Ghost Towns of Route 66 Read Online Free PDF Page A

area as well as in nearby Oklahoma and Missouri.

    A carefully restored Kan-O-Tex service station in Galena is now home to 4 Women on the Route, a delightful combination gift shop and snack bar.
    The final boom came with the establishment of Route 66 and the transformation of Baxter Springs into a major service and transportation center. At one point during the late 1950s, five national trucking companies had yards here, and one major freight company established its eight-state maintenance yard and shipping point here.
    Today, Baxter Springs is a large and busy ghost town, where the past haunts the present with dusty remnants of better times. It is also a faded snapshot of small-town America from the era when Mickey Mantle was the pride of the local team, the Baxter Springs Whiz Kids.

    Can there be any doubt about which legendary highway this café fronts in historic Baxter Springs?

    In Baxter Springs, re-created neon signage encapsulates the colorful era of the soda fountain, Route 66, the tail fin, and the Edsel.

    The lovely Rainbow Bridge over Brush Creek, between Galena and Baxter Springs, is the last of three Marsh Arch bridges that once spanned creeks on Route 66 in Kansas.
    DON’T MISS
    The scope of exhibits at the Galena Museum, housed in the old depot at 319 West 7th Street, is nothing short of extraordinary. A stop can easily consume an afternoon. In addition to massive displays that include a military tank, a switchyard engine, and a caboose, there is also an excellent display of ore samples as well as an extensive series of displays chronicling the town’s rich history.
    In Erick, towering buildings that predate legendary Route 66 cast long shadows over one of the most famous highways in the world.

OKLAHOMA
    Vestiges of better times attest to the slow-motion slide toward abandonment that has been the story of Afton since Route 66 retired from its role as Main Street of America.
    F ROM THE K ANSAS STATE LINE to Texola, Oklahoma, a cornucopia of dusty little towns line Route 66. All have surprising and colorful histories. A few hover at a point between being the busy centers of commerce they once were and becoming ghost towns, but only a few have withered to near complete emptiness.
    In each of these towns, there is a common theme: With the arrival of Route 66, coffee shops and truck stops replaced the saloons and cattle yards of boisterous cow towns, and motels and service stations replaced the hotels and blacksmith shops of territorial-era farm towns. With the never-ceasing flow of traffic diverted from the main street to the super slab, businesses closed, and people moved on in search of opportunity. The elements, as well as vandals, then transformed homes and once-prosperous businesses into picturesque ruins that predate neon or the liberating contribution of Henry Ford and his Tin Lizzie.
    AFTON AND NARCISSA
    N ARCISSA, A FORMER FARMING community named after Narcissa Walker in 1902, was the proverbial wide spot in the road when Jack Rittenhouse rolled through in 1946. He notes, “Only one establishment on US 66: a gas station with a grocery and small garage.”
    Even though Afton had a population of more 1,200, Rittenhouse does not have much more to say about this town than he does Narcissa: “Baker’s Café, Northeast Garage, and Eagle Service Station garage; Acme Court.” Afton is another one of those places on Route 66 that do not fit the general ideal of what a ghost town should be unless viewed in the context of what once was there—or with a slow drive through town on Route 66. It teeters on the brink of revival and continued decline.
    Bassett’s Grocery, after serving the community for more than half a century, closed in 2009. The 1911 Palmer Hotel, its café, the old Pierce & Harvey Buggy Company, and the Avon Court and Rest Haven motels are now all empty.
    Farming played an important role in the economy of Afton, but it was the railroad, and later Route 66,