Contractor’s New Museum Offers Glimpse of Route 66 History
BY AsphaltPro Staff
Iconic Route 66 gets a new attraction at contractor headquarters ahead of centennial anniversary
West Contracting, Pacific, Missouri, has leadership that understands and celebrates the concept of nurturing a work-life balance. Owner and Chairman of the Company Larry West has recently taken history by the hand and opened a museum that honors one of America’s most famous roadways, Route 66, also known as “The Mother Road.”
The Campbell’s Service Museum on Historic Route 66 is viewable by appointment and the owner suggests you set aside two or three hours to absorb all the information and nostalgia to be experienced inside. It’s only one of many scenic and/or educational stops along the famous roadway, which stretches across eight states—Arizona, California, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas.
He grew up traveling Route 66 around Missouri with his parents, Norm and Mary West, founders of West Contracting. They built their business and stationed their asphalt plants along this very road over time. Route 66 has been a lifelong interest of his, and he recently had the opportunity to purchase and showcase a collection of gas station memorabilia dating back to the 1920s. 2026 will be the 100-year anniversary of Route 66, and West is excited to showcase this collection to those who are planning or have planned trips along the route. In honoring the United States’ first all-weather highway, West offers the asphalt community a new Route 66 attraction with a nod to our industry during World of Asphalt/AGG1 festivities this March 25-27.
West Contracting is hosting a limited number of WOA/AGG1 attendees they’ve met over the years to a private event at its Campbell’s Service Museum on Tuesday afternoon. The museum will be open the remainder of the week from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. While you’re in St. Louis for the tradeshow and conference, plan to travel along the famous highway and stop in for a walk down Memory Lane. For details or to make an appointment, which is required to visit the museum, tourists can visit here.
In 2022, a significant automotive memorabilia collection came available in Union, Missouri.
Centennial Looms with Fame and Nostalgia
The U.S. National Park Service has a website devoted to showcasing 100 of the more than 250 buildings, bridges, road alignments and other sites along Route 66 that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the National Park Service’s Share Our Heritage Travel Itinerary series. These include historic hotels, gas stations, restaurants, lookout points, trading posts, kitschy attractions, visitor centers and so on, all dating back to an original highway whose heyday began in 1926, a few years after its state road sections were built and connected.
Of course, there are many websites devoted to exploring and restoring facets of the highway, all of which give the impression this is a world-renowned highway. Rather than take a tourist website’s word for it, I reached out to citizens of Europe to ask how far this fame goes.
Italian travel guide author Jo Linsdell shared that, while growing up in the United Kingdom, she’d heard of Route 66’s fame from films, songs, television in general and travel blogs. Since moving to Italy, she still hears the highway’s fame mentioned around her. She calls it “one of the most famous roads in the world.” An artist friend, also living in Italy, shared with excitement that she’s watched documentaries about Route 66 and rattled off a list of facts she knows about the roadway stretching across eight states, sharing that it’s on her bucket list to drive it someday.
A restored 1956 F-100 Ford pickup truck is proudly displayed in the center of the museum.
With these confirmations, I went back to the official websites with renewed interest in the nostalgic scenery and attractions highlighted for visitors. This wasn’t a random idea but a worldwide phenomenon. People from around the globe make strategic plans to stop along Route 66 when they visit the United States because the historic roadway is iconic. And there are members of our asphalt community who have been instrumental in its building in the early 1900s and its maintenance since.
Sadly, a number of the iconic “stops” along the road from Chicago to Los Angeles are pictured on these tourist websites in almost ruins. Signs are weathered and brush has grown up around dilapidated buildings with overgrown parking lots. Our industry could lend a hand in more ways than one when it comes to spiffying up the parking lots and drives for better curb appeal on some of the older sites. But multiple stops still boast updated paint and proud signage declaring their importance in an infrastructure marvel’s life. One of those shiny, quality stops is now proudly situated at 18663 Historical Route 66 in Pacific, Missouri, next to the headquarters of West Contracting.
Larry West already owned 2 acres behind the Allenton Baptist Church for West Contracting’s headquarters. He purchased the church building when the congregation was moving into town. When he purchased the automotive memorabilia from Duane Campbell, it was a no-brainer to set up the structure as a part of the campus, separating the Route 66 historic attraction and the company’s daily business with a stylish, black fence. Campbell had restored two 9-foot gas pumps, which West placed in front of the museum’s entrance.
Museum Quality Memories
What started as the Allenton Heights Baptist Church came under new ownership in 2022 when West purchased it from a neighboring congregation. The church family was moving to a building in the city of Pacific and West turned it into a training center there at company headquarters. After he negotiated the purchase of automotive memorabilia with Duane Campbell of Union, Missouri, West came up with another idea for the old church building. He made it his mission to build something worthy of an attraction on the historic roadway. In fact, what he built is museum-quality memories for anyone who has taken a road trip with friends or family in this great nation.
West refurbished the abandoned church, turning it into a replica of an old-time service station, harkening back to the days when the family road trip involved a stop to catch up on the news while a serviceman filled up the tank and checked the oil for you. Inside the museum, displays of antique automotive parts, products of the past, tools and accessories, signage of old-time advertisements and more await visitors who are looking for a glimpse into a simpler time. A time when the great family road trip practically demanded multiple stops at out-of-the-way diners and drive-ins to taste Americana.
Peruse the pictures on these pages for a sampling of what’s in store when you step back in time at the Campbell’s Service Museum and consider how Route 66 has influenced your vacations or work schedule. AsphaltPro Magazine wants to help celebrate the Mother Road’s Centennial in 2026 with a few project stories showing maintenance work along the highway. The NPS website discusses the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program briefly, stating:
“In recognition of the significance of Route 66 to America’s heritage, Congress passed an Act in 1999 to create the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program. Administered by the National Park Service, National Trails Intermountain Region, the program preserves the special places and stories of this historic highway. The program collaborates with private, nonprofit, and government partners to identify and prioritize Route 66 preservation needs. The program provides cost-share grants to help preserve the most significant and representative historic sites related to the route’s period of significance (1926-1985). It also assists preservation planning, research, and educational initiatives, and serves as a clearinghouse for preservation information and technical assistance. Since 2001, over 170 projects have received cost-share grant assistance across the route. Set to legislatively terminate at the end of 2009, the program was reauthorized on March 30, 2009, for an additional 10 years.”
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Under the new authorization, the program continued to offer grants, technical assistance, and clearinghouse functions, and pursued long-term priorities to sustain preservation efforts along Route 66 until the program sunset in 2019. Cost-share projects, totaling millions in public-private investment toward the revitalization and commemoration of the Route 66 corridor continue to this day.
One such project was the cold in-place recycling (CIR) that took place on Missouri State Route AT, which is designated an Historic Byway with the old U.S. route shield. West Contracting worked on a total of 9.4 lane miles of the roadway in Franklin County, milling and replacing the pavement with a foamed in-place process. Revisit the project specifics here.
Which of the cost-share or Corridor Preservation Program projects have you worked on? How was the Route 66 maintenance and restoration a part of your company’s legacy? Let’s discuss that in upcoming editions of AsphaltPro as we prepare to celebrate the Centennial of this famous roadway!