Devils Elbow Bridge (Route 66)

Devils Elbow is named for the river, not the road. Lumbermen up the Big Piney cut shortleaf pine and hacked railroad ties from the hardwoods, and rafters floated them down to the railroad yard at Arlington on the Gasconade. At this tight bend the rafts sometimes broke apart and ties were lost, and the rafters called it the Devil's Elbow. St. Louis sportsmen came for the fishing and hunting from the late 1800s, by train to Dixon and wagon from there.

The steel truss went up in 1923, when State Highway 14 between St. Louis and Springfield was improved, and in 1926 Highway 14 became US 66. Walter Graham opened a post office in his resort store in 1927, Nelle Munger and Howard Moss built a sandwich shop at the north end of the bridge, and Dwight Rench put up the native rock Devil's Elbow Cafe at the south end. In the 1930s the State Planning Commission listed the bluffs among the seven beauty spots of Missouri. Fort Leonard Wood brought a wartime boom, and then, late in 1945, a divided four-lane bypassed the village to the north through the Hooker Cut.

The 588-foot bridge is one of two on Route 66 with a dogleg curve, and the only one still open to traffic. Pulaski County inherited it, rehabilitated it for about $1.3 million and reopened it on May 22, 2014. In 2017 the bridge, the old roadbed and five other structures were listed as the Devil's Elbow Historic District.