Historic Kirkwood downtown runs along south Lindbergh Boulevard. |
County: Saint Louis Co.Welcome to Missouri, the Show Me State. You just have to wait until Kirkwood to see anything.
The Route 66 Bypass alignment is a horrible option for travelers unless one has already had the chance to try the city route through downtown and the south part of the city. And even then the latter option is still the best. While the Bypass route was once surely a gem, the rapid expansion of the St. Louis metropolitan area has ravaged the corridor, turning into just another suburban money trap. When you compare it to the quaint, historic city neighborhoods and landmarks that line parts of City 66 there's just no reason to take the Bypass.
Your initial west-east run between the Chain of Rocks Bridge and Lindbergh Boulevard is a pointless stretch of I-270 that lies on top of the old US 66 pavement. If you like bland, featureless motel chains and the St. Louis area tobacco chain Dirt Cheap, then this is your kind of drive. If not, speed on to Lindbergh.
Heading south on Lindbergh - now signed as US 67 - is not nearly as disappointing 
as the quick jaunt through North County. It used to be even better before the Lambert Aiport expansion; prior to its demolition in 2003, the Stanley Cour-Tel Motel greeted you with its fancy neon sign along the west side of the highway. The motor court once housed many of the early astronauts who came to work at McDonnel-Douglas at Lambert Airport in the late 1950s and remained open into the early 2000s until Lambert's expansion forced its demolition. Now the road has been realigned through a tunnel to make more room for airport runways and the beautiful blue billboard resides at Rich Henry's Rabbit Ranch in Staunton, Illinois. Its removal took away one of the only decent roadside attractions along St. Louis County's chief artery as strip malls and other urban development have come in to continue the inevitable evolution of business along the US Highway System. Traffic often moves at a crawl here, especially during rush hour, and it can be a frustrating ride.
Kirkwood is another matter. The small suburb sits just north of where Bypass 66 rejoins its city brother and heads off to the west, leaving the tomfoolery of the modern Lindbergh Boulevard behind it, but before such a departure is made the roadie is in for a small treat. The village's downtown lies along Route 66/Lindbergh Blvd. (renamed Kirkwood Road here) and the classic old buildings mixed in with a historic old train depot give the town a feel like none other you've encountered since the Mississippi River. While newer businesses such as Starbucks invade the stretch, many locals are still in operation here as well, and a stop to tour the shops is definitely in order.
Route 66 followed the Chain of Rocks Bridge across the Mississippi River, then headed due west along what is now I-270. Dunn Road, the north frontage road of I-270, is supposedly some of the old Route 66 but there is little more to see from it than the interstate. At Lindbergh Boulevard the highway turned south and headed through West County and the village of Kirkwood until reaching Watson Road at the modern day location of I-44.
This alignment was the mainline route from 1936 until 1955, at which time it reverted to a bypass and City 66 became the primary road. Traffic crossed the Chain of Rocks Bridge until 1967 when traffic moved north to the new Chain of Rocks Bridge and I-270. Expansion of the corridor to four (or more) lanes followed the initial alignment, and though an exact date for four-lane expansion is not known Jack Rittenhouse cites in his 1946 Route 66 Guidebook that the bypass is completely multi-lane at that point. The intersection of Lindbergh and Watson where the Bypass and City routes rejoined was the first cloverleaf intersection west of the Mississippi River.
