Route 66 -- immortalized, but mortal

National Park Service provides funding to document California's portion of the Mother Road as a step toward preservation of the cultural touchstone.

By Martha Groves
Los Angeles Times

It was, John Steinbeck wrote in "The Grapes of Wrath," the "Mother Road" of Dust Bowl sharecroppers heading to the promised land of California. It was where George Maharis and Martin Milner got their 1960s kicks in a Corvette and the highway that brought families to Disneyland and the original McDonald's in San Bernardino.

Immortalized in countless novels, songs and movies, Route 66 was the 2,400-mile road along which adventure seekers meandered from Chicago to the Pacific Coast, bedding down in tepee motels and eating at greasy spoons.

Of the eight states through which Route 66 passed -- the others are Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona -- California is the only one that has not done a cultural survey of the highway.

The California Preservation Foundation and the National Park Service said Monday they want to change that. With $65,000 in funding from the park service, the foundation plans to hire a consultant to document the state's portion of the Route 66 corridor.

Cindy Heitzman, executive director of the California Preservation Foundation, said an official with the National Park Service Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program broached the subject of a survey in July, and the groups formed a partnership.

"We were the holdout," Heitzman said, "and this was a wonderful opportunity to complete the survey."

James M. Conkle, a Route 66 aficionado and activist, said he and others had been promoting the idea of a survey for years. A full survey could cost as much as $650,000, he said.

"It's not fully funded, but it's at least a start," said Conkle, chairman of the Route 66 Alliance, one of several nonprofit groups seeking to promote awareness and preservation of the legendary highway.

The foundation has been meeting with a stakeholders committee that includes representatives from federal and state agencies as well as several Route 66 nonprofit groups, including the Route 66 Alliance and the California Route 66 Preservation Foundation.

The consultant will travel the Route 66 corridor from the Arizona border at Topock to Santa Monica and catalog the different roadside properties, such as diners, motels and attractions, and identify historic themes and key periods of significance.

A 1931 AAA guide indicated that California had 332 miles of U.S. Highway 66 from Needles to Los Angeles, though the road was later extended to Santa Monica. Along the way, the highway passes through Mojave Desert ghost towns and miles of urban sprawl.

The highway, rendered unnecessary by the interstate highway system, was decommissioned in the mid-1980s and much of the living history of Route 66 has vanished as the road has been broadened into suburban thoroughfares.

Still, groups have sprung up to preserve the highway and its history, one with deep connections with the American psyche.

As "roadie" Michael Wallis wrote in his 1990 book "Route 66: The Mother Road": "Route 66 is Steinbeck and Will Rogers and Woody Guthrie and Merle Haggard and Dorothea Lange and Mickey Mantle and Jack Kerouac. It's thousands of waitresses, service station attendants, fry cooks, truckers, grease monkeys, hustlers, state cops, wrecker drivers and motel clerks. . . . It's yesterday, today and tomorrow. Truly a road of phantoms and dreams, 66 is the romance of traveling the open highway."

A chief goal for the consultant will be to complete at least one nomination for the National Register of Historic Places, said Jennifer Gates, field services director for the California Preservation Foundation and manager of the Route 66 project.

A number of California Route 66 attractions are already listed in the National Register. They include the Aztec Hotel in Monrovia, the Broadway theater and commercial district in downtown Los Angeles and the Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena.

Amboy's revival begins as long-closed gas station reopens

By DARRELL R. SANTSCHI
The Press-Enterprise

The pumps are running in Amboy.

Almost three years after restaurant chain owner Albert Okura bought the desert way station between Barstow and Needles on old Route 66, the gasoline pumps went to work Thursday.

Hundreds of travelers, including motorcyclists on the annual Laughlin River Run, stopped in to cool off with sodas and water and to fuel their vehicles.

Even before Okura formally reopened the restored gas station at 11:30 a.m., more than 200 vehicles had filled up at the pumps, paying a hefty $4.49 a gallon.

"It's not about the gas," said Jose Ramirez, 42, of Corona, who was making his fourth river run with his wife on a Harley-Davidson soft-tail motorcycle. "It's about resting and hanging out with the guys. The price won't matter to people. Once you get here, you're going to buy it anyway."

Okura, 56, who owns 35 Juan Pollo rotisserie chicken restaurants, bought the 500-acre town in 2005 for $700,000. That was more than $1.3 million below the asking price. He got the bargain after its previous owners put Amboy on the map by trying unsuccessfully to sell it on eBay.

The new owner has been restoring the town -- including the gas station, Roy's Cafe, a post office, a church building and a motel -- in hopes of capitalizing on Route 66 nostalgia.

Roy's was a popular pit stop on the Chicago-to-Santa Monica highway until the 1970s, when the opening of Interstate 40 turned the community into a ghost town.

It cost $75,000 and took more than twice as long as Okura expected to restore the gas station.

"This was real hard because I've never had a gas station," Okura said. "We had to meet all the environmental laws and the state laws and the federal laws. There were no permits on file for anything in town, so I had to start from scratch."

He got help last year when Route 66 motels made a list of 11 most endangered historic places in the country and the Route 66 Preservation Association vowed to help raise money for the restoration.

The toughest part comes next, when Okura plans to spend $700,000 to drill a water well and install a filtration system.

"The (San Bernardino County) health department doesn't want us to do anything further until we get potable water," Okura said.

Gas was enough for David Orneles, 60, of Rialto, who grew up in nearby Cadiz and worked at the motel cleaning rooms while he was attending Amboy School.

"In its heyday, Roy's was really busy," Orneles said. "Whether or not people wanted to, they had to come by here.

"By and large, people who came here were lost," he recalled. "The motel was always full."

Ron Jones, 59, drove 1,309 miles from his home in Bartlesville, Okla., to attend Thursday's opening.

A Route 66 fan, he showed off the 66 tattoos on his body, all but one depicting landmarks along the highway. His latest, on the lower right side of his back, is an image of Roy's Cafe.

"This one did hurt, big time," he said. "I think it was worth it."

Okura said he thought he might get a lot of business with the bikers passing through, but he said he won't make a lot of money selling gas. He pays $3.90 a gallon.

"I'm just happy to get open," he said. "It means we're finally getting the town restored the way it used to be."

He said station attendants have been "working the bugs out" but were able to get the gas flowing in time.

"The owner wants to bring back the feeling of the old gas station," said "Amboy" Jack Marcus, an attendant who washed the windows of every car and on many of the motorcycles that were filling up.

Loren Bayer, 64, of Apple Valley, was impressed.

"We always make a point to try to stop here," Bayer said. "It's so unique and nostalgic. It's nestled out here in the middle of nowhere."

He said he came Thursday to get out of the office, where he works as a cemetery-lot broker.

"It's alive here," he said, laughing. "Got to enjoy it. Any day could be your last."

Route 66 motel to be restored

Photo courtesy of Albert Morrissette
Standing in front of the world famous Roy’s motel and café sign are from left, Jeff Samudio, Jim Shearer, Michael Orme, Jim Conkle, Albert Okura and Stephen Razo.




Victorville Daily Press
By AL MORRISSETTE

AMBOY — Albert Okura, the businessman who bought and restored the original McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino, formed a partnership Thursday to restore Roy’s motel, café and gas station on Route 66.

The California Route 66 Preservation Foundation and the Bureau of Land Management made the announcement in the tiny community of Amboy, halfway between Barstow and Needles on Route 66.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently listed historic Route 66 motels as some of America’s 11 most endangered historic resources.

“Of the motels on Route 66, this is one of the most significant ones” said Glen Duncan, president of the foundation and a board member of the national trust.

Okura first took an interest in purchasing Amboy in 1998, but the price was too high. Then in 2003, when Amboy was for sale on eBay, his bid fell short of the $995,000 reserve price.

In 2005, a message from Bessie Burris, who owned Amboy, got to Okura notifying him of yet another pending sale.

“I had to buy it” said Okura. Explaining his motivation, he said, “the more I got involved in the sale, the more I realized it has to be protected.”

He offered $425,000 and Burris accepted, with the condition that Okura not destroy Amboy, but renovate it.

Okura, owner of the Juan Pollo restaurant chain, had already established himself as a preservationist. He saved the original McDonald’s in San Bernardino from the bulldozers and converted it into a McDonald’s museum and his company office.

After the announcement Thursday, Okura gave a tour of the facilities and explained his plan for the restoration.

Also on the tour were Stephen Razo, BLM director of external affairs; Jim Shearer, BLM archaeologist; Michael Orme, field representative for Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt; Jim Conkle, a national trust board member; and Jeff Samudio of DesignAid Cultural Research Management, who is performing a historic survey documentation of sites for the state of California.

“Roy’s motel, café and gas station are perhaps most beloved and considered particularly important relative to other Route 66 properties because of the remote desert location” said Duncan.“

Traveling east or west, it was and still is a long way to go for gasoline, a bed or something to eat. Roy’s was a godsend for travelers,” he said.

Route 66 was recently listed as one of the 100 most endangered sites by the World Monument Watch in New York City.