Heatonville

About Heatonville Missouri

Facts, Trivia and useful information

Elevation: 1,300 ft (396 m). Population n⁄a (2010).
Time zone: Central (CST): UTC minus 6 hours. Summer (DST) CDT (UTC-5).

Heatonville is a small village on Old Route 66 in Lawrence County, in southwestern Missouri. (Map of Heatonville).

History of Heatonville

Learn more about the history of Heatonville in our Carthage Missouri page (or our Halltown MO page).

Lawrence county (named after James Lawrence, naval officer of 1812 War), was created in 1845. The community is located in central Lawrence.

Daniel Heaton settled here and platted a town on his property in 1868, which was named Heaton. The post office adopted the name in 1872, and in 1881 changed it to Heatonville.

It was located on the Ozark Prairie between Phelps and Paris Spring. A railway spur was built to the town to ship out the apples from Williamson's apple orchard.

The Ozark Trail highway was built through it in 1913 -along the "Carthage Street", and in 1926 Route 66 was aligned along it. This brought an inflow of traffic along the new U.S. highway which lasted until the late 1950s, when I-44 was built, bypassing the village and Route 66 (it ran along former US-166, south of Heatonville from Springfield to Joplin).

Where to Lodge in Heatonville, Missouri

Lodging close to Heatonville: in neighboring Carthage...

More Lodging near Heatonville along Route 66

Motels and Hotels close to Heatonville

Weather in Heatonville

Weather widget for Halltown, the town nearest Heatonville, to the east

Tornado risk

Heatonville is inside Missouri's "Tornado Alley", and Lawrence County has some 6 tornado strikes per year.

Tornado Risk: read more about Tornado Risk along Route66.
 

Getting to Heatonville

You can reach Heatonville along historic Route 66 and Interstate I-44 that links it with Tulsa and Oklahoma City in the west and with Springfield and St. Louis in the east. U.S. Route 71 (overlapping I-49) links it with Fort Smith, Arkansas and Kansas City.

Route 66 Sights in Heatonville

Landmarks and Places to See

Once famous for its Apples

• In Heatonville
• Tours & Itineraries

Heatonville and its Route 66 attractions

Heatonville, once well known for its apples has two Route 66 garages D. L. Morris garage and Jim Collins Garage and Law’s Auto Salvage plus the old Castle Rock Cabins motel.

Historic context, the classic Route 66 in Heatonville

In his 1946 book "A Guide Book to Highway 66" Jack DeVere Rittenhouse gives us a good picture of Route 66 was like during the post WWII days

Rittenhouse mentions the town as follows: "Heatonville. Garages, groceries, gas stations, general store and Castle Rock Cabins...".

Tour the route 66 landmarks in Heatonville

Start your tour in the "central" part of the community to see one of the surviving Route 66 classics:D. L. Morris garage:

D. L. Morris garage

South Side of MO-96 at Co Rd 1142, Heatonville

This Garage and Service Station was built in 1936 in local sandstone rubble-typical of the Ozarks. It has a stepped parapet wall.

It was the site of the old post office. The garage closed in the 1970s.

See its Photo at the top of this page.

Head east along Route 66 for 0.4 mi. and to your right you will see the Castle Rock Courts:

Castle Rock Courts

Route 66 (MO-96) (Map showing location).

Formerly a motel and a filling station, including a restaurant. It was built in 1931. Rittenhouse mentioned it in 1946. It was a one story building which is now a private residence. Its walls, originally stone vaced are now covered with vinyl siding and brick. The restaurant, which was separate is now joined to the house.

The motel had three rooms (the building that is behind the ones facing the road) and was ran by D.T. Smith. He sold it in 1936 to J. Bynum.

Continue eastbound for 1.7 mi., and to your left in the trees is the Jim Collins Garage:

Jim Collins Garage and Law’s Auto Salvage

Route 66 (MO-96) and M County. Lane (Map showing location).

Jim Collins owned it and ran it for many years. It was built around 1935 halfway between Heatonville and Spencer. The stone slab faced building is abandoned and deteriorated.

And this ends the sightseeing tour of Heatonville's Route 66 attractions.

Tours & Itineraries

Old Route 66 in Heatonville, Missouri

From Halltown to Heatonville

In the early 1900s automobiles became more popular and the trails and dirt tracks were in very poor shape so W. H. "Coin" Harvey (1851-1936) created the Ozark Trails Association in 1913. The Ozark Trail eventually crossed Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and reached the Santa Fe Trail in New Mexico.

Route 66 was created in 1926 and aligned along the Ozark Trail from St. Louis MO to Romeroville NM, passing through Heatonville.

Route 66 follows a straight course from Halltown to Avilla, and it has followed it since Route 66 was created back in 1926, which is shown in Pale Blue in the Map above. There is a small segment of th original 1926 road in Paris Springs, shown in Black in thje map above.

The 1926 map of the Missouri State Highway Commission shows what then was Route 60 (yes, 60 and not 66 because they had taken the original planned numbering and not the one that was later agreed upon and which prevailed: U.S. 66). The paved surface ended at Springfield and the road from there to Avilla it was already being paved with concrete, after Avilla it was again paved all the way to Kansas. By 1929 it was completely paved. The Missouri DOT roadmap of 1945-46 only shows the towns of Avilla, Phelps and Halltown between Springfield and Carthage.

Route 66 and Interstate I-44

Route 66 and Interstate 44 lived along together for many years (like many U.S. Higwhays do today), From Springfield west, to Halltown, they overlapped and at this point US 66 went northwards to Spencer and west to Carthage along its original alignment (now MO-96) while I-44 turned southwest and then west to Oklahoma. They coexisted until the federal government officially decommissioned Route 66 in 1985.

Sources

The Ramsay Place Names File

Maura Johnson and John F. Bradbury, Route 66 Association of Missouri. 1993, Architectural ⁄ Historical Inventory Survey. Route 66 in Missouri

Jack DeVere Rittenhouse, (1946). A Guide Book to Highway 66.

Banner image: Dead Man's Curve, Laguna New Mexico by Perla Eichenblat.