Gascozark Cafe & DX Station Ruins

10575 Highway AB (Route 66), Gascozark, MO
Phone:

East < GO > West

The old Gascozark Cafe & Sunray D-X Station are across the road from the the Gascozark Trading Post. About 1930 Frank Jones bought a small building here and added the cafe section a year or so later, he also owned a ranch and resort in the area. Jones coined the name Gascozark by combining the names Gasconade and Ozarks.

The cafe is located on Hwy. AB, south & east of I-44, exit 145 on the north side of Route 66.

GPS: 37.767424, -92.404197

The original buildings here buildings were reportedly simple stucco style exteriors. In 1935 or 39, reported dates vary, he hired a "Rock Man" to install the rock veneer to both ends and the front of the combined buildings. A section on the west end of the building is still standing but not by much. As far as that goes about all that's left behind the rock front is a collapsed roof and few walls. The rock parapet smoothed out the mismatched roof lines of the various additions making it look more or less like a single building instead of what looks like three judging by the number of doors.

The D-X filling station pumps were located on a pump island several feet if front of the door & windows on the east (right in this photo) end of the building. An old postcards shows the pumps the gravity fill variety.

The business was later operated by Rudy & Clara Schuermann. The building served as a Greyhound Bus stop in the 1940s. Sometime in the 1950s it became the Spinning Wheel Tavern.

The outside grounds were cleaned up in 2016 by the Cave State Cruisers Car Club. I think they are the folks who boarded up the doors and windows with painted window/door like panels.

The sign on the front of the building says that the business was established in 1932. I'm fascinated by the stonework details on the building. The windows and doors have been boarded up and the boards painted to resemble the originals.

Replica DX gas pump globes can be seen on the top of each front corner of the building.

Here's an example of the details in the stonework.

Here's another example.

Photo(s): 2017