Missouri - Day 6 - Route 66, Springfield, and south

Table Rock State Park, Branson

Tuesday, 6 April 2021

today's route

Missouri has 313 miles of the old Route 66, entering the state in St. Louis, crossing southwest to Joplin, and heading briefly into Kansas on its way to Oklahoma.  I learned today that the road was realigned from time to time, and I'd have to be a serious student of its history to know when I was on the original route.  But I spent several hours this morning driving the route Missouri has marked as Route 66 and have no trouble believing I saw what drivers saw 50 or more years ago.

I picked up Route 66 in Joplin and headed north to Webb City, pop. 10,996.  Webb City calls itself The Zinc City, and I didn't see anything in town that illustrated that so I looked it up.  Sure enough, in 1880 it was given the nickname of Zinc Capital of the World.  It was part of what was called the Tri-State Mining District (SE Kansas, NE Oklahoma, SW Missouri), considered in 1916 to be the largest and most productive lead and zinc mining field in the world. 

A little way down the road I came to Carthage, established 1842 according to their sign.  The internet says they had 14,378 residents in 2010 and call themselves America's Maple Leaf City.  

As I was driving past the main part of downtown, I saw an unusual building poking out above the others and thought it sure looked like a county courthouse, so I went to see.  And indeed it was.

Jasper County Courthouse

The streets around the courthouse were packed with cars and I couldn't find anywhere to pull over, much less an angle to take a photo, so this one is off the internet.  It was taken in summer, and today was nothing like as sunny and bright as this photo, but this building still looks like this and I frankly gawked.  It hadn't occurred to me that there might be something in Carthage that I'd be interested in.  This building, 106' tall, was built in 1895 in the Richardsonian Romanesque style and, according to the internet, is the 2nd most photographed building in Missouri (I guess the 1st most is the capitol?).  Anyway, I'm glad I happened to see those turrets.

On the edge of town I crossed the Spring River, which at that point was as wide as a river and was tumbling over a small waterfall, framed by lovely trees - very pastoral.  Right next to it was a small lake, which I thought had been created with water from the river.  That's Kellogg Lake, and I can't find anything online that says either yes or no.  But it's a nice recreation area for the town.  The Spring River, by the way, is the western boundary of the Ozarks in Missouri - which explains all those hills I started driving on as I continued east.

All day today I saw huge fields of grass, huge fields of low-growing purple flowers, lots of cows, lots of religious signs, lots of hills.  I saw jonquils and redbud trees in full bloom.  In Carthage I saw some lovely tulips.  Spring seems to be just starting in this part of Missouri.

Route 66 was mostly a narrow road with 2 lanes and no shoulder.  It took me through a long string of small towns such as Avilla, pop. 195; Halltown, pop. 175; unincorporated towns like Carterville, Phelps and Rescue (they don't know where that name came from).  So like I said, I think I saw some of what drivers a half-century ago saw along that road.

There was a very strong southerly wind today - with gusts up to 15 and 20 mph.  Since I was driving east, it hit me broadside and I had a hard time driving on those narrow roads.

Occasionally I saw signs pointing me to a Route 66 route in a separate direction, while telling me I was still on the right road.  My guess was that these alternate byways cover some of those old road realignments.

Springfield

Springfield is definitely The Big City of the area, with a population of 159,498 as of 2010.  I went first to see the county courthouse, and can't say I was particularly impressed.

Greene County Courthouse
in Springfield

This was built in 1911, after a bitter political struggle (nothing new under the sun), in the Classical Revival style.  But take a look at the old City Hall 2 blocks away.

old City Hall

I think this was built in 1893 and is still being used for city business.  That's an internet photo - I stopped illegally along the street to see it but couldn't take a photo from my RV that would get all of this and was afraid to get out for a better angle.  

Springfield is a college town, with large campuses for Drury University, founded 1873, with 1,743 enrolled in 2020; Ozarks Technical Community College, founded 1990, with 12,221 enrolled in 2020; Missouri State University, founded 1905, the state's 2nd largest school with 23,502 enrolled in 2020.  These schools are within about a mile or so of each other, and the surrounding neighborhood is very pleasant.

The University Heights Baptist Church across the street from the campus had an electronic sign in front with the message: "We're Back!  Socially Distanced, Of Course."  A message I found hopeful.

A couple of miles from all this education is the flagship store of Bass Pro Shops, founded right here in Springfield in 1971.

Bass Pro Shops

Over the archway it says, "The Grandaddy [sic] Of All Outdoor Shops."  And farther back over the front entrance it says, "Welcome Hunters, Fishermen and Other Liars"®.  This facility takes up an entire block and includes the Wonders of Wildlife National Museum and Aquarium, a taxidermy service, and various other outdoor-related services.  And you can see from the cars that it's very popular, even on a weekday morning.

Back on the road

I see from billboards that I'm back in the land of Lambert's Cafe with their "throwed rolls."  And I saw a Jimmy's Egg place - a long-time chain in this area that I learned about when I was in Arkansas last year.

Heading south from Springfield on US 160, I saw road signs telling drivers to get in the "left 2 lanes" to get on one road and the "right 2 lanes" to stay on US 160.  I wanted 160 but couldn't figure out exactly which lanes to be in, because there were only 3 lanes.  I kept expecting the road to widen into 4 lanes, but it never did.  All the way to the separation, the signs kept saying "left 2 lanes" and "right 2 lanes" and there were never more than 3 lanes.  So Missouri's highway department has a weird sense of humor?

Speaking of Missouri highway signs, in several places I saw a yellow warning sign reading, "Signal Ahead."  And above that message was a small oblong area that flashed the word "RED" in the color red when the traffic signal ahead was red or about to turn red.  There were places where the signal was hard to see and that sign turned out to be a big help.  I don't remember seeing it anywhere else before.

I went through the town of Nixa, pop. 19,022, which I'd passed through last year because of it being the (fictional) hometown of Jason Bourne/David Webb.  This time I noticed a sign saying it's the "Progressive Choice of the Ozarks."  I've looked online, including their Wikipedia page, and can't see any reason for this motto, other than they've got a solar farm located here (on land owned by a state senator) and they've upgraded their internet system to include gigabits.

As I continued down the road, suddenly the side door of the RV's cabin popped open, even though I'd locked it.  I was very lucky to be in an area with a wide shoulder and I pulled over - and before I could get to the door, Gracie almost made a break for it - I just barely caught her before she jumped out.  That was almost as scary as the door itself, because I can't imagine how long it would have taken me to catch her - or even if she would have managed to stay out of the busy roadway.  She gets scared so easily, and when she's scared she gets irrational and sometimes runs directly for the thing that's scaring her.

I've been having a lot of trouble with that door lately, because I can't always get it to close all the way, and because I can't always tell whether it's completely closed - which is how this situation happened.  The last time I had this kind of trouble, an RV repair person recommended I adjust the strike plate on the door, which I did.  As far as I can tell, that hasn't moved and I can't figure out what else I can do to fix this.  It seemed more like a nuisance, but this incident has moved it from a nuisance into a problem.

Missouri has a town named Spokane.  I didn't know there was one of those anywhere besides Washington.  

Redbuds are in full bloom here and are simply beautiful.

When I got south to the town of Branson West, pop 478, I started seeing some seriously rocky outcroppings.

The red light at this intersection lasted long enough for me to get these photos.  When I first saw rocks like these, I thought they were riprap the highway department had put in when it was building the road.  But instead, those are the rocks they cut through when they built it, not rocks they added to stabilize the bank.

I've seen several billboards during the drive that are aimed at curbing opioid use, and they urge people to go to https://www.nomodeaths.org.  This website helps connect people to resources around the state.  Apparently opioid use has been a big problem here, considering the number of these signs I've seen.

At Table Rock Lake, I crossed a US Army Corps of Engineers dam to get to the campground.  This is a big, pretty lake, and the area is extremely popular, judging from the number of people I saw here on a Tuesday.

I stopped at the Visitor Center to walk the dogs and found some signs about nature I thought were interesting.

I didn't know about this hint to provide a moist area sprinkled with sea salt - that that's something that helps butterflies.  I know every living creature needs salt but I keep having to be reminded about it.

This sign was a reminder to me that Purple Martins - beloved by humans for their consumption of mosquitos - prefer to live in apartments, rather than individual houses, seeing it as a safety-in-numbers thing.  The apartments that volunteers had put up here at the Visitor Center seemed to be full of Purple Martins, based on the number I saw perched outside.

This sign reminded me of the parking lot at Joplin High School, which had a similar set-up to prevent water pollution from urban runoff.

At the state park, I found a huge campground with nearly 100 campsites - and that was just one of the campgrounds available.  I saw a large, filled marina nearby and figured this place must be packed on weekends and holidays with boaters.

The campground and lake are named for Table Rock Mountain, which for some reason I was never able to see.  Granted there were clouds, but the ceiling didn't seem all that low to me.  I never saw anything I'd have called a mountain, let alone something that'd be named Table Rock.  But then, it's only supposed to be about 800' high, so maybe I wasn't looking for the right thing.  Missouri's highest point, after all, is only 1,772', so I should probably readjust my sights.