The road from St. Louis to Springfield was old before it was Route 66. It had been a Native trail, known as the Osage Indian Trail, and in the mid-nineteenth century a telegraph line was strung along it on to Fort Smith, Arkansas, which gave it the name Wire Road and, once the wire came down, Old Wire Road. In 1922 Missouri numbered it Route 14, and in 1926 it became part of US 66.
Many ways through town
Springfield never had a single Route 66. Over the years the highway ran on Chestnut Expressway, College Street, St. Louis Street, Glenstone Avenue and Kearney Street, shared several miles with US 65, and for a time was the western end of US 60. A bypass took Kearney Street around the north side and later became the main line. Missouri was the first state to put up a historic marker on the highway, at Kearney and Glenstone. Along it stood the Gillioz Theatre, open for movies and stage shows from 1926 to 1970, and the 1945 Rock Fountain Court, cabins of Ozark sandstone built before motels came under one long roof.
The Chaneys
After the war Sheldon Chaney, called Red, came home from the Army, and he and his wife Julia drove to the West Coast with his parents. Coming back to Illinois on Route 66, his father Alfred, a restaurateur, liked Springfield enough to sell his business and buy three lots on the highway in the 2800 block of West Chestnut, with a Sinclair station, a lunch counter and a tourist court. Alfred ran the court and Red the restaurant, which opened in the spring of 1947. Red's cross-shaped Giant Hamburger sign would have hit the power lines, so he cut off the last two letters. When customers kept backing into the sign, he parked a 1955 Buick in front of it for good.
In 1948, to keep up with the crowds, Red put in a drive-up window with speakers, so a customer could order, park and pick up the food. The State Historical Society's encyclopedia says it may have been the first in the fast-food business. When a line formed he ran into the street to take orders. Julia ran the grill. They ground their own Grade A beef, brewed root beer, cut fries by hand, and cooked five sizes of Redburgs on a nickel-plated grill because Red believed it got the heat to the meat fast. He danced to rockabilly behind the counter, drummed on it with knives, and vaulted it to deliver a burger.
Last orders
The Chaneys closed on December 14, 1984, after selling their last 721 hamburgers. The building decayed and the city ordered it torn down. It was razed in May 1997, and Red Chaney died two weeks later, on June 2. In 2019 a Springfield restaurateur who had bought the name opened a new Red's Giant Hamburg on West Sunshine Street, with portraits of Red and Julia over the counter. The story of the number itself, and the April 1926 telegram that settled it, is told downtown at the History Museum on the Square.