Skip to main content

Tower Station and U-Drop Inn - Shamrock, Texas

Image
By
 

Take a drive down old US Route 66 and you will find an abundance of roadside architecture, stemming from its days as a major highway between Chicago and Santa Monica, California. It was during Route 66's heyday that art deco architecture was quite popular. Enter the small town of Shamrock, Texas, which you will find is the home to the Tower Station and U-Drop Inn, located at the northeast corner of Business Loop I-40 (historic US 66) and US 83.

Just 15 miles west of the Texas-Oklahoma border, the Tower Station was designed by architect J.C Berry and built in 1936 by J.M. Tindall at the cost of $23,000. A beacon for the weary traveler, the Tower Station was the first commercial business located on the historic US Route 66 within Shamrock, and is one of the most imposing and architecturally creative buildings along the length of the road.

The unique design of this building came to be when the design was drawn with a nail in the ground. The building was actually designed and constructed to be three separate structures. The first and most notable structure is the Tower Conoco Station, with its four-sided obelisk rising from the flat roof and topped with a distinctive finial. The second structure is the U-Drop Inn café, which got its name from a local school boy's winning entry in a naming contest. The third structure was intended to be a retail store, but instead became an overflow seating area for the café. Once the Mother Road had been bypassed by Interstate 40, the building served as a bus station for a time, then sat abandoned until it was restored through grants and fundraising. Now, the building serves as a visitor center for Shamrock.

Up until around the late 1970s, the Tower Station and U-Drop Inn were sided with light brick and green tiles. Now renovated with light pink concrete highlighted by green paint, it still looks similar to what it looked like during historic US Route 66's heyday. The towering spire above the service station spells out Conoco, an ode to the history of this building.

Fans of the movie Cars may find the Tower Station to look a bit familiar. That is because the sights and scenes of the fictional town of Radiator Springs in the movie are based on various landmarks of the historic US Route 66. In particular, Ramone's body art shop is exactly inspired by the Tower Station and the U-Drop Inn in Shamrock.


Tower Station with gas pumps.

A touch of Texas.

A wide view of the Tower Station and U-Drop Inn.

The Conoco Tower.

Vintage Conoco gas pumps.

Those vintage Conoco gas pumps.

Get your kicks.

A Texas historical marker explaining the history of the Tower Station.

Restored service bay.

Peering through the window of the U-Drop Inn café. This was closed during my visit.


Site Navigation:

Sources and Links:
How To Get There:


Labels:
Location: 1242 N Main St, Shamrock, TX 79079, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New River Gorge National Park & Preserve - Thurmond

By
New River Gorge National Park and Preserve is best known for whitewater rafting and other forms of adventure tourism.  Yet, found in the hollows and isolated valleys are quiet farms and former coal mining towns.  Well off the beaten path and isolated from much of its surroundings, Thurmond provides a unique view into Central West Virginia's industrial past. Thurmond began as a railroad town in the late 1800s.  Sparked by the arrival of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad and the local coal industry, Thurmond quickly grew into a sizeable transportation and coal center.  When it incorporated as a town in 1903, Thurmond was a full-fledged community - home to two banks, two hotels, and many other services and stores. A CSX freight train passes the old coaling tower in Thurmond.  It was here that many steam locomotives would refill and refuel. Thurmond was home to a C&O railyard which serviced the numerous steam engines passing through the narrow valley.  Thu...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Tale of Tollhouse Road, western California State Route 168 and failed Piute Pass Highway

By
Western California State Route 168 is entirely located in Fresno County and is linked historically to the Tollhouse Road corridor.   Tollhouse Road is one of the oldest highways in the Sierra Nevada range of Fresno County. The corridor presently begins in at Clovis Avenue in downtown Clovis and extends northeast to Huntington Lake. In 1866 the Woods Brothers established mining claims on Pine Ridge. In 1867 Fresno County would grant the brothers a toll franchise to construct a roadway to the desirable logging areas atop Pine Ridge and near Dinkey Creek. The Woods would establish a tollhouse at the start of their franchise road and lumber mill. The lumber mill attracted settlers which led to the establishment of the mountain town of Tollhouse. Fresno County would purchase the Tollhouse Road in 1878 and make it a public highway. The county would remove the tolls and incorporate the corridor into the existing county road network. Prior to the establishment of Clovis in 1...
Post a Comment
Read more

Old Dunlap Road (former California State Route 180 in Yokuts Valley)

By
When California State Route 180 was commissioned in August 1934 the alignment in took in Sierra Nevada range was very different than from today.  The original highway alignment from Squaw Valley (now Yokuts Valley) to east Grant Grove (then part of General Grant National Park) originally followed what is now Ruth Hill Road, Dunlap Road, Pinehurst Road (modern California State Route 245), Dark Canyon Road (partially now Forest Road 14S45).  After funding fell through for the planned Kings Canyon Road the was corridor eventually picked up as a 30-mile-long cooperative project between the Division of Highways and Federal Government.  Much of current alignment of California State Route 180 bypassing Squaw Valley (now Yokuts Valley) and Dunlap was complete by 1941.  The post-1941 alignment of California State Route 180 in Squaw Valley was shifted onto what was once Dunlap Road in Squaw Valley.  This alignment itself was later bypassed by modern California State Route...
Post a Comment
Read more