Ghost Towns of Route 66 Read Free Page A

administration, “If you are in town it is advisable for you to leave and if you are out of town do not return.”
    In an instant, the obscure little community of Times Beach dominated international headlines and became synonymous with deadly environmental degradation, the bane of the modern era. By 1985, the mandatory evacuation was complete, negotiated buyouts were underway, and the town site was quarantined.
    In 1996 and 1997, the final chapter in Times Beach history began to unfold.

    The banner headlines proclaiming the opening of Times Beach marked the beginning of one of the most unusual promotional campaigns in newspaper history.
Missouri Department of Transportation
    An incinerator built on the site at a cost of $110 million burned 265,000 tons of contaminated soil and materials. Upon completion of the project and certification that the site was clean, the property reverted to the state of Missouri, which, in turn, reopened it as Route 66 State Park in 1999.
    There are but two remnants of the little town on the banks of the Meramec River: one a monument to Times Beach, the other to Route 66. Steiny’s Inn, a 1935 roadhouse, now serves as the park’s visitor center, and a beautiful steel truss bridge, closed in 2009, stands in mute testimony to the forgotten town’s ties to legendary Route 66.

    Route 66 State Park, on the former site of Times Beach, is now a haven for wildlife, waterfowl, and those seeking a respite from the rush of the modern era.

    These plans may soon be all that remains of Times Beach’s Meramec River Bridge, closed in 2009.
Missouri Department of Transportation
    Route 66 State Park, the site of Times Beach, is accessed from exit 266 on Interstate 44 east of Eureka.
    THE GHOST TOWN TRAIL OF MISSOURI
    O N THE SECTION OF OLD U.S. 66 between Springfield and Carthage, only the traffic keeps you anchored to the modern era. Here, the line between past and present is blurred. The ghost towns, ruins, and vintage bridges that frame timeless, bucolic scenes enhance the illusion that it is possible to step back in time.
    The first hint that this drive will be special is the shade-dappled Yeakley Cemetery, established in 1852. Still used for services is the chapel that dates to 1887.
    Plano, a few miles west, may have once been a prosperous little farming community or even a bustling service center meeting the needs of Route 66 travelers, but today only two hints of better times remain. One is the overgrown stone ruins that were once a mortuary and casket factory; the other is the former service station and garage that now serve as a residence.
    If a town’s post office illustrates its life-line, the glory days in Plano were short. The post office opened its doors in 1895 and closed them in 1903.
    The next stop is Halltown, home of the White Hall antique store housed in the former Whitehall Mercantile, which has cast its false-fronted shadow across the road for more than a century. In 1926, the year Route 66 debuted on the world stage, Halltown supported almost two dozen businesses, including the mercantile, several grocery stores, a blacksmith shop, and a drugstore.
    As of the spring of 2010, the future of White Hall Antiques is unknown; the proprietor who opened the store in 1985 and co-founded the Route 66 Association of Missouri in 1990, Thelma White, passed away at the age of eighty-three.
    The river of traffic that flowed east and west on Route 66 transformed towns all along the route by igniting the creative, entrepreneurial spirit of the common man. In Halltown after 1930, weary travelers could find rest at the Las Vegas Hotel. The name may have seemed out of place to those passing through, but locals knew that proprietor Charlie Dammer paid for the construction with silver dollars won in a lucky streak in Las Vegas, Nevada.
    On his 1946 odyssey, Jack Rittenhouse notes that Halltown, population 168, consisted of “15 or 20 establishments that lineboth sides of the