Big Chief Restaurant - Wildwood, Missouri - on Waymarking.com

"The Big Chief Restaurant is located in the historic community of Pond, Missouri, which is now part of the town of Wildwood... It was built as part of the Big Chief Highway Hotel in 1928 to serve travelers on the famed transcontinental highway, Route 66. The Big Chief Highway Hotel was a large tourist court complex which originally included 62 cabins, a gas station, the large restaurant building, and an office. Of those, only the restaurant has survived... The large Mission Revival style building housed the restaurant and tap room for the Big Chief Highway Hotel into the late 1940s, after which the restaurant closed and the cabins became long-term rental units. The period of significance for the property thus runs from 1928 to ca. 1949. Some of the cabins continued to be rented into the 1970s, while the restaurant building was used for a variety of purposes. The cabins and support buildings fell into disrepair and were demolished in the last decades of the twentieth century. The restaurant, however, survived, and in the early 1990s, was restored and returned to its original function. It operates today as the Big Chief Dakota Grill, and looks very much as it did when travelers on Route 66 were stopping off for dinner or an overnight stay in the cabins. It is a now-rare intact example of a full service restaurant built for travel trade on Route 66 in Missouri. A recent survey of historic resources on Route 66 in the state found that this is one of only three potentially eligible full service restaurants left on that roadway today.3 It is a highly significant link with the early days of commerce and travel on Missouri's first federal highways." - National Register Nomination Form

The restaurant is now called the "Big Chief Roadhouse"

Big Chief Restaurant (added 2003 - Building - #03000181) Also known as Big Chief Dakota Grill 17352 Old Manchester Rd., Wildwood Historic Significance: Event Area of Significance: Commerce Period of Significance: 1925-1949 Owner: Private Historic Function: Commerce/Trade Historic Sub-function: Restaurant Current Function: Commerce/Trade Current Sub-function: Restaurant

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