Connie Echols, the recent former owner of the Wagon Wheel Motel in Cuba, Missouri, died Saturday, just weeks after she sold the Route 66 landmark.
The motel’s new owner, Rich Dinkela, announced her death on Sunday.
If you’ve ever traveled Route 66, you know the Wagon Wheel isn’t just a place to stay—it’s a place you feel. That didn’t happen by accident. Connie poured her heart into that property for years, preserving not just the buildings, but the spirit of what Route 66 is supposed to be. She kept the doors open, the lights on, and the welcome warm for travelers from all over the world.
At a time when so many historic places have faded away, Connie stood her ground. Because of her, the Wagon Wheel remained a cornerstone of Cuba and a must-stop along the Mother Road. She wasn’t just running a motel—she was protecting a piece of American history.
I had the privilege of getting to know Connie, and like many of you, I saw firsthand how much she cared — about the property, about the guests, and about this road we all love.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family, her friends, and everyone in the Route 66 community who knew her. This is a loss that will be felt from Chicago to Santa Monica.
The Chicago Tribune just a few days ago featured Echols in a story about people who are preserving Route 66 motels.
The newspaper told how she acquired the property:
Connie Echols freely admits she was being nosy that fall day in 2009 when she walked from her flower shop down Route 66 to the Wagon Wheel Motel. Its longtime owners had passed away, and Echols asked their son what the family planned to do with the historic property that, since its opening in the late 1930s, is considered the oldest continuously operating motel on Route 66.
To her surprise, she said, he told her to make him an offer on it.
An Iowa native, Echols spent roughly a half-century in this small Missouri town about 85 miles southwest of St. Louis. She worked in a shoe factory, built and remodeled houses, and opened a flower shop in town. But she had grown tired of that business, and so, she offered to pay him the value of the land, thinking he wouldn’t accept it.
“And he did,” she remembered. “Overnight, I owned the place.”
Years of hard work followed. The previous owners had been renting each of the 19 rooms for as low as $11 a night. At that rate, it predictably attracted a downtrodden mix of customers. Emergency vehicles were a fixture on the property.
Echols raised the rate and invited local police to visit regularly, hoping the combination would drive away the unwanted clientele. Then she got to work on building renovations, preserving what she could — hardwood floors and doors, Ozark stone facades — and replacing what she couldn’t save. The windows, she remembered, were a big job: 78 glass panes, all needing to be replaced.
I shot this video of the Wagon Wheel Motel on Christmas Eve in 2010, not long after Echols renovated and reopened it:
Robert W. and Margaret Martin bought the land on which the motel would be built in 1934. They hired Leo Friesenhan to build the cabins from native stone, hauled in by local farmers.
Pauline and Hallie Roberts ran the motel from 1963 to 1980, when Hallie died. Pauline married Harold Armstrong, and they ran the Wagon Wheel until she died in 2003. Harold died in 2008. The Armstrongs, right up to the last day of their tenure, charged less than $20 a night for their rooms.
But it was Echols who ensured that the Wagon Wheel Motel would be enjoyed by Route 66 travelers well into the 21st century.
(Excerpted image of Connie Echols in 2020 by Mark Norman)