Route 66 - Log City in Jasper County, Missouri

Log City was a filling station, tourist camp, store, and café on Route 66 in Jasper County, Missouri. Although accounts vary, local newspaper coverage indicates that in 1928 Carl Stansbury purchased five-and-a-half acres of land roughly fifteen miles east of Carthage.

The Carthage Evening Press reported that Stansbury planned to build a log cabin gas station, tourist cabins, restaurant, swimming pool, and playground on his new property.

His plan took shape, and Log City found its place among the many small-scale entrepreneurial ventures launched by Americans who were drawn to the opportunities created by increased automobile travel on new highways such as Route 66.

The same year he purchased the land, Stansbury paid locals to construct a housestore, which served as both a business and a residence, out of the trees cleared from the property.

The filling station and store opened in February 1928 as construction continued on the business’s power-generating plant and log cabins. Stansbury’s ownership of Log City did not last long.

Although he did not apparently feel threatened when a similar business called Stone City opened nearby, his daughter recalled that within a year another gas station, Forest Park Camp, opened across the road, and he believed it "would ruin his business so he decided to sell."

Baker built on a large dining room and served alcohol and chicken dinners. He also added a barber shop. Baker continued to improve the amenities at Log City, turning it into an established rest stop familiar to Route 66 motorists in the 1930s and 1940s.

It now featured fourteen cabins with electricity, heat, and in some bath and showers. Each cabin had a garage. Guests could use a lunchroom, private dining room, or banquet room. The gas station had four fuel pumps and a liquor store. There was a modern rock house for the owner.

It was common for businesses in the Ozarks to be built from on-site materials to save on costs, Stansbury and his successors shrewdly used them to create a distinctive rustic log and stone architecture that held its own in the free-for-all to capture the traveler’s attention.