A few months ago, Dawn Welch, owner of the Rock Cafe on historic Route 66 in Stroud, Okla., said she’d been interviewed for a commercial spot by the Chickasaw Nation.

Here it is:

UPDATE: I forgot about this blog spot, in which Dawn talks about her Native American lineage.

(Hat tip: Kathy Anderson)

David Lamb of Smithsonian magazine has written an excellent article about Route 66′s abandonment by the U.S. highway system and the Mother Road’s eventual revival.

It’s in the February issue, but you can read it online here.

The article focuses on Arizona — Angel Delgadillo and the small Route 66 town of Seligman, La Posada in Winslow, Frontier Motel in Truxton, and a few other places.

The whole article is worth reading, but this excerpt about Alan Affeldt and the rejuvenation of La Posada is amazing:

After three years of negotiation, the Santa Fe Railway sold them La Posada for the price of the land, $158,000 for 20 acres. The hotel was thrown in free. The trio moved in on April Fool’s Day 1997, shooing away some hobos, and set to work. Seven months later, La Posada reopened with five meticulously restored guest rooms. The new owners operated in the red for five years; sometimes they met payroll with Affeldt’s credit cards. They scrambled for grants and put everything they made back into the project.

Now the 53-room hotel is booked to capacity virtually every night. Its Turquoise Room is regarded as one of the Southwest’s top restaurants. The grounds are landscaped with towering cottonwoods and hollyhocks. With a paid staff of 50, La Posada is the largest locally owned employer. Winslow has awakened from a 50-year slumber with a revived downtown, new shops, sidewalks and streets.

“Architecture is what brought us here,” Affeldt told me. “But what Route 66 gave us was a built-in audience—the people going up and down the road for whatever reason: architecture, history, nostalgia. Having 66 on our doorstep made all the difference.”

The thing is, Route 66 is still moving up. The revival hasn’t even plateaued.

Emily (aka Redforkhippie) recently started a new Route 66 project in the Tulsa area.

Noting the lack of geocaches along the two main Route 66 alignments of 11th Street and Admiral Place in Tulsa, she is volunteering to set up such sites for businesses or property owners along the Mother Road.

On her blog, she wrote:

For those unfamiliar with geocaching, it’s basically a sort of treasure-hunting game in which participants use GPS devices to locate hidden “caches,” which are waterproof containers that are placed outdoors, camouflaged to match their surroundings, and contain a log for finders to sign. Larger caches also include small souvenirs, toys, or trinkets for trading.

The advantage of hosting a cache, of course, is that it brings additional traffic onto your property, which is why I’d like to place as many as possible outside businesses along Route 66 here in Tulsa. [...]

If a Route 66 business owner outside of the Tulsa area would like help placing a cache, I can do that, too, but someone who lives in your area will have to be responsible for registering and maintaining it.

If you want a geocache on your property on Route 66 in Tulsa, you can comment on her site, or you can comment on this story below. She’ll also contact other geocachers to help set up sites along other Route 66 properties outside of Tulsa.

You can email her at sundayjohn66(at)mac(dot)com.

(Photo of a GPS unit courtesy of graur razvan ionut.)

Someone has posted the third installment of Japanese television’s “Yamashita Tomohisa Route 66,” which chronicles a singer and actor’s trip down the Mother Road last fall.

It’s in four parts. Again, language may be an issue, but you probably can still follow it.

The City of Springfield, Mo., discussed ideas Wednesday on how to revitalize College Street west of downtown, which also served as the original Route 66.

KSPR-TV filed this good video report:

One person voiced concerns that are on the minds of many roadies. According to the Springfield News-Leader:

Route 66 Association of Missouri President Tommy Pike was worried about changing the street’s historic character.

Referring to comments planners solicited about what to do with the street, Pike expressed concern.

“When I see ‘widen it’ and ‘bulldoze it,’ that’s why I’m here,” Pike said.

I’m going to withhold judgment until I see what’s proposed. But I think Pike’s concerns are well-founded, given the long and inglorious history of “redevelopment.” An area can be revitalized without wrecking balls. In fact, keeping historic structures would actually add more character.

In the past week, the History Channel show “American Restoration” stopped in Seligman, Ariz. There, among other things, they renovated an old Wurlitzer jukebox that sat inside the shop of Angel “Guardian Angel of Route 66″ Delgadillo.

The 22-minute episode can be watched in its entirety here.

(Hat tip: Colin Wilkes)

A few months ago, Chevrolet launched a contest where budding filmmakers could submit their ideas for the carmaker’s “Route 66″ ad campaign. The winning advertisement would be shown during the upcoming Super Bowl.

The finalists can be viewed here. But this entrant, which actually takes place on Route 66, didn’t make the cut.

As you can see, Dan Rice of 66-to-Cali was the star of the clip, along with other roadies.

The filmmaker, Ian Eyre, was a little peeved his work didn’t advance to the final round:

We were initially excited by the title of the contest “Chevrolet Route 66 Super Bowl Competition” and the statements that “We want to celebrate the everyday heroic acts of our customers. They are optimistic, fun-loving, hardworking, reliable people who do the heroic every day.” Dan told me the true story of how all of the lemons that Joann bakes into Ugly Crust Pies at Fran’s MidPoint Cafe come from the lemon tree in his front yard, and he often finds someone who is driving east to take her his lemons. I thought this was an upbeat, authentic story that should be told, would be appreciated by Route 66 enthusiasts, and met the stated desires of the contest, so we enlisted the help of Kumar Patel at Wigwam Motel, Crocodile Lile, Fran at MidPoint, Nick and Demi Adam at Ariston Cafe and Dale Butel, owner of Route 66 Tours out of Australia. [...]

Dan and I think it is regretful that “Chevy Route 66″ doesn’t really seem to incorporate the Route 66 part of things or the “true Chevy story” they said they were looking for. We are disappointed that like so many other brands that proclaim they want to help promote Route 66 (K-Mart’s “Route66″ brand, and the Route 66 Casino in New Mexico come to mind), Chevy has also fallen in with not doing their homework or properly representing the Mother Road, and yet are still doing all they can to profit from it.

Eyre also said the criteria for the contest was “a bit misleading.” I found the original rules for the video. You be the judge of the key passages:

Write a script for an iconic 30 second film which captures the unique spirit of the original Route 66 and Chevrolet.

The script for your film should be an epic road trip story or adventure that captures the spirit of Route 66 and Chevrolet!

I think there’s wiggle room there, especially when you’re talking about the “spirit” of Route 66. But it does seem odd the ad most explicitly about the Mother Road didn’t make it.

UPDATE: This is the entrant that won the contest, announced today:

This just got posted today. This is the official 2012 tourism video for Pontiac, Ill.

As you might figure, Route 66 plays a prominent role.

This is another feather in the cap of Pontiac Tourism, which recently announced record tourism in 2011.

A new map that details the path of a deadly tornado that ravaged Joplin, Mo., is being distributed by the local chamber of commerce, reported KOAM-TV in nearby Pittsburg, Kan. And that’s causing a few headaches for the agency.

The station reported:

The map is being put out by the Joplin Convention and Visitors Bureau (on Facebook) and marks the path of the tornado, showing visitors where they can find certain tornado landmarks, like the remnants of Saint John’s and Joplin High School.

Some residents fear the city is trying to capitalize on tornado tourism.  A Facebook has recently been created called Joplin Citizens Against Tornado Tours. [...]

“We are not actively promoting ‘tornado tours’” says the Director of the Joplin Convention and Visitors Bureau, Pat Tuttle.

The Joplin CVB also made this statement on its Facebook page, in part:

For the past seven months, the JCVB office has received numerous phone calls and in-office requests for a map or description of the affected area.  These requests come from visiting volunteer groups, contractors and out of state workers, weather watchers, media, writers and bloggers, travel groups, individuals and tour bus operators.  The map was produced as a low-cost information piece in response to these types of inquiries.  It is not a marketing piece.  The purpose of the map was not to “sell” the sites to anyone…it was to provide a snapshot of information to visitors who were already traveling to Joplin and either guide them through the zone using the main roads and staying out of the residential areas as much as possible or to outline where the zone is so that an alternate route for travel could be determined.

Our intention was not to be insensitive or disrespectful of those who lost loved ones or their property.  It was simply to address a situation that was already occurring and hopefully help inform our out of town visitors about the devastating effects of the tornado and emphasize the positive efforts of the community working towards recovery.

I don’t think the Joplin CVB is doing the wrong thing here. It seems its intentions were good. It’s just something that got blown out of proportion or misinterpreted because emotions remain raw eight months after the twister. More than 160 people dying and a third of the town being destroyed will keep people on edge.

At the same time, Joplin’s residents are going to have to cope with this disaster. Like it or not, the May 22 tornado has become a major part of the town’s history, and will forever more. The hurt won’t go away completely. But some reconciliation — whether it’s through a monument or an annual memorial service — is needed.

Oklahoma City dealt with its terrorist bombing in 1995 by building the Oklahoma City National Memorial at the site. I’m sure more than a few residents are disturbed it has become a tourist attraction. I hold no doubts that a few visitors are there due solely to morbid fascination. But many other visitors were genuinely moved by the disaster when it happened, and feel compelled to visit the memorial. Best of all, the site also has become a source of comfort for the victims’ families.

And let’s face it — the more visitors that Joplin attracts, the more money goes into coffers and speeds its recovery. I’ve made it a point since the disaster to stop in Joplin every time I’m passing through and ring up some business there. Whether it’s money for gasoline, a meal, or souvenirs, that’s cash that’s pumping into Joplin’s economy.

The damage is profoundly disturbing, as the above video shows, and still is months later. But I recommend stopping to see the Wall of Hope at 20th and Main streets (map here). This is public art that spring up spontaneously. It’s moving and uplifting. You can read the blog post by Emily (aka Redforkhippie) about the wall.

Route 66 News returned to cyberspace today after about a two-day outage. I apologize for that, but it was due to a problem that wasn’t foreseen.

The website was chewing through truckloads of bandwidth and taxing servers. In essence, we were too popular. So HostGator suspended the account until we took action to correct that.

A big chunk of the problem was the cache system was configured incorrectly. I was using W3 Total Cache, but this was a case where a plug-in is too clever by half. It was difficult and confusing to get it set up right.

Finally, HostGator advised us to scrap it and use WP Super Cache instead. HostGator’s tech adviser said Super Cache had performed better in testing. Plus it was easier to use — another bonus.

Once we got that straightened out, plus adding Minify to reduce bandwidth further, HostGator allowed us back on the air.

Guy Randall at GRandall Web Design, a longtime roadie who is a reseller for HostGator, patiently acted as a go-between with the host and me. So he deserves a big pat on the back for this.

We’re not out the woods yet, but what we’ve seen so far looks encouraging. Keep your fingers crossed.