Introduction: The Empires of Amusement

The ringmaster has returned to Route 66.

Only those spectators with ears perked heard his second coming—a kind of soft-shoe sashay over a pavement of peanut shells. Early reports say his spats are still shiny—although sticky with ice cream stains. His top hat looks crisp, and his collar appears fluffy with fresh ostrich feathers. This is no small trick after 70 years of service.

His, after all, was once the world's greatest traveling show: the extravaganza that was the roadside attraction on Route 66.

U.S. Highway 66, of course, has been riding a two-lane revival for a wild and wonderful decade. The path of pavement that lay between Chicago and Los Angeles has not only reclaimed its rank as America's favorite road, but has gained new ground as the darling thoroughfare of an autobahn-weary world. As it did more than half a century ago, Route 66 today attracts an army of artists and authors. Over the past few years, their skills have showered us with Route 66 recipes, Route 66 travelogues, Route 66 paintings and Route 66 postcards. The road lies forever enshrined as the weeping ribbon that carried the Okies west and a Corvette lover's lane through which one might cruise after Buzz and Tod.

Route 66, in fact, has of late been enshrined as just about everything but the avenue that brought us the likes of E. Mike Allred's Supernatural Raccoons.

The fact that the route's circus side has not been extensively explored in recent years has drawn little ire from the road's old tourist attraction operators. Contrariwise, these impresarios seem accustomed to waiting in line. On or off Route 66, historians have paid slim attention to curbside institutions like the show cave, the reptile house or the prairie dog village. Admittedly, these are not places that attracted Norman Rockwell or Holly Hobbie. The term, tourist trap—first put into print in 1939 by English novelist Graham Greene—probably did originate on Route 66. Odds say the expression was coined by someone's irate Uncle Ernie, angry at being pinched into an auto's back seat before the dawn of orthopedic pillows. Whatever its origin, the phrase has done lasting damage. Somehow, it suggests, all roadside attractions are cheap tricks, shell games proffered by money-hungry Pinocchios, plastic oases suffering uniformly from problems of quality and conscience.

No myth has done more to harm a greater group of people along Route 66.

In truth, most of the early Route 66 roadside attractions were Mom-and-Pop operations. They were businesses run by husbands and wives and extended families, and they were businesses fiercely concerned with customer satisfaction. By their very nature they were capsules of ingenuity that allowed individual talents to shine. Anyone could run a cafe, a service station or a motel. But it took a special breed to bury stuntmen alive, run gas lines to perpetually-burning covered wagons or fix flea markets with shacks that looked like Howard Johnson's restaurants. Necessity stopped motorists for food, fuel and sleep. The operators of roadside entertainments lived by brains alone. . . .

"This spring marks forty years since they turned the electricity on in my name at Buffalo Ranch. I remember the days tourists lined Route 66 as far as I could see in both directions. I can tell you, Route 66: The Empires of Amusement preserves a part of history that needs to be preserved."

—Betty Wheatley, Dairy Ranch operator at Buffalo Ranch