The town of Spencer Missouri on Route 66.. There is an attached cafe just beyond the store and barber shop you see in this shot. This is the sum and total of the town of Spencer as it once was.
From the internet:
"Spencer is a very small community, on the original 1926 roadbed of U.S. 66, its best known attraction is the complex comprising the 1930s Spencer Store, Spencer Cafe & Barbershop and Spencer Garage and Service Station (Phillips 66 gas). It also has the remains of Camp Lookout, a 1930s motor court.
An 1870s map of Lawrence County shows Spencer located to the south east of "Heaton" (now Heatonville) south of the western Turnback Creek, that was a different location to that of current Spencer.
What is now Spencer appears in that map at a place named "Mills" on the stream, further north. o the east at the junction of all three forks (West, Middle and East) of the Turnback Creek (now Johnson, Goose and Turnback respectively) was "Chalybeate Springs" and next to it, "Paris Spring".
The first flour mill in the area was operated by Oliver Johnson and John Cherry, the "Johnson-Cherry Mill". After they closed it, Johnson moved one mile downstream and set up his own mill on the creek (now named after him): Johnson's Mill. Others soon moved in as it was on the Carthage - Springfield road, and the post office opened in 1868 under the name of "Spencer", it closed in 1907.
By the 1910s, the road was in bad shape and the population dwindled. But the Ozark Trails first, and Route 66 -created in 1926- brought life back to the settlement. Soon the locals catered to travellers. This lasted until 1961 when the old US 66 was realigned through Spencer bypassing it. Then, the whole of Route 66 was bypassed by I-44, which had opened in 1958 between Joplin and Oklahoma City, and then went east along what used to be US-166, south of Spencer towards Springfield."
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