Route 66 in the News
Route 66 in Pulaski County, Missouri
2004-12-29 16:28:10
One of the axioms I most often quote is that the more things change, the more they are the same. Before the white man settled Pulaski County . . .
. . . the east to west Indian trails followed the route that is now Highway 44. The few early settlers that braved this frontier followed the same route. The wagons drawn by oxen and horses did not find the streams to be a barrier. They simply forded them and went on their way. Getting a steam railroad engine and cars across a stream was a more formidable task. Mr. Santee, Surveyer for the Atlantic and Pacific (now Burlington-Northern) Railroad provided a solution. He laid out an alternative route on high ground. The railroad was built from St. Louis as far west as Rolla in the mid 1860's.
After the Civil War the railroad went to Arlington and then took the high ground to Dixon, Crocker, Richland and Lebanon. It was not until the late 1860's and '70s that the trains finally arrived in Lebanon and traveled west to Springfield. In 1920 Missouri passed the legislation to create a highway system in the state. One provision was that the road should connect all county seats in the in the State. It was natural that the Waynesville to Lebanon connection would follow the Wire Road. Thus Dixon, Crocker and Richland once the center of activity lost some of their charm. The days of the railroad were numbered and the automobile became the means of transportation. With the arrival of the "Mother Road", Highway 66, life was never the same. The "hard road" as it was called by many of the natives engendered a type of night life never before seen in the area. In 1941, courtesy of Senator Harry S. Truman, Camp Leonard Wood, later to become Fort Leonard Wood, was established and transformed the landscape from agricultural to urban.
D. B. Scott and his wife Mildred owned the farm which was to become the crossroads between Highway 66 and Fort Leonard Wood. D. B. was an auto mechanic and operated a garage and filling station on Highway 66. The building was made of field stone which was popular at the time. In time the Ramada Inn was built on land that was part of the Scott farm. The garage building was rented, renovated and became the setting for one of the most popular gathering places and night clubs in the area. It became known as the Wagon Wheel. The management depended upon and catered to the Fort Wood soldiers. I can speak only from hearsay, but it was reported that some of the refreshments and entertainment were not sponsored by the PTA and the WCTU. It was an unusual set of circumstances that brought this into prominent notice in Richland and brought Richland into the news media in a less than favorable light. The publicity stemmed from a gathering of the local volunteer firemen.
As a reward for faithful service, the volunteer group planned a gathering at the old city hall in Richland. A keg of beer was tapped to add a convivial element to the meeting. After a few rounds of the brew, it was decided to adjourn the meeting to the Wagon Wheel to continue the fun. I never knew who blew the whistle, but the "Fireman's Ball" became a subject of local conversation and considerable publicity. It made the St. Louis and Springfield Papers. This occurred when three point two beer had just been legalized and a community accustomed to prohibition was not ready to accept the new way of life. The Circuit Judge impaneled a Grand Jury to hear evidence of this raucous event that shocked many members of the public. John Traw, one of the patriarchs of the Richland community, was the Foreman of the Grand Jury. One of the most memorable (and I might say clever) bits of testimony came from a Richland resident who had attended the party. When grilled by Mr. Traw for information, he simply replied: "As we went up the Waynesville hill, I passed out". Case closed.
In the culture and society in which we live today, it is difficult to understand the period when Pulaski County and surrounding area was populated by a strictly pastoral society. The railroad was the outlet to the outside world. Radio and Television had not yet become a part of life. Newspapers brought information of the world at large. Few people had access to them. Today the information age is upon us. Events in Iraq are often better known to us than what happens to our neighbor down the street. With this change has come a loss of some of the personal element which is really important.
~Gordon Warren, the Richland Mirror
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