The PBS-TV show “American Lens,” hosted by noted photographer Carol Highsmith, recently examined Roamin’ Rich Dinkela and the Shamrock Court motel in Sullivan, Missouri, which he spent years restoring.
Dinkela also acquired another Route 66 landmark: the Wagon Wheel Motel in Cuba, Missouri.
A description of the 10-minute segment:
Route 66 represents the best of Americana to Roamin’ Rich Dinkela and he’s spent the last twenty years on the Route documenting its landmarks, past and present. But in all those years, he had never heard of the Shamrock Court just outside Sullivan, Missouri. Built in the 1940s, the Shamrock had been long-abandoned and was hidden under a thicket of high weeds when Rich stumbled upon it in 2021.
Here it is:
Highsmith, now 80, has been documenting America for more than 40 years with her camera and has donated about 100,000 of her images to the Library of Congress.
(Screen-capture image from “American Lens” of Rich Dinkela and Carol Highsmith at the Shamrock Court motel)