Ghost Towns of Route 66 (6 page)

The remnants from Halltown's glory days, such as this stone duplex, stand in silent testimony to more prosperous times.

The stunning time capsule that is the refurbished Gay Parita Garage and Sinclair station dominates Paris Springs Junction. Many modern maps inadvertently list this as Paris Springs even though the site of the town founded in 1870 that lent its name to the junction is actually a half mile north of this intersection.

Name changes and confusion over them are merely part of the colorful history of the site. The first settlement, called Chalybeate
Springs, became Johnson Mills after O. P. Johnson of Cherry & Johnson established a mill to grind flour and cornmeal, as well as a chair factory, a sawmill, and a wool mill on Clover Creek.

The Whitehall Mercantile, now an antiques shop, has cast a shadow across the road for more than a century.

By 1872, when Eli Paris opened a spa and hotel to capitalize on the purported healing powers of the mineral-rich springs, the town also sported a wagon manufacturing enterprise and a profitable blacksmith shop. The spa led to the next and final name change.

When the newly built Route 66 bypassed the fading little community by half a mile, a number of entrepreneurial-minded citizens opened businesses at the junction—and Paris Springs Junction was born. This proved to be the death knell for Paris Springs, and today, very little remains to mark the site.

One of the first buildings raised at the intersection was a cobblestone-faced garage, followed four years later by a Sinclair station. Business was brisk at the Gay Parita Garage, and in the years that followed, owners Gay and Fred Mason added a small café and several cabins. But all good things must end, and for the Masons and Paris Springs Junction, the beginning of the end came in 1953 with the death of Gay and, two years later, the destruction of the Sinclair station by fire.

The decommissioning of Route 66 and the bypass by Interstate 44 completed the first chapter of the building's history. Unlike many properties along the old double six, however, the Gay Parita Garage and even the old Sinclair station received a new lease on life with the acquisition of the property by Gary and Lena Turner.

Under the Turners' careful stewardship, the store and café are now a residence, with the front façade appearing as it did during the 1930s. The garage and resurrected Sinclair station are carefully replicated time capsules providing a rare opportunity to step back into the world of Route 66 motoring, circa 1930.

The last vestiges of empty little Spencer—the next town to the west that was bypassed by the realignment of 1961—are carefully preserved in a state of arrested decay by the current owners, the Ryans, who have plans of refurbishing the property. The emptiness of Spencer is both comforting and haunting, feelings enhanced by lush landscapes framed by the 1923 steel pony bridge over Turnback Creek and the 1926 truss bridge over Johnson Creek.

The ghostly buildings that cast shadows over Route 66 date to the teens and early twenties, including the former café, barber-shop, garage, and service station built by Sidney Casey in 1925 and 1926. However, the town itself predates the remaining structures by decades, with the first post office opening in 1868.

The attention to detail in the Paris Springs Junction station re-creation results in an almost flawless time capsule from when legendary 66 was the Main Street of America.