ROUTE 66: After the rains, a humbled highway

Travelers are being turned away from fabled Route 66 and large sections of the historic highway have been closed since mid-September after heavy desert thunderstorms washed out bridges and undermined sections of pavement.

Route 66 heading west out of Ludlow is closed to traffic, one of several sections of the historic highway that are shut off to travelers. (Mark Muckenfuss)

By Mark Muckenfuss
The Press-Enterprise

Just try getting your kicks on Route 66 these days. It’s not easy.

Large sections of the historic highway have been closed since mid-September after heavy desert thunderstorms washed out bridges and undermined sections of pavement. In some spots there are holes large enough to swallow one of the motorcycles belonging to tourist groups that regularly retrace the Western route.

Those travelers and others now have to detour off of Route 66 between Newberry Springs and Needles, taking I-40 instead. San Bernardino County officials estimate it will take $1.4 million to fix the damage. They hope to reopen the road by late November.

For Route 66 enthusiasts, the detour is a disappointment. For those who live on the highway that brought generations of migrants west to California, the closure is more painful.

“We’re basically closed,” said Jim Wilson, 62, owner of Bolo Station Bar & Grill & RV Park, in Cadiz.
Barriers at the Kelbaker Road/Route 66 intersection 6 miles west of Wilson’s place tell eastbound motorists the road is closed to through traffic. Not many venture through to his place. The handful that do have had to turn around.

“You can get down to my place here,” Wilson said, “but right after you go over the bridge past my property (the road) is closed.”

Beyond that, there are bridges that have washed out.

“They’re bad,” he said.

Brendon Biggs is deputy director of operations for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Works. He’s overseeing a workforce of 20 to 30 people making repairs to Route 66.

“Right now it’s high on the priority list,” Biggs said. “We want to get the road open.”

The flooding that hit the region was almost unprecedented, he said.

“We had multiple locations of severe damage,” he said. “We had approximately 40 bridges damaged in some way along with the road surface itself.”

Residents in such tiny towns as Essex and Chambliss can get in and out, but everyone else has to go around.

“It definitely affects tourism,” Biggs said. “National Trails Highway (the original name for Route 66) is a big road. The most scenic areas, they’re not able to enjoy that right now. There are big holes in the road.”

ROUTE 66 DAMAGE
Where the route is closed:

• Along I-40, from the Hector Road exit to Ludlow

• East of Ludlow to Amboy

• From Kelbaker Road east to I-40

Where it's open:

• Between Amboy and Kelbaker Road

Opened: Nov. 11, 1926, though the famed "Rte 66" signs didn't go up until 1927.

Nicknames: The Mother Road, America's Main Street

Household name: Popularizing the road in the 1960s were a hit TV show starring Martin Milner and George Maharis, which ran 1960-1964 on CBS, and a top-selling pop song, "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66," later recorded by scores of artists.

No longer super: Route 66 was removed from the U.S. highway system in 1985 because it had been replaced nationwide by a network of bigger, newer Interstate highways.

But always beloved: The road is still popular among pop-culture enthusiasts, historians, classic car collectors and tourists, particularly visitors from Europe.

Route 66 business dream rooted highway's heyday

Gus Lizalde bought Chambless, a title town and former pit stop in Route 66's hey-day. With the interest of solar development and a national monument, he hopes to revitalize the rest stop.(Kurt Miller/The Press-Enterprise)

By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise

His love of the automobile and the way a sunset illuminated a Mojave Desert mountain range inspired Gus Lizalde two decades ago to invest in a piece of Route 66 history.

He bought Chambless, a wide spot at the corner of Cadiz Road and National Trails Highway, part of old Route 66. It's a far flung outpost, halfway between Barstow and Needles, that once offered gas, food and lodging to motorists headed into or out of California.

Lizalde's dream of restoring Chambless to its mid-20th century heyday remains unfulfilled.

The gas station, store, restaurant, motel cabins and RV spaces are surrounded by barbed wire. Rattlesnakes hide out in the crumbling buildings. Only a few dozen cars pass by in a day.

But the Mojave Desert sunshine that dominates the landscape may soon be Chambless' economic savior, or so Lizalde hopes.

Dozens of large-scale solar energy projects are proposed on the publicly owned land that extends as far as the eye can see in every direction.

Lizalde, an Escondido resident and a manager at a San Diego County car dealership, said energy construction would bring workers who might want a convenient place for gas, a burger, a few groceries or a bed for the night.

"To bring this back, I need commerce," Lizalde said. "I need people coming through the front door. These solar projects will mean commerce."

SOLAR OPPORTUNITY

One of the solar developments would blanket eight square miles along Route 66 just west of Lizalde's property. Two more to the south are proposed on some 80 square miles.

The federal Bureau of Land Management is processing 78 applications for desert energy projects between Ridgecrest and Mexico. So far, none has been approved.

Lizalde's excitement about the solar projects explains why he is worried about a move to create what backers have called a Mother Road National Monument. It would honor Route 66 and its colorful past as a conduit for dust-bowl refugees flooding into California and later as an east-west ribbon of freedom for vacationing Americans.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is drafting federal legislation that would create the monument on public land in eastern San Bernardino County, from the Mojave National Preserve on the north to Joshua Tree National Park on the south. It is expected to prohibit energy development in some areas.

Monument supporters fear development of too many wind and solar projects in territory used by the desert tortoise, a threatened species, and other wildlife.

Environmentalists are especially concerned about projects, such as the two near the Cadiz Valley south of Chambless, that would be built between wilderness areas, said Elden Hughes, a longtime environmental activist who has fought to protect the desert. Developing in such areas can impede animals that range between protected territories; such travel helps maintain their health and genetic diversity, experts say.

Standing in front of his boarded-up buildings, Lizalde pointed out a passing BNSF freight train to the south and a white limestone pit mine to the west.

"This is a good place for solar," he said. "It's not pristine."

A stocky man with a dark complexion, Lizalde looks younger than his 45 years. He radiated enthusiasm as he walked by scraps of twisted metal, old pipes and other debris. He described his vision for a multimillion-dollar makeover.

"It's going to be a full-blown restoration to the way it was built," Lizalde said. "I want to bring back that nostalgia."

The renewed Chambless would feature "totem" gasoline pumps with meters that look like clock faces. Lizalde said he wants to track down original pump bodies and retrofit them with modern gas-delivery and metering systems.

The main building would have a 1950s-style diner, a tavern and a souvenir/convenience store. He intends to fix up the nine concrete cottages behind the main building and build a swimming pool in the shield shape of the Route 66 road sign.

For the trailer park area, Lizalde envisions hauling in about 50 vintage Airstream trailers, refurbishing them and renting them out.

Why Airstreams? "They are so cool," he answered.

PIT STOP HISTORY

Chambless, or Camp Chambless as it was once known, was built by local settlers of the same name and opened in the early 1930s to serve the motorists using Route 66, which ran between Chicago and Santa Monica.

The business suffered after Interstate 40 opened in 1973, bypassing Chambless and a few other gas station-café stops that depended on Route 66 traffic.

Lizalde, a car buff who played with Hot Wheels as a kid and restored a 1967 Porsche as young man, said he was driving a Mustang in 1989 to visit family in Laughlin, Nev., when he first saw Chambless. The view and the history captured him, and four months later, he found himself signing papers to buy the property for about $250,000.

He said he took two years off to run the gas station, store, restaurant and motel, catering mostly to employees of a nearby agricultural operation, Cadiz Inc.

He had to close the businesses in 1993, he said, when environmental regulations forced him to remove underground fuel-storage tanks and clean up gasoline-contaminated soil at a cost of about $250,000. Other Route 66 gas stations that had been struggling to hang on also closed, Lizalde said.

With too little traffic passing by, he couldn't justify the investment needed to re-open the Chambless business, he said.

Time and nature have taken a toll on the place.

A wind storm blew off the roof extension that had shaded the gasoline pumps. To make the area safe, Lizalde said, he had to remove the concrete pillars that held it up.

Meanwhile, he has paid property taxes, fencing costs and other expenses.

"It reminds me of the movie, 'The Money Pit,' " he said.

Albert Okura, who owns the town of Amboy about 13 miles west of Chambless, said he wishes Lizalde success on his renovation.

"It's going to be an uphill battle," Okura said. "Gus is a good idea man, but it is hard to translate ideas into money."

It won't be easy, Lizalde acknowledged.

But construction of the solar plants should provide about three years of businesses, giving him time to market the place as a Route 66 destination.

"This will probably be the biggest restoration project all the way to Chicago," he said. "It will be the nicest facility on the road. And that will be a pretty good brag."