Rescue

All you need to know about Rescue

Facts, info and Trivia

Elevation: 1,214 (370 m). Population n⁄a (2010).
Time zone: Central (CST): UTC minus 6 hours. Summer (DST) CDT (UTC-5).

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

History of Rescue

Learn more about the history of Rescue in our Carthage Missouri page.

The county created in 1845 was named after James Lawrence a seaman from the English-American War of 1812.

The post office took the name of "Rescue" when it opened in 1897. It closed in 1904. In the 1920s there was a gas station and a lodge run by the Rogers. It was located on the Ozark Trail which in 1926 became Route 66.

Shortly after, Shadyside Camp (also written Shadyside) opened to the west of town. Travellers along Route 66 kept business alive during the hard days of the Great Depression in the 1930s and thrived on Post World War II travel. But in the late 1950s, I-44 bypassed the area siphoning traffic away from U.S. 66.

Where to Lodge in Rescue, Missouri

Lodging close to Rescue: in neighboring Carthage...

More Lodging near Rescue along Route 66

Motels and Hotels close to Rescue

Weather in Rescue

Weather widget for Avilla, the town nearest Plew, to the west

Tornado risk

Rescue is located in the infamous "Tornado Alley", and Lawrence County has around 8 tornado strikes per year.

Tornado Risk: read more about Tornado Risk along Route66.
 

Route 66 Sights in Rescue

Landmarks and Places to See

Small community on U.S. 66

• In Rescue
• Tours & Itineraries

Rescue and its Route 66 attractions

Rescue on Route 66 in Missouri consists of a few scattered houses and buildings. See its Brown's Garage, Reed’s Cabins, and the former Shady Side Camp cabins, café and gas station.

Historic context, the classic Route 66 in Rescue

Jack DeVere Rittenhouse mentions Rescue in his 1946 book "A Guide Book to Highway 66" giving us an idea of what Route 66 was like in those days: "Rescue. (Brown's garage, Reed’s Cabins) A small village with a few homes and a couple of groceries." He added that one mile west was a gas station and Shadyside Camp, followed two miles west (in what is now Plew) by more gas stations.

Tour the route 66 landmarks in Rescue

County Road 1214 and MO-96 -Old Route 66 mark the point where Rescue is located. Reed's Cabins are still there and so is Brown's garage still stands:

View of Reed’s Cabins Rescue MO, Click on image for Street View

Reed’s Cabins

On the North Side of MO-96 just east of County Lane 1040 (Map with location).

There are two stone wall, wood frame gabled cabins (a third was razed in the '80s) are now private propery. To the west is the former cafe, now a stone-faced residence. The cabins were built ca.1926 and owned together with the cafe by Roy Rogers and his wife.

Brown's Garage

Route 66 and Co. Rd. 1214

Just to the west of Reed's. This white building on the north side of Route 66 is the garage mentioned by Rittenhouse. See photo above.

It has two bays in the repair shop area. Perhaps it was the service station ran by the Rogers.

Head west towards Avilla and Carthage and just one mile from Rescue, to your right (north) is the Shady Side Camp cabins and former service station:

Shadyside Camp

3268 Missouri 96, La Russell: Route 66 1 mi. west of Rescue

The postcard below names it "Clay’s Shady Side Camp" but Rittenhouse in his 1946 book calls it "Shadyside Camp" (in one word).

L. F. Arthur buitl Shadyside Camp in 1927, he used local rocks and erected four cabins, which survive until this day.

The gas station with a café which faced the road is still standing, but as you can see by comparing the postcard below with its present appearance, the gabled canopy that stood over the gas pumps, has now gone.

The buildings were arranged around a central court area. Map with location.

In 1946, Rittenhouse described it as "Gas station; also Shadyside Camp."

Tours & Itineraries

Old Route 66 in Rescue, Missouri

From Halltown to Rescue

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 Rescue.

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

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

The Ramsay Place Names File

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