A Conversation With ... Phyllis Ferguson

This is considered the oldest operating motor court along Route 66. What’s the history of this type of lodging and its significance today?
Rockwood Motor Court was built in 1929 by Verne Ruckman. He built a Shell filling station, and then the tourist cabins out back. Those cabins originally were very pretty primitive, as best we can tell. Unfortunately, for the Ruckmans, timing was everything. They opened in ’29 and shortly thereafter, the Great Depression hit and the economy fell. There were a lot of changes of ownership over the years. The cabins later underwent a change and they were rocked. The Masonite siding was put on and it was kind of modernized. As the interstate came and Route 66 travel dried up, you saw a lot of the old motor courts either just go out of business and fall into disrepair. In 2019, my husband, Tim, and I took the cottages here and we started a major renovation. We kept everything we could that was original so people could see what it was like in those days. People want to be comfortable, but they want to know what it was like, the authenticity of staying in a 95-year-old motor court on Route 66.

Tell me about the demographics of your visitors. Route 66 is said to be the most well-known road in the world, and that’s been a draw to the international traveler.
It’s absolutely an international traveler. Of course, we still have more American travelers than we do international travelers. We have a lot of guests who come from St. Louis, Kansas City, northwest Arkansas, Tulsa, so it skews that pure Route 66 demographic. But last night we had a traveler from Tokyo, Japan. We have had quite a few Brits here this year, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy and France. I just took a reservation yesterday from Turkey. In some ways, this road is probably more internationally heralded than it is by people in this country. Last year, I was talking to someone from France and I was like, “So, what brought you to Route 66?” And he said, “It’s the biggest and best road trip in the world.” To truly experience Americana and the people, just the common regular people, Route 66 provides that opportunity. During the Route 66 festival, obviously we’re full of roadies. It’s pretty amazing. We’re booked a year out on that.

You have been invested in Springfield’s Zone 1 through your past work with City Council. With that lens, do you feel the region could do more to capitalize on that tourism and travel of Springfield as the birthplace of Route 66? The latest comprehensive study of the road estimated $132 million is spent annually by visitors.
The state of Missouri absolutely could. We don’t have to look much farther than our neighboring states of Illinois and Oklahoma to see what they’re doing as far as economic investment in Route 66. Oklahoma just announced about $6 million of grant funding for businesses on Route 66. Illinois does the same. A great economic development tool that Oklahoma has used has been their Oklahoma Passport, because people who are traveling Route 66, they stop at iconic places. We have people come here all the time who aren’t staying here, who want to stop and take pictures. If they stop and take pictures at the Rockwood, they may go have lunch or breakfast at the College Street Cafe, they may stop at a gift shop up on Commercial Street. The more Route 66 travelers we get to stop and spend a night in Springfield, the better it is for the economy of our city.

The centennial of Route 66 is 2026. Last year, the Birthplace of Route 66 Festival drew about 65,000 people to downtown Springfield. Do you anticipate a larger event in 2026, and how are you involved in initiatives to mark the anniversary?
The governor appointed a centennial commission, and I’m appreciative of being appointed to that. We were given, in this last budget year, $970,000 to invest in Missouri. We’re hoping that we’ll get another $1 million in the upcoming budget. We’re doing some things with that to create better signage, because one of the things that we hear most often is you can do better with your helping us stay on Route 66. We’re doing around 12 what we call selfie sculptures, which are big Route 66 sculptures that will be placed in different communities across Route 66. We also are hoping to create some grants for small businesses on Route 66. The pandemic was a really tough time on people across the world, but on Route 66, travel shut down. There are businesses that had to shut down and have not reopened because of that. So, if we can channel some money in the direction of a business that they’re starting to pick back up, but maybe they need a new roof and the money is not there for that roof, but if they can apply for a grant and get $5,000 or $10,000 to help put that roof on, they can stay in business. That’s important to the economy of these small communities as well as the big ones. Cora Scott [of the city of Springfield] is the chair of that commission. Our website should be up any day. That should start driving a lot of interest this direction. We have had to lay a lot of groundwork because it’s a new commission, and we had to set goals. We had to find a budget. We started meeting a year ago in January. The goal of the commission is that we do something in Missouri in the centennial year that will bring people to Missouri Route 66 and beyond for decades to come. What we look at is the World’s Fair birdhouse at the St. Louis Zoo, how it’s still used today. People still go to it, they still admire it.

Would that small-business funding come from the state allocations?
It will. And this is my personal opinion, but that’s something I would like to see grow out of the state of Missouri, potentially out of the Department of Tourism. If you get people traveling Route 66, that’s tourism.