(Lucille) Ball's, Burgers, and Bullets

theramblers88
Jul 5, 2019
2 min read

Updated: Oct 26, 2019

6/23/19

Today we had a rainy start, but our Missouri adventure awaits! We saw Lucille Ball’s 1940 Cadillac in the Worlds’ Largest Gift Store in Phillipsburg.

Dr. Edwin Hubble’s birthplace and replica of the Hubble Space Telescope was in Marshfield.

We then journeyed into Springfield. Here, Red Chaney had a restaurant (long since gone) that served burgers to passing travelers. Customers found it easier to drive up to the building and yell their order through Red’s open window and thus the first drive-thru was born. He had a big sign made that read Giant Hamburgers, but he measured wrong and so he had to cut off the “ers” - so then it became Red’s Giant Hamburg! So we were able to see the sign and the original site of the first drive-thru restaurant.

Then we headed to Springfield’s Town Square where two historic events took place. So here’s your history lesson for the day:

* The Bureau of Numbering Highways was just beginning and Cy Avery was on the board. It all happened on the 7th floor of a building on the Town Square. He wanted to name the road from Chicago to Santa Monica Route 60. But that was already taken, so he came up with Route 66 - then started to promote the heck out if it. Cy Avery became the Father of Route 66!

*On July 21, 1865, Will Bill Hickock lost his prized pocket watch in a card game to David Tutt. Wild Bill asked Tutt not to humiliate him by showing off the watch to others. Well, he caught him a couple of times doing just that, and asked him several more times to stop. Well it happened again, WB spotted Tutt showing it off from across the square. So Bill drew his pistol, and with one 75 yard shot, got ol’ Tutt in the chest. There he died... all over a pocket watch. Wild Bill was found not guilty of murder, for it was a “justifiable provocation!”

Whew!