A Trip to Times Beach, MO - A Town Lost to Time

 

We visited the Rt 66 State Park while we were in the St. Louis area. 

The visitor center was once a busy inn and motel.

It is next to the Meramec River which offered summer fun.

The park has plenty of open space with trails and roadways for hiking. 

The park bears an uncanny resemblance to a map of Times Beach, MO.

Times Beach began as an advertising gimmick for the St. Louis Times.

They sold off lots at this "resort" location along the Meramec River for $67.50; 

$10 dollars down and $2.50 a month with a subscription to the news paper. 

Lots were sold and folks began building summer cottages. 

Families escaped the summer heat in St. Louis and came to Times Beach.

Wives would bring the children and husbands would

join them on weekends. 

The families swam and canoed in the river that bordered the town.

During the depression many families moved to Times Beach and it became a year-round town of over 1000 residents. In the early 70's the town paid to have all of the streets sprayed with waste oil to cut down the dust from cars going along the dirt roads. 

Not long after, it was discovered that horses and dogs were dying at nearby stables where the same oil had been used to cut down the dust in the riding arenas. It was discovered that the waste oil was contaminated with dioxin. Residents were advised to leave. Shortly afterwards, the Meramac River flooded, spreading the contaminated soil. Residents were told not to return, and in 1983 the government bought out the entire town. It became a superfund site. All of the remaining structures were demolished. An incinerator was erected and soil from the area was burned. The land became a state park in 1999. The land has been tested and is now considered safe. Visitors can hike in what was the town of Times Beach, even wandering trails that once were the town roads. 

 

St Louis Here I Come!

Our first stop in St Louis was at the Transportation Museum. The Mister was in his element as we toured the trains on display. Many of the trains have undergone or are undergoing restoration. 

There were several unusual engines and/or cars at the museum. 

It's difficult to read, but this was an experimental tank car, 

trying to see how long a car the could make and use. 

This car was 96 1/2 feet long, almost three times the length of most rail cars.

They found that it was difficult to maneuever around corners, where it would often derail. 

The "Train of Thought" was another different sort of car.

A freight car was converted into a classroom. 

For nine years Monsanto used the car as it went from one plant to another.

Today the car is used to help teach visiting students about transportation. 

This car was used to test the pulling strength of locomotives. 

About 1/3 of the car was filled with instruments and work stations.

The remainder of the car housed quarters for engineers and a dining car.

Engineers might be out on tests for up to 10 days, and the car would serve as their home. 

This was a bay window on the car where you can see instruments inside. 

Engineers could watch the instruments and look up or down the track at the same time. 

The transportation museum also had a representative selection of cars one might see on Rt 66, arranged by decade, as well as cars that were made or designed in St. Louis. One exhibit I enjoyed included models made by students for the "Body by Fisher" competition. From 1930-1968 the competition was conducted as a means to search for design talent and recruit future car stylists. Prizes included cash, trips and college scholarships.  Evidently a number of young designers ultimately obtained jobs in the industry. 

After the museum and a bus tour around St Louis we were dropped off on the Delmar Loop for lunch. We chose to eat at Fitz's, a root beer craft brewery. The lunch and root beer was great, but they were not bottling on the day we visited. 

And of course, a trip to St Louis would not be complete without a trip to the Arch. 

I went up with friends in the 5-person 'capsules' to the top of the arch.

Here is the view to the south....

our bus is circled in red. 

We had one final day for exploration. 

The Mister and I visited the St Louis zoo, which is a free attraction!

However, parking is not 😂

 

The Rt 66 Mother Road Festival - Springfield

 Every year Springfield, MO hosts the Rt 66 Mother Road Festival. Our caravan happened to be in town for the event. As this is the 100th anniversary of Rt 66, the festival was planned to be even better than previous years. We did not attend the evening concerts, but we did go into town to view some of the 1,498 cars at the car show.  The center of town was blocked off to traffic and cars were parked along the sides of the streets on at least a dozen blocks. 

Check out the Matchbox Car on the air filter!

I HAD to take a photo of this car. 

Check out the 'badge'!

While we were in Springfield our group was camped at the Double J Campground in nearby Chatham. This was a clean, flat campground with great gravel roads and sites. There was a fun walking trail through woods and weeds. The girls enjoyed the curving trail, and loved coming upon a bunny that seemed to find a way to run through the weeds and miraculously show up on the next section of our trail! Here are a few shots of "the weeds":

The campground is next to a corn field. At our last campground we saw tall cornstalks one day, and the next they were gone. The harvesters had come in and worked through the night. In case you have never had the opportunity to stand next to a corn field, I took this shot so you can see that the corn really is as high as an elephant's eye! 

A Lincoln Kinda Day

Our tour took us around Springfield, Illinois. This was President Lincoln's home when he first became a lawyer and entered into politics.

Our first stop was the Lincoln Museum and Library. I thought it was excellent. You enter into a large open space,  a rotunda. On one side there is a log cabin, with the figure of Abe sitting on a stump with a book in his hand.

 

Visitors "journey" through the cabin, which replicates the size of the one-room 

cabins that Lincoln grew up in, and then on through several displays depicting

Lincoln's pre-presidential years. Many of the exhibits use full-size models of Lincoln, 

family members, and others depicting this part of Lincoln's story. 

(Evidently Lincoln had strong feelings for freedom children should have from overbearing parents, and let his boys run wild when they visited his office!)

On the other side of the 'rotunda' are figures of Lincoln and his family in front of the White House.

The "journey" in this exhibit focuses on the presidential years.  

Unfortunately, I did not have time to visit this gallery.

In addition, there is a changing exhibit of art and there are two holographic presentations 

that I found to be very engaging. Oh, and it wouldn't be a museum without a gift shop!

We visited Lincoln's home in Springfield. 

When he first moved to Springfield and began to practice law 

he bought this house. At that time it was only a 1-story home.

As the Lincoln family grew, the second floor was added.

Much of the house is as it was in Lincoln's day,

with many of the original items still on exhibit. 

Lincoln and Mary intended to return to the house following Lincoln's term.

From there we moved on to Lincoln's tomb.

It is beautiful.

Bronze statues depicting Lincoln,

and the armed forces stand out on the white granite. 

Lincoln lies at rest below this red granite marker.

His family is interred within the tomb as well,

with the exception of his youngest, and longest surviving son 

who is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

And of course, a visit to the monument is not complete unless one rubs

the nose of this Lincoln head to bring good luck! 

 

On to Pontiac...Illinois

We visited Pontiac, IL

We had a brief trolley tour around the city to see some historic sites and to learn about some of the murals. 

There are 24 murals depicting the history of Pontiac. 

Bob Waldmire painted this map mural in the Rt 66 museum in Pontiac.

He painted murals in many locations on Rt 66.

This map was never finished. Bob died before he could finish painting the truck,

which you can see penciled in between the print of the grain elevator and Towanda.

Here are a few other murals around town: 

In addition to the murals, the town has cute cars and trucks along many sidewalks.

These were the result of an art collaboration. 

Pontiac constructed an open air plaza in mid town. 

The sign was created to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Rt 66.

It was made to look like signs of yore.

As we left Pontiac we stopped at few gas stations

that once served customers on the mother road.