Kansas
Modern style building, constructed from concrete block and decorative concrete screen block.
Quad-foil picnic shelter designed in 1960 by a Wichita structural engineer.
Rustic regional design, illustrated by the toilet building in the Goodland SRA on I-70.
Regional stone building illustrated by the toilet building in the Junction City SRA on I-70.
"Guard of the Plains" sculpture located in the Paxico Hill SRA on I-70. The sculpture, a 24 foot welded Cor-ten
steel construction, was installed in the SRA in late 1970. The piece was designed, and subsequently donated to the Kansas State Highway Commission, by James Johnson, as part of his thesis for a Master in Fine Art degree at Kansas University. Mr. Johnson designed 10 sculptures specifically for safety rest areas on I-70, only the "Guard of the Plains" was erected.
Missouri
Modern style building, constructed from concrete block, located in the Minneola SRA on I-70, the site opened in 1965, as the state's first.
Concrete screen block detail of the Minneola toilet building. It is Missouri's only existent original toilet building, it is currently used as a maintenance facility.
Quad-foil picnic shelter, used as Missouri's first generation shelter design.
Quad-foil shelter located in the St. Clair SRA on I-44. Originally opened in 1967, it is Missouri's only site situated in a median. The site was redeveloped in 1983 and 2006, its original toilet building was one of two remiaining, it was removed in late 2008.
Rustic regional design established in the early 1980s to replace the first generation modern toilet buildings.
Picnic shelter designed to accompany rustic regional building designs. Many orignal picnic shelters were retained when the sites were redeveloped, the original quad-foil shelter can be seen the the background.
Kansas & Missouri: The Heart of the American Travel Experience
The progress of the roadside development programs in Kansas and Missouri closely mirror one another and reflect the progressive nature of national scale roadside development during the early and mid-twentieth century. Both states used Works Progress Administration programs to establish and build roadside parks along their respective primary highway systems during the 1930s; hailed as widely successful roadside parks set precedent for the eventual development of safety rest areas along Interstate Highways. The safety rest areas developed within these states share striking similarities. In fact it seems probable that Missouri modeled the design of its first generation facilities on those constructed in Kansas. The apparent regional confluence between the Kansas and Missouri designs model regional considerations apparent throughout the nation.
Kansas
Kansas officials designed their Interstate safety rest area program in 1958. Their plan, based on the AASHO policy guidelines, called for 20 pairs of SRAs or safety turn-outs on a projected 800 miles of Interstate highway. The sites would be larger than their roadside park predecessors at three to six acres and would be located at 25- to 35-mile intervals. In the same year contracts were let for the construction of Kansas’ first three SRA sites. As in most states, construction of the sites was coordinated with the building and surfacing of the roadways they served, allowing highway and rest area to open to traffic simultaneously. By 1964 Kansas was operating six pairs of safety rest areas with three other pairs under construction and nearing completion. These sites included picnic tables, shelter houses and sunshades, barbeque grills, toilet facilities with running water where possible, and plantings to blend with the natural terrain. Given available documentation it seems that the earliest of these facilities employed pit type toilets, with flush type not being used until the early 1970s.
The SRA sites constructed in Kansas during the 1960s and 70s were designed in modern and regionalist manners, reflecting typical Midwestern design trends. The most distinctive modern picnic shelter design is a quad-foil concrete structure, featuring a broad concrete umbrella form perched on a central support. It was designed in 1960 by a Wichita structural engineer and was also used throughout the state park system. Kansas’ modern toilet building was a low rising, horizontally oriented brick structure adorned with decorative concrete screen block. Kansas’ early regional designs, as seen in shelters, reflected a traditionalist aesthetic, heavy timber structures with rough sawn shingle roofs. Regional toilet building designs emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the early 1970s. The facilities on I-70 at the Goodland site were completed in 1970. This was the final pair of SRAs to be constructed on I-70 in Kansas under the state’s original plan and was the first of a new series of architectural designs to reflect a regional sensibility. The new regional design schemes also incorporated the older traditional shelters. In 1972 the newest of these facilities was said to reflect a “modified contemporary ranch farm house.” Among the designs planned was one that would reflect the character of the historic army barracks at Fort Larned.
Missouri
Missouri opened its first safety rest area pair in 1965 in Montgomery County near Minneola. In June of that year Maurice Dallenmeyer, a designer with the Missouri State Highway Department, described the department’s goals in developing its SRA program, rest areas will be “planned to meet motorists’ needs arising from driving on the modern superhighways, the rest areas will match the highways with the latest in design and facilities.” He went on to articulate the departments desire to create sites that were, “a combination of functional beauty, a minimum of maintenance and (of) vandal proof design.” Dallenmeyer’s aesthetic reference in likening the sites themselves to the highways they were to serve, echoes a sentiment that was expressed nationally in regards to SRA design during the late 1950s and 60s. SRA developers, through the implementation of facilities designed in a modern mode with modern amenities, were in essence attempting to create in human experience what the Interstate was creating in engineering marvel.
The state’s first site which opened at Minneola in 1965 exemplified the Missouri’s prototype design scheme for buildings and structures that was subsequently used for all of its first generation sites. The site featured a modest horizontally oriented concrete block building with a flat roof plane; its entrance screens were constructed from decorative concrete block, and served as the buildings only decorative element. The comfort building was flanked on either side by a grand quad-foil shelter, which replicated the design developed in Kansas in 1960. As well, the toilet building design reflects similar aesthetic elements to Kansas’ early modern designs. Missouri constructed nine SRA pairs between 1965 and 1969, spaced approximately 50 miles apart, each one featuring restrooms, picnic tables and shelters, water fountain, parking area and information boards. In the early 1980s Missouri expanded its SRA system and began replacing its original buildings with those of a new regionally themed design. The new design scheme featured buildings with rustic, western elements and modest shelters that housed only one picnic shelter each, as opposed to the original structures which sheltered four tables each. At present the state’s first SRA to open at Minneola is now its only site to retain its original toilet building. It has been converted to a storage facility, and stands on its original footing adjacent to a redeveloped site. Recently, Missouri has begun redeveloping its 1980s sites.
Two States, a Common Theme
Little documentation exists to clarify how the Kansas design crossed into Missouri. It is likely that mere proximity played a role. As Missouri State Highway Department designer, Maurice Dallenmeyer, described in 1965, “We started (our design process) by gathering information and designs from other highway departments which were developing such areas. Then we started checking their plans against what we were aiming for.” The confluence of the design between the two states illustrates a broader trend in mid-century SRA development. Regional similarities developed in many areas of the country as state highway departments used their states prominent attributes to model SRA design, such as native in the southwest, and rustic in the northwest. Modern design elements were common in SRA design in many Midwestern states, creating a kind of regional identity and cohesive travel experience.
Further Reading:
Ohio Short Courses on Roadside Development; 1964, 1965, 1967, 1970; "Safety Rest Areas: The Progress of Rest,"
Kansas Preservation, Fall 2008
"A Place to Rest," Missouri Highway News, June 1965; "Missouri Interstate Rest Area Study," Missouri State Highway Department, 1967
