The city council of Carthage, Missouri, officially designated the Boots Court Visitors Center at the Boots Court motel as the city’s visitors center.
The city will contribute $3,000 monthly to the visitors center’s operation, reported the Joplin Globe (subscription required).
The council voted unanimously to give final approval to the ordinance after hearing from Boots Court Foundation President Lynn Andrews about the hours of operation in the foundation’s contract with the city.
“We’ve actually been doing this work for a while now,” Andrews said. “We just need some help with the 10-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week kind of thing.” […]
After some discussion, the council agreed and voted to approve the contract, which states the Boots Court Visitors Center will be “designated as the official Visitors Center for the City of Carthage and will be open seven days per week. Operating hours will be set by the Boots Court Foundation and may be adjusted seasonally.”
The agreement runs through June 30, 2028, and the amount the city pays Boots Court will increase 3% a year to $37,080 in fiscal year 2026-2027 and to $38,192 in fiscal year 2027-2028.
The foundation converted a former Sinclair gas station next to the motel into the visitors center a few yeras ago.
Andrews told the city council that the motel has greeted visitors from more than 40 countries in the first five months of 2025.
“It’s kind of a humbling realization that this is way bigger than us, and we’re just trying to be the caretakers of this spot and try to do what we can to promote that,” he said.
The motel, known as the Boots Motel before reverting to its original name, changed owners in 2021. Two couples from the Carthage area bought the property as part of the Boots Court Foundation.
The motel came close to being demolished in the early 2000s when its owner, citing poor health, sold it to a local developer. Speculation ran rampant that the motel would be razed for a Walgreens.
Outcry from the Route 66 Association of Missouri, Friends of the Mother Road and other preservationists apparently scared off the developers.
The Boots Court was built in 1939 by Arthur Boots. One of its rooms was where movie star Clark Gable overnighted during cross-country trips from his native Ohio.
(Image of the Boots Court Visitors Center in Carthage, Missouri, via Facebook)
That is way cool!