RE: Missouri Day 2...Along Route 66

Day 2

Monday April 22, 2019

     An easy half hour drive south of Joplin is the town of Diamond.  This is where Moses Carver decided to homestead.  To help, he purchased a slave and named her Mary Carver.  She had a son, George Washington Carver.  When he was one week old, night raiders kidnapped him along with his mother and sister.  Apparently, this wasn't uncommon on small farms.  Raiders would steal slaves and resell them.   Moses Carver tried to buy them back, but was unsuccessful.   He was only able to recover the infant, George.   After emancipation, the Carvers continued to raise George and his brother.
     Susan Carver taught him the basics of plant based medicines and how to identify diseased plants.  George took to it immediately and would become the town's expert before long, even though he was still a kid.

    George was curious about a lot of things and just wanted to learn.  The only book the Carvers owned was a basic reader.  The local school system didn’t accept black students.  The only black school was ten miles away.  With no place to stay, the Carver's still let him go in search of an education.  That's where he met Mariah Watkins.  She let him stay at their family home and encouraged him to refer to himself as George Carver, not Carver's George.
     Being the black school, resources were limited and the teachers not always the best.  Carver's search for knowledge eventually took him to Minneapolis, Kansas where he finished high school.  He enrolled n Simpson College to study art and music.  Noticing his interest in plants, a professor suggested he transfer to Iowa State to study agriculture.  He was the first black student at both schools and would go on to complete a Master Degree in agriculture.
     After graduation, Booker T. Washington invited Carver to Alabama to run his agriculture school at the Tuskegee Institute.  He would teach there for over forty years.  In the school's lab he studied plants and soil.  He would also visit individual farms to teach farmers how to replenish their soil after years of just planting cotton.  One of his solutions involved planting peanuts.  He would go on to promote alternative uses for them and was even invited to testify about it to congress.
      While walking through the museum and reading about Carver's inventions, I couldn't help but wonder what else he could have accomplished with a better lab and facilities he had in Tuskegee.

   
    After leaving the park, I drove north to the town of Carthage, where I picked up Route 66, eastbound.

    In downtown Carthage, you'll find Boots Court.  Arthur Boots opened the motel in 1939.  he then opened an all night restaurant across the street.  His radio advertisements described it as "Breakfast at the Crossroads of America."

     As for the motel, it's actually open for business.   In 2011, the property finally shut its doors.  It had been used as low rent housing and was in need of much repair.  The property was sold at a foreclosure auction.  Deborah Harvey and Priscilla Bledsaw bought the motel and began the restoration process.  They began with the five rooms, opening them for customers a year later.
      A short side trip took me to Wilson's Creek National Battlefield.  In August, 1861, Federal forces were trying to quash elements of the Missouri State Guard in order to keep Missouri in the Union. After five hours of fighting, Federal supplies were running low and they retreated to Springfield.  Confederate forces were too disorganized to press the attack.

    The Ray family owned the property.  When the battle began, they watched from their front porch.  When it got a little too close, the hid in the cellar.

    Backtracking through Springfield, how could I pass up the world's biggest fork.

     Back on Route 66, I would eventually come to the town of Marshfield.  For the town's 150th anniversary, a mural was painted across from the county courthouse.  One curious addition, the U.S. Presidential Seal.  That's to commemorate the 4th of July, 1991 when President George H.W. Bush agreed to be in their parade.

     In the upper right, there's also the Hubbel Space Telescope.  Edwin Hubble grew up in Marshfield.  There's even a mock up of the telescope on the courthouse square.

    A little further along Route 66 and I was thinking food.  That's when I saw this sign...

      The only cafe I saw didn't look like it had been open in a while.

     Passing through Lebanon...

     In Waynesville, it was time to head north.  Hwy 17 would take me to Brumley.  I was looking for Swinging Bridges Road.  I passed quite a few dirt roads off to the west, but never saw a sign.  It was late enough in the day I didn't want to be running down random dirt roads.  Down one of them are a pair of swinging bridges.  I've walked across plenty of these over the years.   This is one from a trip through Virginia last year.  The decking swings and ripples as you go across.



      There are a pair of these outside Brumley.  The thing is, you drive across them.  And yes, they move.  I was bummed to have missed it.
      My home for the night was the Days Inn in Osage Beach.  My motel didn't have a view of Lake of the Ozarks.  But, it did share a parking lot with this really big cow.

     The restaurant was actually closed that day.  So, dinner was at a barbecue joint called Wobbly Boots.  Good food and friendly service.