A diner in Carthage, Missouri
On-site
107 S Garrison Ave (MO-571)Phone: (417) 310-2989
Status: Open for business
Website: http://bootsmotel.com
Last Updated: Sept. 10, 2017
Notes:
SW corner w/ W. Central Ave. (MO-96)
Built over a period of years starting with the “Red Horse” 18’x11’ office and gas station at the front, originally with two gas pumps. Built mostly by former farm machinery Arthur Boots in the Streamline Moderne style. When the gas station proved successful, he added four motel rooms in back and gave up pumping gas to run the motor court full time, and then four more rooms. In 1944, successor owners who took over in 1944 built a third set of rooms in 1946, with carports underneath, for a total of thirteen units. Current owners, sisters Debye Harvey and Priscilla Bledsaw, are earnestly trying to restore it to its 1949 condition.
The similarly styled building diagonally across the street started in 1946 as Arthur’s “Boots Drive-In” following a 1941 divorce in which his wife kept the motor court.