2014-10-25 Is That Visitor Center Glowing?

There aren't many amusement parks that open at noon. But it is October and since it's the last weekend before Halloween, Six Flags will stay open until midnight.

So Karen and I are making good use of our time and we'll hit a museum and the most famous toxic waste site in our lifetime before going to the Park.

There's no better way to assure attendance in your museum than by putting "Route 66" in your name. The Route 66 State Park Visitor Center was a mere 6 miles from Six Flags St. Louis so we stopped by on our way.

Housed in the former Bridgehead Inn, a 1935 roadhouse that sat on the original Route 66 highway, we spent an hour in here.

There were a variety of hotel and roadside signs from long gone establishments.

There were plenty of souvenirs  as well. We have been very selective in the items that we've actually purchased on this trip. We've only bought a couple of t-shirts and some ornaments we can hang around the trailer since being on the ROAD.

The gift shop had one of the most extensive collections of Route 66 items available for sale.

Outside was the former bridge that spanned the Meramec River. Strangely, the Visitor Center is on one side of the river in the state park and the actual park is on the other side of the river.

Here's the bridge coming into the park side of the park from the other side.

The land for this state park was reclaimed after it was contaminated with dioxin in the 1970's. The town was Times Beach.

Times Beach lots were sold in the 20's by the St. Louis Times Newspaper - hence the name Times Beach. The area was prone to flooding in the fall so it was mainly used as a summer get-a-way for St. Louis folk.

Fast forward to the 1970's and the town hired this guy to spray the dusty roads with oil. WELL, it also happens that the same guy is hired by a company to dispose of an Agent Orange derivative. He uses the same trucks to do both jobs. Really?

This goes on for almost 10 years and the dioxin level is now 100 times higher than safe levels. In December of 1982 the Meramec River floods and 95% of Times Beach was under 10' of water.

Six weeks later it is announced that the Environmental Protection Agency will buyout the town. Cleanup of the soil takes place in the late 80's and 90's and the property is turned into the state park in 1999.

We drove around the mostly-flat park grounds and none of the joggers or bikers that we saw were glowing.

Oh, and the guy who caused all of this...He was never prosecuted for spreading the contaminated oil around, but he did spend a year in jail for tax evasion.