847 allowing the growing nation to communicate with speed and immediacy. It eventually reached Springfield in 1860, poles set into the ground and following the Springfield Road. (In its day it was regarded as important as we regard the Internet today!) The old Springfield Road was now one of the key communication players in the war effort, and would soon be known as The Wire Road, a name that it would be referred to for many years to come. (A portion of the old Wire Road can be seen even today at Wilson's Creek Battlefield, just outside of Springfield. It was here on August 10, 1861 that 2,500 men lost their lives for their respective causes and today are buried together at the National Cemetary in Springfield)
• As The Civil War came to a close, another chapter of American history was about to open...The Wild West. Colorful outlaws and lawdogs...gunfighters and soiled doves..downright dime novel legends growing in myth and proportion. It was in Springfield, on what eventually became Route 66 that one of the most colorful characters of the West, Wild Bill Hickock got his gun blazing start.

• WILD BILL HICKOCK
• On July 21 of 1865 although the Civil War had ended, another battle of the Blue and the Grey would take place in Springfields Town Square, right in the middle of what would eventually become Route 66. James Butler Hickock, who later earned the moniker, Wild Bill, a former Union Scout during the Civil War had an altercation with Davis K. Tutt, former Confederate soldier. Primarily it was a gambling dispute over a pocket watch of Wild Bills that Mr. Tutt now had in his possession. One thing led to another and the inevitable movie show down occured in the Town Square which at the time as ringed with saloons and merchants. In the final outcome, Wild Bill lived to find his greater fame in Deadwood, South Dakota and Davis Tutt was laid to rest in Maple Park Cemetary, where he lies today. You cant miss his tombstone, in addition to his name on the granite slab it also has etchings of a pistol, a poker hand...and a pocketwatch!!
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• ROUTE 66
• The curtain was coming down and the stage lights were beginning to dim on the 19th Century...the days of the Old West fading into memory as a new century was about to give birth to a new age born of industrial parents..The Motoring Age. Henry Ford and the other Detroit tinkerers were trying hard to keep pace to feed the appetite of the new motoring public. Demand for The Horseless Carriage was insatiable and the development of new improved roadways was inevitable. Numerous routes for a transcontinental highway were proposed and Cyrus Avery of Tulsa, Oklahoma and John Woodruff of Springfield, Missouri worked tirelessy for a route that would carry America's new Mobility Nobility from Chicago to Los Angeles (..More Than 2,000 Miles All The Way!) An all weather road stretching across the country was now small matter as only about 50,000 miles of paved highway existed by 1920 but in the end, persistance prevailed and Route 66 became a reality in 1926.
• Routes were mapped out state by state, and the one chosen in Missouri between St. Louis and Springfield was indeed a familiar one. The Old Springfield-St. Louis Road formerly known as the Wire Road and before that as the Osage Trail was now to be a part of America's Mainstreet. As worked progessed, Missouri was the third state of the eight Route 66 states to complete its paving in 1931 following Illinois and Kansas, bearing in mind that The Sunflower State only had a dozen or so miles to contend with! The final stretch of the national highway was totally paved with the completion in 1938 of the final leg in The Lone Star state of Texas. Now it was truly possilbe to get your asphalt kicks on Route 66 from Chicago to California.
• The Mother Road passed directly through Springfield and in it's wake a whole industry catering to the motoring needs of America sprang up like mushrooms on a dewy lawn. Motor courts, gas stations, diners and cafes...gift shops and tourist attractions..billboards and neon dotted the landscape. You could get a tire changed and a steak dinner at one location...you could rest the night in a motor court..gas up the next morning and head west towards Joplin, California getting closer and closer with each passing mile. The rush was on.
• Route 66 reached its zenith of popularity in the post war years of the late 40's and early 50's. the Arsenal of Democracy had not only made America safe but prosperous as well and that prosperity made the motoring public hunger for larger, faster and more powerful cars. Once again the mode of transportation would dictate the quality of the highways designed to carry that traffic and that familiar road between St. Louis and Springfield was once more destined to change.
• President Dwight Eisenhower had been impressed by the German Autobahn System...speed and efficiency and in 1956 signed the Federal Aid Highway Act that spelled out the guidelines for 42,500 miles of a new improved American Interstate Highway System. This same interstate system that bears Eisenhowers name also spelled the end for America's most famous asphalt celebrity. Section by section the aging road was replaced and by 1967, I-44 had replaced Route 66 as the main road between St. Louis and Sprinfield and by 1984 the entire Mother Road had been replaced when I-40 near Williams, Arizona was complete. On June 27, 1985 Route 66 had been completely decertified and her asphalt crown retired.
• Today as your journey on the interstate between St. Louis and Springfield you can travel at a high rate of speed and watch as the countryside zips by or you can get off on the next exit and find your way to a different age as you seek out what remains of Route 66. If you do you'll be transported to a time when motoring and travel were an art and an experience. If you listen carefully you might just hear the sounds of a stagecoach in the distance or the caissons and cannon moving down the road ahead of a great blue army ready to fight for its cause...and if you look carefully through the fog of nostalgia and time you may even see a proud Osage hunter quietly tracking his prey in the mist.

  Mike Marino is a freelance writer of Travel and Pop Culture and the author of the pop culture cult classic, The Roadhead Chroncicles Book.

  Contact him at: dharmabumroadie@yahoo.com

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