Route 66 book with park memories

Came across a book titled "Route 66: The Empires of Amusement" have not started reading it yet but it has a couple of chapters which are about some amusement parks that were along the route.
Fairland Park, Chain of Rocks, Electric Park, and Crystal City.
Might be an interesting read if you are into old long-gone parks.
The book is from Mock Turtle Publishers.

Jim Wolgamuth

I never understood why Route 66 was so famous. Was it like the only road from the Midwest to the West or something?

If I was going to travel the entire length of a road for fun, it'd be the PCH or I-70 or I-5, not Route 66.

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A day is a drop of water in the ocean of eternity. A week is seven drops.

Interesting reading about route 66

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/g1epc/tov/2419101049/p1/article.jhtml?term=

Den. Rte 66 at one time was the main artery from Chicago to Los Angeles before the superhighways were built. It has alot of history to it.

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Arena football has arrived in the Windy City. Go "Chicago Rush"

It is a cool scenic road that gazillions of American have etched into their memories from summer road trips out west. Also, there was a song and TV show that got folks even more hyped on it. You can still follow bits and pieces. Cool road.

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"Know thyself!"

Its Americana at its best.

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"Every Man Has Got to Know His Limitations"

Interstates.... *snorrrrrrre* :)

You can't enjoy America by zooming by everything at 75mph and seeing McDonald's & BP at every exit. Rte.66 was the slower 1930s-40s equivalent of today's interstates, without the golden arches every 5 miles. The route was the home of thousands of "mom & pop" operations - even Steak 'n' Shake got started along the road in Illinois.

Sadly, today what's left of this famous road is bits and pieces of disconnected roadbed, littered with the carcasses of family businesses forced to shut down when the interstates took their customers away to the land of cookie-cutter fast food joints and truck stops.

I lived about 3 blocks from a small chunk of old 66 when I lived outside of Chicago for a little while (just down the street from Rhea's Chicken Basket). You might see it while sitting in traffic on I-55 ;)

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My K'Nex Coasters
Coming to Wyandot Lake in 2003: Hi-Striker's Revenge

What's so good about route 66? Well, I haven't really traveled the "classic" route much, but I have gone down a considerable portion of the interstates that more or less follow its original course. Wow. The slice of America you get, both on the social and the environmental side of things, is incredible. It doesn't have any one thing about it that's spectacular (like some of the famous scenic drives, or whatnot), but the acumulation of all sorts of different stuff is truly remarkable.

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I hear America screaming...

Well Route-66 has all sorts of neat stuff on it. While I don't think of it in my mind to travel the entire length form Chicago to LA. I like to travel small sections of the old highway in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois. However I only been to 1 amusement park along US-66 called SFStL. I'm preatty sure you have heard of that park. In fact my MO-US-66 map has a SF ad saying that we are located right on Old-66. On my trip to SDC in December I took Old-66 out of Springfield to Carthage, MO just because it was an easy and fun drive and there's hardly any traffic to fight. If I talked ore about Route-66 here I'll be way off topic.

So lets get back to the topic, As for what Jim mentioned about the Chain of Rocks Amusement Park. It is located right at the Missouri side of the Chain of Rocks Bridge as seen on this postcard here http://members.aol.com/coasting2/chainofrocks.html. The parks main feature was a L shape out and back John Miller woodie, it was known as the "Roller Coaster". From the TerraServer photo (http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/image.aspx?t=1&s=10&x=3723&y=21471&z=15&w=2) of the area you can't even tell the park even existed there.

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Chris Knight
I can't decide is it BGW or SDC/CC.
Coming to WOF in 2003: A New Dippin' Dots stall :-)

Being the old farts we are, my husband and I are looking forward to retirement and driving the Lightning around the country visiting drag strips and amusement parks.

We've talked about trying to follow the old Route 66. I believe there are several books that include the old "road maps".

Once again, it's the "slice of America"...going back to when we didn't have the boring freeway system.
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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead

Interstates aren't always boring. Try driving Interstate 70 west of Denver. Or the Pennsylvania Turnpike between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.

But I do like the old roads better. I love driving through the little towns and seeing how much character they have. Getting to Fallingwater last summer was incredible.

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A day is a drop of water in the ocean of eternity. A week is seven drops.

You make a very good point, Den, as I HAVE driven the PA turnpike through the mountains, and it's gorgeous. But Route 66...that would be an "adventure".

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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead

An adventure, yes, but what kind of an adventure?

I'm sorry, it's just that my mom's family used to drive from New Jersy to Illinois and back when she was a kid, using only real highways. As we cruised down the expressways on our way to New Jersey when I was a kid (which always included the PA Turnpike- fun road!), she would always tell horror stories about crawling through towns and cities, congested tunnels, horrible road conditions, etc. etc.

Not to say that the old highways weren't fun (I have gone down a few, and they are neat), but I think we might want to be careful not to idealize them too much...

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I hear America screaming...

IMO, driving on back roads is fun *in limited amounts of time.*

When my wife and I drove from Columbus to Chicago a couple of years ago, we took the Ohio/Indiana turnpike on the way there, and a rural state route on the way back. The turnpike is boring, but it wasn't nearly as frustrating as the state route. Dozens of times we got stuck behind semis going 50 mph and couldn't pass them for miles, and some of the larger towns with stoplights took 15 minutes to get through. It was horrible.

Something I do on vacations to get just a little local flavor is to "cut corners." I look on a map to see where I'll be switching interstates, then I'll plan so I can get off one or two exits early and make my way to the other interstate on back roads.

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A day is a drop of water in the ocean of eternity. A week is seven drops.