East Town, Boots Motel one step closer to National Register of Historic Places

Andy Ostmeyer is the metro editor at the Globe. He is a graduate of Kansas State University who has worked at the Globe for 38 years. His email address is aostmeyer@joplinglobe.com., The Joplin Globe, Mo.
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Jul. 16—The Missouri Advisory Council on Historic Preservation on Friday approved the East Town Historic District in Joplin and the Boots Court motel in Carthage for recommendation to the National Register of Historic Places.

Those nominations now go for final approval to the National Park Service, which identifies those on the list as "places worthy of preservation" and works to protect them. Listing of a property on the national register does not impose any restrictions on what a private owner can do with their property, including destruction, unless federal money or grants are being used to fund restoration.

Betty Smith, 93, a lifelong resident of East Town, welcomed the news Friday.

"I can't hardly believe that we are getting as much attention as we are," she said. "Have you ever known East Town to be in the news as much as it is nowadays? No ... we were never recognized like that.

"We have been left out for so many years," she said. "We were not recognized for what we were doing as a community."

Smith added that they were "No. 1," referring to East Town's status as Joplin's oldest platted neighborhood and business district.

Several years ago, when a mural was painted in East Town that included her image, she referred to East Town as "the forgotten side of town."

According to its nomination on the national register, East Town was an "integrated neighborhood in a town that was segregated. The neighborhood is a historically significant Black neighborhood in a majority white neighborhood. ...

"It evolved into an urban Black space. Joplin's East Town became a historic Black neighborhood through policies toward Black residents and eventually community memory. East Joplin also has all the Black neighborhood label entailed: gradual disinvestment, environmental degradation and eventually urban renewal. The neighborhood had a Black segregative infrastructure in a Black school and a Black park."

Lincoln School was later demolished, and nearby Ewert Park is not part of the 11-acre historic district.

The nomination also noted that East Town "has all the hallmarks of Black agency, celebration, memory and resistance."

In 1903, a Joplin mob lynched Thomas Gilyard, a Black railroad worker accused of killing a policeman, and afterward "a mob roamed Joplin and expelled Black (people) using force," the nomination notes. Yet, just one year later, in 1904, a crowd of 5,000 people, Black and white, gathered at what was then called Midway Park, northeast of East Town, for an Emancipation Day celebration.

Boots Court

Also approved for recommendation Friday was the Boots Court motel, 107 S. Garrison Ave. in Carthage, which was an overnight stop for travelers on Route 66.

It consists of two single-story buildings, one built in 1939 and the other in 1946, according to the nomination, and represents a style of commercial architecture called Streamlined Moderne, which was popular from the 1920s to the 1940s.

The nomination cities Robert Craig, of the Society for Commercial Archeology, who states, "Streamlined Moderne was the architecture of the automobile ... (and) reflected an increasingly mobile society. Roadside buildings borrowed the language of auto design, echoing the aerodynamic shapes. Streamlined Moderne architecture's machine-inspired, character-defining features include rounded corners, parallel lines, neon decoration, clean surfaces and flat roofs with parapets.

"Boots Court," according to the nomination, is an "iconic Streamlined Moderne motor court ... (and) a unique and important landmark on Route 66 in Missouri."

Andy Ostmeyer is the metro editor at the Globe. He is a graduate of Kansas State University who has worked at the Globe for 38 years. His email address is aostmeyer@joplinglobe.com.