A Fond Farewell to Route 66 Mother Road Museum

Route 66 has lost another gem. On July 23, 2024, the Route 66 Mother Road Museum in Barstow, California, announced on their Facebook page they were closing. The museum’s webpage says that they are “closed indefinitely,” stating water repairs in another part of the building were being taken care of by the city.

Route 66 Mother Road Museum had its grand opening on July 4, 2000, celebrating the 2,448 mile long federal highway in use from 1926 until 1985. It originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California. John Steinbeck, author of Grapes of Wrath, coined the the phrase, “The Mother Road” in 1936. Our gratitude to Deb and Ken Hodkin for many years running the museum and giving so much pleasure about Route 66 to countless visitors.

In a recent chat with Deb, she explained to us that the building where the museum was housed is owned by Barstow. After another flood occurred, she and Ken felt it best to distribute the contents to other area museums while they could before something worse happened. Deb and Ken have volunteered at the Route 66 Museum for 24 years and retirement was beckoning. Deb expressed there was some misinformation making its rounds in gossip circles but in the end it was just as simple as that.

The museum had been open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and ran solely by volunteers. Visitors, both local and world-wide alike, dropped into the museum located at 681 N. First Avenue. Deb and Ken greeted visitors and answered questions ranging from Route 66 history, 100 Things to Do Within 100 Miles of Barstow with a free flyer, to local eateries, nearby museums, and favorite businesses. The museum even offered a free Daggett Historical Society Driving Tour and map, a four-page Auto Tour of Route 66-Victorville to Barstow, which are still graciously available for free to the public on the museum’s website.

A familiar red 1964 convertible Mustang on display was just one of several vehicles inside the museum recalling fanciful trips tourists made on Route 66. It belonged to Jim Bengal. The car was a favorite as many visitors remininsced about the early years on the Mother Road. There was also a 1915 Model-T on display in the museum which was owned by local Lawrence Dale. Vistors from around the globe enjoyed visiting the unique and interesting museum with its well-stocked bookstore and gift shop featuring all things Route 66-related, which became a destination in itself. Over the years we bought some great Route 66 books, shirts, aprons and bags to add to our ever-growing collection.

The Harvey House, originally known as the Casa del Desierto hotel and train depot, was built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, and is located next door to the former Route 66 Mother Road Museum. The City of Barstow acquired the station in the 1990s.The official starched black and white uniform required for the young female servers was displayed at the Route 66 Mother Road Museum.

According to the second edition of Mojave Desert Dictionary (Schoffstall, 2014), Fred Harvey’s Santa Fe operations began in 1876 when he purchased the Lunch Stand and Eating House at Leavenworth, Kansas. Eventually he operated a chain of 84 hotels, restaurants and newstands at the larger Santa Fe Railroad depots until the 1950s. This included a Harvey House in Needles, another in Barstow, and a lunch room in Bagdad, 8 miles west-northwest of Amboy.

Interesting displays awaited visitors around every corner in the large museum. The switchboard was the first one to be used on Barstow’s Main Street and was saved by the Zeliff family.

Deb and Ken said they will miss all the wonderful people they’ve met at the museum and gotten to know over the years. Many visitors made regular pilgrimages to visit the museum whenever they were in town. Deb and Ken took great delight when foreign vistors returned and it was always the highlight of their day.

The 2006 movie ‘Cars’ produced by Pixar was inspired by a cross-country trip on Route 66. Cars is set in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic vehicles starring a race car named Lightning McQueen on the way to the most important race of his life and the cast of car characters he meets on the way.

One of the motorcycles on display at the museum was actually a compilation of many motorcycle parts beginning in 1946. The museum also featured a vintage Barstow Police Department trike, which belonged to the City.

World War II memorbilia served as a poignant reminder of the sacrifices the local military made for our country. Barstow was a major stop on Route 66. Fort Irwin and the Marine Corps Logistics Base, home to the Marine Corps Mounted Color Guard, are the two closest military bases to Barstow.

Cowboy icons Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lived in Apple Valley and owned the Double R Bar Ranch in Oro Grande. Apple Valley Legacy Museum features a robust collection about their lives and careers.

As the old saying goes, nothing lasts forever. The seasons in our lives may change but we must not let our history become a distant memory, one that is only pulled out of the shadowy recesses of our minds every now and then like a cheap card trick, for it is the essential fabric that binds us to each other. We owe it to our future generations to preserve our history and share it in interesting and interactive ways to understand how our communities developed and what heights they can aspire to.

We urge you to visit your local museums, discover new ones, share them with others, immerse yourself in learning more and to support museums in any capacity you can muster. It truly takes a village. The loss of even one museum is one too many. Just as importantly, explore Route 66 and all it imbues! Deb and Ken, you have our deepest appreciation for your loyalty to community, selflessness of commitment, and generosity of spirit at the Route 66 Mother Road Museum for nearly two and a half decades. We wish you a happy retirement and godspeed.

The closure of the Route 66 Mother Road Museum is not the only thing in Barstow that has recently changed. The nearby First Street Bridge, built of steel and timber, has been replaced by a safer structure parallel to the old bridge during construction. The original bridge was deemed structurally deficient in its superstructure, substructure, and the overall structural evaluation in 2018. It was closed for nearly a month in 2022 for emergency repairs. Groundbreaking for the new $85 million dollar project began in January 2023. And to address the elephant in the room, Deb confirmed the building of the new bridge played no role in the closing of the museum.

On one of our many trips to the Route 66 Mother Road Museum we took a photo of the original First Avenue Bridge, also known as the Barstow Viaduct, built in April 1930 for the price of $158,000. It was later modified in 1943. The City of Barstow opened the historic bridge to pedestrians on July 10, 2024, for a symbolic walk. Demolition was slated to take place in late July 2024, despite protests from local historians.

Project managers said the new bridge is essential for those traveling to and from BNSF’s $1.5 billion master-planned rail hub known as the Barstow International Gateway. “The 4,500-acre BNSF site on the west side of the city will house a rail yard, an intermodal hub, and warehouses for transloading cargo from domestic and foreign containers,” the Victorville Daily Press reported. BNSF said its new rail hub would create 20,000 new jobs.

Several other museums we recommend are located in the Barstow area, namely the Western America Railroad Museum adjacent to the Harvey House, the NASA Goldstone Visitor Center located upstairs in the Harvey House, Mojave River Valley Museum, the Desert Discovery Center, and Daggett Museum. NOTE: The Desert Discovery Museum, operated by the Bureau of Land Management, has been closed since the pandemic in 2020. Daggett Museum is currently closed due to lack of air conditioning. Please contact all museums ahead of your visit for their current hours of operation.