Route 66 - Joplin, Missouri

Proving that talent runs deep in the family, Thomas Hart Benton’s grandson Anthony Benton Gude created a mural to reflect booming era in Joplin’s history, the heyday of Joplin's Route 66.

Gude’s mural highlights the mid-20th-century popularity of Mother Road and its impact on the vitality of Joplin’s Main Street, and was completed and dedicated in April 2010.

See if you can guess the local celebrities featured in the mural! For example, the lady in the grey coat with white hair is Joplin's first female mayor, Lean Beale, and the main in the red shirt at the soda fountain is Gude's grandfather: Thomas Hart Benton.

Free and open to the public Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and by appointment on the weekends.