Take a backroads trip to Blackwater, Missouri which had a population of 162 in the year 2000! This charming village is only three miles off Interstate 70 and is full of 1800s buildings on The National Register of Historic Places. The entire downtown is one-block long and is a tiny town adventure.   HISTORY OF BLACKWATER   Blackwater was founded in 1887 after the Missouri Pacific Railroad developed a coal refilling station between St. Joseph, Missouri and Kansas City. Travelers who stopped in Blackwater kept the town bustling in the late 1800s.The post office has been in operation since 1873.   BLACKWATER TODAY   The Iron Horse Hotel & Restaurant was once…

The birthplace of Route 66 is said to be in Springfield, Missouri. The “Mother Road” began in the 1920s as Americans moved west. Construction work on a 17-mile long, 20 foot wide concrete road, later Route 66, was national front page news in 1929! A mere five months later, “Black Friday” and the stock market crash changed America forever. By 1931, the winding, two-lane Highway 66 was called, “The Main Street of America.” The road’s completion was cause for a huge celebration in Rolla, Missouri. That year, Highway 66 ran from Chicago to St. Louis and extended in and out of Rolla, Missouri to Lebanon, Missouri and into Springfield’s city…