West of Springfield, Missouri, Route 66 follows MO 266, also shown on Google Maps as Old Highway 66. The drive along here is pretty, with a mix of trees and fields. In about 12 miles, we reached Plano, Missouri, at the intersection of MO 266 and South Farm Road 45. It’s a ghost town with just two buildings left. On the northwest corner of the intersection are the ruins of a general store built in 1902.
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| Former general store in Plano, Missouri |
On the southeast corner of the intersection is a former gas station and grocery store, now a private home.
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| Former gas station and grocery store in Plano, Missouri |
About 4 miles past Plano is Halltown, Missouri, with several interesting buildings built in the early 1900s. Sadly, most are now sitting empty.
On the northeast corner of MO 266 and North Park Drive is the former Whitehall Mercantile, built in 1900 with an enormous false front.
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| Former Whitehall Mercantile in Halltown, Missouri (from theroute-66.com) |
Whitehall Mercantile was also once the local lodge of the International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF).
Just a couple of doors down, across the street, is the 1930 Las Vegas Hotel.
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| Former Las Vegas Hotel in Halltown, Missouri |
It had a restaurant on the ground floor and hotel rooms on the second floor. The curved roof line means its style is Mission Revival or Spanish Colonial Revival. The small building on the right was once a barber shop.
A couple of blocks further down, at 320 West Main Street, is a 1907 stone building that was once a movie theater.
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| Former movie theater in Halltown, Missouri (from theroute-66.com) |
About 3 miles further down MO 266, just before the intersection with Lawrence 1210, is the recreated 1930s Gay Parita Sinclair Station in Paris Springs, Missouri.
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| Recreated Gay Parita Sinclair station in Paris Springs, Missouri |
The original gas station was built in the 1930s. It burned down in 1955, and this is a recreation of it. The adjacent 1926 cobblestone garage is original.
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| 1926 Gay Parita garage in Paris Springs, Missouri |
After Gay Parita’s gas station, MO 266 bends southwest and crosses MO 96. MO 96 is labeled US Route 66 on Google Maps, but we wanted to drive an earlier alignment. So we stayed on MO 266, crossing MO 96, then took the next right onto Lawrence 2062, shown on some maps as Farm Road 2062 or County Road 2062. We crossed Johnson Creek Bridge, a 1923 one-lane steel truss bridge.
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| 1923 Johnson Creek Bridge (from bridgehunter.com) |
Just a few hundred feet past the bridge, on the right, is a Route 66 gem: 1925 Spencer Gas Station in Spencer, Missouri.
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| Spencer gas station in Spencer, Missouri |
We continued on Lawrence 2062 to rejoin MO 96 and continue west. In about 24 miles, we reached Avilla, Missouri. Avilla has a strip of interesting old buildings along Route 66.
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| Former Odd Fellows lodge in Avilla, Missouri |
The large building here is the former lodge of the International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF), built in 1885. The small gray stone building to the left of it was once a grocery store.
From Avilla we continued about 10 more miles along Route 66 to one of our favorite Route 66 towns: Carthage, Missouri.
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