Editing Paper

Welcome, friends. I wish that I could re-visit our research trip. As I have began writing at length, I keep uncovering more and more information. We stopped near Jerome Missouri to locate a few sites that we had read about. We originally were searching for John’s Modern Cabins. We later decided to look for a segment of the trail of tears after speaking with some local residents. Bad weather was one it’s way and we were in one of the most dissected areas of the original road. We first stumbled across an original path of 66 at the trail of tears near Devil’s Elbow, Missouri. Upon later research, we verified the site. After passing half a dozen cabins strung through the woods, we finally found a row of small cabins that we thought might have been John’s. We decided that it was not after referencing some pictures. Upon further investigation we found a hive of stone rooms connected with flowing springs. We left a bronze site marker as well as taking some video and photographs. It was a beautiful site being taken back by nature with each season. We also found the city of Jerome, though we were trying to get across the river to Arlington. The Route 66 bridge has been dismantled and we spent another hour circling until we finally found an old road that led under the interstate to the ghost town. All that remained were four buildings. The rest of the nine-block town had been turned into R.V. sites. We then, took our original direction (that we missed two hours prior) and found the road that led to John’s. It was an interesting site. I am trying to serve it justice as I edit my paper. It is on a section of “lucky” road. I have been using that term to describe sections of the route that were bypassed in the fifties allowing them to avoid the construction of Interstates 40 and 44. This site had a house on the road and some state sheds. At the North-East end, MoDOT tests it’s lane painter as is recorded by the hundreds of yellow and white painted stripes on the road. As we found John’s Cabins lightening strobed in the west. As we began documentation of the 150 year old cabins, rain began to pour. We finished up and headed west as the wipers attempted in vain to clear the windshield. Upon later study, we realized that our original stop at the property founding the wood cabins and stone sleeping rooms was actually a private trail of tears memorial created by an outsider artist in the middle of the last century. Originally, the site was just a stone wall. The owner claimed that ghosts were knocking on his door nightly. Upon consulting a Cherokee tribesman that visited his property, he accepted advice to build stairs over the wall so that the spirits can travel the trail freely. The man claimed that the knocking stopped immediately after installing the staircase. For the next twenty years he constructed and maintained a series of fountains, gates, paths, rooms, cabins and a general store. Since his death in the mid-Eighties, the property has been returning to it’s original state.