Birthplace of Route 66 - Springfield, Mo   by C.H. Skip Curtis

Sample Story

Red's Giant Hamburg
by Skip Curtis

bbbThe building just stands there. The ivy and vines climbing over the boarded-up windows. Inside, “mothballed,” the old hamburger stand looks just as it did when it was left over ten years ago – ready for business. Owners Red & Julia still live next door. The dream of experiencing the aroma and taste of just one more “sooper” and fries is tantalizingly close. The dream will not be realized. Red’s Giant Hamburg has closed, and with its passing went a significant piece of fast-food folklore, a nostalgic chunk of the fabled Main Street of America, Route 66. For nearly forty years, Julia and Sheldon “Red” Chaney had operated one of the first, and last, hamburger stands on Historic US 66.

bbbb Right after serving in the army in World War II, Red and Julia (along with his parents) were returning from California to St. Charles, Illinois, where Red’s dad owned and operated a restaurant and cocktail lounge. “Dad said, 'I kinda like this area,' as we passed through Springfield on 66,” Red recalls. “When we saw this old wooded H.C. Sinclair gas station, which also had a lunch counter in a corner, it was love at first sight.” The Chaneys sold their restaurant in Illinois, moved to Springfield, Missouri, and bought the Sinclair station on Route 66. In addition to the station/café, there was a 1930s tourist court in back that they operated under the name “66” Motel.
bbbb Red’s, home of the first drive-up window, was a hamburger joint that assumed almost mythic qualities. It was featured on two television specials, countless magazine and newspaper articles from coast-to-coast, memorialized in song by the Morells in their "Red’s" and even featured in Rolling Stone magazine twice: as an important part of a 1984 article “The End of the Road” about Route 66, and in a review of the Morells’ tribute to Red’s:

“Hamburger, cheeseburger, lettuce and tomato/
Brown beans, root beer, French-fried potato/
It’s a crazy little place on the west side of town/
A five-five Buick knee-deep in the ground.”

bbbb Red had put the ’55 Buick there to keep people from backing into his elaborate homemade sign, which read GIANT on the horizontal crossbar and only HAMBURG on the vertical pole, because there wasn’t room for the ER at the bottom – the sign almost hit the power lines above. (Red says maybe he should have re-measured prior to painting.) The Buick was topped off with two globes of tin foil dealies the size of footballs (actually empty bleach bottles wrapped in foil) that rotated slowly. These tin foil dealies sometimes defied certain laws of nature by blowing in the opposite direction of the wind. There were two stories surrounding these tin foil globes. The first was circulated by the man himself, who said that they blew clockwise when he wanted customers, and counter-clockwise when he didn’t. The second story was that these things actually ….