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Vintage roadside

Ghostsoldier

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,408
Location
Starke, Florida, USA
Everything is 24 cents.
Everything, except malts.
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Rob
 
This diner in Springfield, Missouri has been in business since 1948, but only since 1987 in this location (the prior one was also a quonset hut). Now it will relocating to a building used by another long time diner that went under a couple of years ago. This location will most likely be used for an apartment building since it is near Missouri State University. Sad to see it leave this location.

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Ghostsoldier

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,408
Location
Starke, Florida, USA
This diner in Springfield, Missouri has been in business since 1948, but only since 1987 in this location (the prior one was also a quonset hut). Now it will relocating to a building used by another long time diner that went under a couple of years ago. This location will most likely be used for an apartment building since it is near Missouri State University. Sad to see it leave this location.

View attachment 430479
I hear that he was a friendly ghost, too.
Rob
 
Messages
10,600
Location
My mother's basement
This came in today’s mail. Didn’t cost much.

I’ve been over most of that route, or on the newer roads quite near it, on a few occasions over the years.

It’s a nice drive, lotsa stuff to take in, etc. But it’s certainly not the only drive worth one’s while, nor the most geographically spectacular, nor the most culturally compelling. Its enduring fame is due in no small part to that hit song from 1946, which just about everybody knows, and that TV show, which people over age 60 or so might know.

Route 66 isn’t unlike the Wild West in that regard — it really existed, and it really was quite something in its time. But the entertainment business (Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, and then the movies, and then TV) has so romanticized the subject that it scarcely resembles what it meant to those who experienced it firsthand.


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Last edited:
This diner in Springfield, Missouri has been in business since 1948, but only since 1987 in this location (the prior one was also a quonset hut). Now it will relocating to a building used by another long time diner that went under a couple of years ago. This location will most likely be used for an apartment building since it is near Missouri State University. Sad to see it leave this location.

View attachment 430479

The move is almost complete. Casper's has moved into the old location for Anton's Coffee Shop ... another long-time eatery here in Springfield, MO. Anton's was in a location that, in the mid 1950's, started out as Snax Rootbeer Stand. In 1959 it would become Vaughn's Dairy Sweet and in 1964 it would become Yum Burger Drive In. Around 1970 it became McCormicks Drive Inn. From 1974 through 2020 it was Anton's Cuisine (then Anton's Coffee Shop). It closed when Anton Tasich died at age 88.

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The ice cream cone on the sign from the drive-in became a steaming hot cup of coffee when Anton's became a coffee shop.

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Casper's now has a new sign to go with their new location:

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And an old one. Someone donated the sign from the second location of Caspers (from 1948 - 1985). Despite what I stated originally it was opened in 1909 after Casper C. Lederer purchased an existing fruit store, then added ice cream and eventually their famous chili.

1914:

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Early 1960s:

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Late 1970s:

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Casper's was forced to move in 1985 after the owner of the property (a nearby restaurant) wanted to tear down the Quonset hut for more parking. This is Charles Lederer on the last day in 1985 -- given only 10 days notice that he had to vacate. He would commit suicide shortly after that.

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It's nice to see the sign again -- still with its original paint.

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We're looking forward to Casper's opening back up and staying put for another four decade stint.
 

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