Roy’s Sign Barstow

Taking a friend to California in December 2012, I just happened to notice a sign in an unusual location. I knew the Roy’s Café and Motel sign belonged in the town of Amboy, California. The unusual thing about noticing this recognizable sign is the fact that I wasn’t in Amboy, I was in Barstow 80 miles north and west of where I would have expected the sign to be.

I thought it strange since I never heard about the moving of the sign, a Route 66 icon.

This is what I did know: the town of Amboy was for sale on ebay for 1.9 million dollars but didn’t sell in 2003. The town was repossessed and in 2005 a restaurant owner bought the town for $425,000.

Later I found out that the restaurant owner is the owner of the Juan Pollo Restaurant Chain.

I pulled the car over to the side of the road downtown Barstow and took a few pictures as well as having my friend take a photo of me.

   

Juan Pollo Restaurants owns, operates and is in the process of restoring the historic town of Amboy. For more information about Roy’s Café, Amboy, Juan Pollo, and Route 66 visit the Juan Pollo Website.

Check out a previous post entitled, “A Harley Ride through Amboy.”

Ride Through Amboy

What Was in That Mud?

Just last week, I was telling a friend an interesting story about an incident that “happened in the 1980’s in the town of um… well… It was somewhere past Sunland and Tujunga. It was before Pasadena and Burbank. It was near Alta Dena and La Canada.”

Oh, I gave up with trying to figure it out, so I just got out my California map. The town I was trying to recall was La Crescenta.

Now if you’ll stay with me, I’ll tell you what happened. That year during the mid 80’s, the area flooded so bad that there were mudslides on the sides of the hills of La Crescenta. Along with the mud, were bodies from an old cemetery washing down the road. At one time, caskets did not have to be buried within a concrete box as they do in many areas now. They didn’t even use coffins or even plain old wooden boxes for that matter. They just placed the body in the mud, and when the mudslides came, so did the bodies or shall I say skeletons of the deceased who were buried there.

The heavens have opened up and poured its waters upon Tulsa throughout the month of May. In fact, depending on what it does tomorrow, May could very well be a record breaking May as far as inches of rainfall for the month.

The cemetery in front of our house was flooded with streams of water rushing into the street and that is why I told Pete the story about the bodies floating down the hillside. I took photos of the rushing waters because I have lived in this neighborhood for fifteen years and have never seen it so bad.

      

Anyway, my whole reason for telling this story is because yesterday, in the Tulsa World, there was an article entitled, “Erosion Exposes Human Remains.”

The subtitle is, “Heavy water drainage has washed away the banks of a creek at Rose Hill Memorial Cemetery.”

It turns out that on the very day I was telling my friend about the La Crescenta story, the remains of three bodies turned up floating in the creek at Rose Hill. They believe the bodies were buried about ninety years ago.

And so..

You’re probably wondering why the story of floating bodies is on a blog about the Mother Road.

Rose Hill Cemetery is located on the corner of Admiral and Yale in Tulsa, Oklahoma which was Route 66 at one time. The sign in front of the cemetery reads, “Route 66, 1926-1932.”

**NOTE**
I’m glad one of the bodies didn’t get washed up into my front yard.

A Harley Ride

A Harley Ride Through Amboy

According to Wikipedia, “In 1938 Roy Crowl opened “Roy’s” as a service station on Route 66 in Amboy. Roy, together with his wife Velma owned the town.”

Here are some great photos my sister took during their recent Harley trip. Two of the photos were taken in front of the Roy’s Cafe Sign. Notice the Route 66 emblem on the sign.

   

Amboy is Famous

According to Wikipedia, “Amboy is famous as a genuine Route 66 landmark.”

Located in the Mojave Desert, Amboy is nearly a ghost town.

Amboy was established in 1858 and is one of the oldest towns in California. More recently, Albert Okura, owner of the Juan Pollo restaurant chain, purchased the entire town in 2005 for $425,000 and a promise to restore and preserve the town.

The reason I’m writing about the this little town located on the old Mother Road, is because I recently received an email from my younger sister with photos from a recent trip her and her husband took on their “his and her” Harley’s.

Here is what she said, “The pictures of me and Hugh are from our trip to Laughlin two weeks ago. We had a great time and rode home on old route 66. The picture with the signs are from Amboy an old boon town from the 50s.”

She sent photos taken in front of Roy’s Cafe which will be included in another post.

She went on to say, “It was an awesome little town. We took Route 66 home from Laughlin and went the long way through 29 Palms past Joshua Tree. It was so much fun.”

“We also hit Route 66 in Kingman, Arizona and stopped at a restored cafe. I didn’t take pictures but wish I had, I noticed other people taking pictures.”

The Rose Bowl is Back

But It’s Not A Bowling Alley Any More

Tulsa’s Rose Bowl has been closed for several years now, but it’s coming back to life. Bowling won’t be allowed, but the Rose Bowl will be available for many other type of uses.

When the doors closed, we thought the Rose Bowl would disappear into a mere memory of the “old days.” But Sam Baker has a better plan.

Sam and his nephew, Chris Whinery, are partners in a massive remodeling project to turn this eye sore into a thing of beauty.

According to channel 8 news, Baker said, “We’re painting it back pink, its no longer going to be that offensive red, purple, and blue.”

“What we’re wanting to do is have an event center,” adds Whinery. “We’re looking to have fights, flea markets, auctions, concerts, car shows, bike rallies.”

No bowling allowed. The 36 lanes have been removed as part of the sale agreement with a “no compete clause.”

A couple of the lanes were sold to the Los Angeles Fire Department to use in their new fire station and to a sushi bar in Hermosa Beach, California.

“You wanna have a wedding, you want to have a bar mitzvah, a party of some sort, a corporate retreat, its available for rent.”

Chris and Sam bought the Rose Bowl for about $300,000 dollars and sold the lanes for about a thousand dollars each. Grand opening will be in July with an antique furniture auction.

SOURCE:
Channel 8 News, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Sleep in a Wig Wam

The Red Fork Hippie Chick posted some information about photography and one the photos she included was a sign at the Wig Wam Motel on Route 66 in San Bernardino, California. Here was my response to her post:

I was surprised to see the neon sign photo taken at the Wig Wam Motel in San Bernardino. I grew up in that area and just seeing the sign brought memories flooding to my mind. I realize this post is about neon sign photography, but I would love to see a photo of the wig wams themselves.

We lived only about two miles from the Wig Wams. One year when I was about twelve or thirteen, we vacationed to various locations such as Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, and Mount Rushmore and Badlands in South Dakota.

On our way home, we took Route 66 which we called the southern route. We stopped at Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico and Petrified Forest in Arizona.

We were almost home when my dad suddenly had an idea. As we passed by the Wig Wam Motel he decided we would stay all night there even though our house was only two miles away.

We had never seen the inside of the Wig Wams, so it was quite an adventure for me and my little sister. The inside was tiny and they weren’t really very nice, but we still had a good time. They didn’t have air conditioning, only window fans. It was mid-July so it was really hot in the tight quarters.

It was nice that we had the experience of staying in the wig wams, but we were really happy to get home the following day.

They used to have their little slogan or motto on a sign back then. It said, “Sleep in a Wig Wam.”

Thank you for sharing your photos.

Route 66 – Rose Bowl Tulsa

This is a Photo of the Rose Bowl Bowling alley located on 11th street (Route 66) in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After the bowling alley sold a few years back, the new owner painted it these ugly colors. It’s doors were closed on March 12, 2005 and the contents sold at auction.

It was originally pink, but I actually liked the pink better than the red, white, and blue.

On August 3, 2004, Michael (Mickey) K. Sparks was arrested and booked into the Tulsa County Jail for setting fire to the Rose Bowl which he had previously owned. At the time of the fire, Sparks owned another bowling facility at the Eastland Mall. Sparks claimed he did it because “his business was suffering from competition with the Rose Bowl Bowling Alley.”

Altogether, attempts to burn down the Rose Bowl were made three times.

In the late 1990’s, my grandson bowled on a league for children for two bowling seasons. It saddens my heart that so much misery has come from such a great Tulsa Icon.

The name of the building was originally the “Rose Bowl” but as it changed ownership, the name became “AMF Rose Lanes.”

Route 66 – Meadowgold Sign Photos

The Meadowgold Milk and Ice Cream sign was constructed in 1934 and was located on the corner of 11th street (Route 66) and Lewis in Tulsa.

The dismantling process began June 16, 2004 and was complete on June 17, 2004. I wanted to photograph the sign before dismantling began but was unable to find the time. I did manage to get there to photograph the sign while the work was in progress though.

Here are two photos taken during the dismantling process. They were both taken with a Canon Rebel 2000 but were slightly underexposed. A little saturation with Adobe Photoshop was added.

They were taken on June 17, 2004. I took some photos on June 16, 2004, but it began to rain and dismantling was halted. I returned the following day and that is when these were taken. I can tell because of the bright sky.