University developing mobile archive of Missouri’s Route 66 motels

Rest Haven Court sign

Missouri State University is developing Project MO Tell, a mobile archive that shows and explores all the Route 66 motels in the Show Me State.

The university is one of the repositories for Route 66’s archives. Two university researchers, Thomas Peters and David Richards, recently received a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for the project.

Public radio station KSMU had some details:

These funds will be used to develop Project MO Tell, a mobile, crowd-sourced archive containing both current and historic images, recordings and interpretive information about Missouri’s Historic Route 66 Motels, stretching from St. Louis to Joplin.

In Missouri, Peters and Richards estimate that approximately 100 motel properties exist along Route 66, and Peters and Richards say that you should slow down and take it in as you drive past – or better yet, stop in. […]

Using mobile-friendly services such as Guide by Cell, Historypin, TagWhat and a dedicated YouTube channel, Project MO Tell will make it easy to create and share timely information gathered by everyone who travels, lives, works and stays along this historic corridor.

The station reports the Route 66 Association of Missouri and the Missouri State Historic Preservation Office are working with the university on the app.

(Image of the Rest Haven Court sign in Springfield, Missouri, by Pete Zarria via Flickr)

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.