The latest high-profile attention to Route 66’s centennial is a tour of portions of the old highway by a reporter and photographer from the New York Times, who drove the San Bernardino County portion in an electric car.
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“We rise early, emerging from the Wigwam Motel in San Bernardino, where each room is its own concrete tepee,” the NYT’s Jamie Lincoln Kitman writes. “Erected in 1949, it reminds us that gaudy nostalgia has been drawing people to the highway for decades.”
The NYT’s tour continued with stops for “a good breakfast” at Peggy Sue’s ’50s Diner in Yermo, in a building dating to 1954; the Sidewinder Cafe in Newberry Springs, known to some as the setting for 1987’s “Bagdad Cafe” but operating solely as a souvenir shop; and Roy’s Motel and Cafe in Amboy, which likewise isn’t a motel or a cafe, but which does have a great sign.
The next day, the newspaper awakened in Williams, Arizona. Some local newspaper columnist in Arizona will have to pick up the thread of the narrative from there.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times’ Chris Reynolds drove the entirety of the route for a special section published earlier this month. Reynolds stopped at Roy’s, at various sites in Barstow, at Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch in Victorville, at Mitla Cafe and the Wigwam in San Bernardino, and at the Magic Lamp Inn in Rancho Cucamonga.
Reynolds and Lincoln Kitman did better by us than Westways magazine. As noted here March 27, Westways somehow got a writer and photographer from the California state line to Santa Monica in one paragraph.
66 in game form
A board game inspired by the 1960-64 TV drama “Route 66” was mentioned here Sunday as being part of an exhibit of Route 66 memorabilia at the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona. Exhibitor John Atwater opened the Route 66 Travel Game box to show me.
Players could “drive” their pieces around a winding track representing the road. As it’s a typical-sized game board, the game’s path only runs through California and doesn’t bother sticking strictly to the route, ending in Las Vegas, a more alluring destination than Needles.
In a neat touch for us, many cities through the San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire, on or off the route, have their own square to land on, carrying a penalty or credit.
Among them: “Claremont: For work in orange grove collect $20.” “Riverside: For spark plugs pay $10.” “Upland: Insurance installment due, pay $25.”
Most Uplanders are so tight-fisted, they would refuse to fork over $25 even in board-game funny money.
Atwater bought the collectible game from a vendor at a flea market in Long Beach. “He wanted $66,” Atwater confided. “I talked him down to $60.”
66 in the 909
Lastly, yours truly will be speaking about Route 66 to the Historical Society in La Verne, one of the cities along the route. Join us at 7 p.m. June 8 at Hillcrest Meeting House, 2705 Mountain View Drive.
Oldies but goodies?
The following items I’ve had to bump from various recent columns for reasons of space or flow. Let me clear ’em out below.
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Woolworth’s (more)
After my capsule histories of Woolworth stores in Riverside, Redlands, San Bernardino, Ontario and Pomona, meant as a good geographic scattering, a fun story came in about a Woolworth in a different Inland Empire city.
Bret Raney emailed me about the Fontana store, which was in the Fontana Square center on Foothill Boulevard. Circa 1979, the teenager, a budding photographer, got a gig shooting Santa photos there with a Polaroid mounted on a tripod. (The Santa that year was a woman, by the way.)
Each day young Raney ate at the lunch counter, where he got hooked on Steak-umm sandwiches and root beer floats. The young women at the lunch counter eventually let him behind the counter to make his own floats.
A sweet deal, although they chided him once for using the “good ice cream.” That was reserved for sundaes.
Back to the photography side. Each day Raney drove to the Target in Rialto for more film, which cost 50 cents per exposure. He charged customers $2 per Santa photo. Thus, he made $1.50 in profit on each one, “good money for the time,” he recalled.
“I also had my first lesson on running a business,” Raney, now of Yucaipa, continued. “I caught the flu around two weeks in and had a friend of mine cover for me for a few days. I paid him $1 per photo, so I made 50 cents per photo while I was home in bed!”
Dave Mason (more)
Singer-songwriter Dave Mason, who died April 19 at age 79, performed in the Inland Empire “at least twice,” I wrote May 6, hedging to allow for more shows to come to light. And two more did, from opposite ends of his career.
On Feb. 19, 1972, Mason performed at Bridges Auditorium in Claremont, says Orlando Davidson, who was there. He adds: “Numerous encores, I recall. Audio from the concert is on YouTube.”
And on Oct. 7, 2019, Mason was at the Fox Theatre in Riverside, “about five months before COVID changed the world,” notes Bruce Todd of Riverside. “Dave put on an excellent show.” The opening act was Richie Furay, who co-founded Buffalo Springfield and Poco.
These shows bookend the two concerts that I’d found: Jan. 24, 1975 at San Bernardino’s Swing Auditorium and March 18, 1978 at Ontario’s California Jam 2 festival.
We’ll leave the topic by saying that Dave Mason performed in the IE “at least four times” – in case someone else chimes in.
brIEfly
The co-founder of Flo’s Cafe, with two locations in Chino, has died. Donna Hughes and her late husband, Paul, bought Flo’s at the Chino Airport in 1975 and made a crucial addition. “My husband loved sweets, so he said he wanted us to have a bake shop,” Donna once told me. Flo’s has a full range of pies and cobblers from their in-house bakery. Paul died in 2018 and Donna followed him March 28 at age 87. Chino is better, and broader, because of them.
David Allen, who is sometimes pie-eyed, writes Friday, Sunday and Wednesday. Email [email protected], phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook or Instagram, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.
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