Rocks & Red's & Route 66
August 2026
Downtown, the original Route 66 McKinley Bridge still carries traffic to and from the heart of St. Louis. And although John Steinbeck’s Mother Road changed names and pathways through the city toward Joplin and beyond, the old historic routes are marked.
And celebrated.
Driving through Rolla, gone are aromas from Route 66 icons: Toky’s BBQ, Chub & Jo’s fried chicken, Zeno’s steaks. But you can see a replica of Stonehenge, a tribute to one of the ancient world’s most dazzling feats of architecture. Situated on the campus of one of America’s top engineering schools, the University of Missouri Science and Technology, equidistant from Pine Street (the original Route 66 thru downtown) and I-44, Rolla’s laser-built Stonehenge marks the change of seasons with precision, except when a later-built high-rise dorm blocks the sun. Dang.
The impetus for choosing the name came from Springfield, Missouri.
Rolling into Springfield for the night, I yearned for a burger from Red’s Giant Hamburg. Alas, Red’s is only a memory, gone for a dozen years now, but not forgotten. Red Chaney, the Charlie O. Finley of fast food, opened America’s very first drive-thru hamburger joint on old Route 66. It was also America’s first green restaurant, with a blue ceiling and a green floor, to imitate an outdoor picnic. Red looked a lot like Buddy Holly if Buddy had lived to be 70. And like Buddy, Red was an innovator. Long before fast food supersizers, the Redburger came in junior, giant, senior, jumbo and sooper.
He erected a wooden sign that was giant for its time, but not giant by today’s glorified interstate skypoking standards. It was in the shape of a two-word crossword puzzle. The two words: Giant (across) and Hamburg (down). The words intersected at the letter a. Because Red miscalculated the size of his sign, he had to leave the Hamburger’s last two letters off. Hence, the name Red’s Giant Hamburg.
The city razed the place after Red died in 1997, but the joint lives on in a local rockabilly song called “Reds” by the Morells “where the only thing French on the menu is fried.” Reds fell where it stood and left only a little grease spot behind.
Not to worry: Along old Route 66 I found a Steak ‘n’ Shake, but not just any old Steak ‘n’ Shake. This one is from 1962, said to be one of two surviving Steak ‘n’ Shakes with the ‘50s/’60s era design, so unique it’s on the National Register of Historic Places.