One of the three big field trips I planned for this year’s summer school was a trip west to the Route 66 State Park in Eureka, MO.

The Visitor’s Center is the old Bridgehead Inn, which was an original Route 66 roadhouse from 1935:

It’s a fairly unassuming building, but they have a surprisingly large collection of Route 66 memorabilia in the the museum inside:

The original name for the inn becomes obvious when you walk around outside, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to use the bridge! It appears that there is still a fundraising effort underway to restore it for (I assume) pedestrian access, which would be highly beneficial, because the rest of the state park is actually across the river, and requires using an entirely different exit from the interstate to access!

There are quite a few trails through the park, and it also contains a piece of local history, as the former summer resort town (and eventually full-time low-income housing community) Times Beach was once located here. That spot has a rather sordid but fascinating past involving poverty, an industrial disaster from the spread of the contaminant dioxin, and flooding, but is a lovely (and clean!) park today.

We are very fortunate to have Route 66 locations close enough to home for us to visit!

Stay tuned for more Route 66 adventures!