St. Louis Transportation Museum Seeks Memories of S.S. Admiral and Route 66 Drive-Ins for Centennial Exhibit

On a summer night in the 1950s, the glow of neon from the 66 Park-In Theatre on Watson Road washed over windshields as families settled in to watch a double feature. A few miles away, couples in dress shoes and corsages climbed aboard the S.S. Admiral for a dance on the Mississippi River, its air-conditioned decks and Art Deco curves towering over the St. Louis riverfront.

Those scenes are long gone. The drive-in was demolished in the 1990s to make way for a shopping center. The Admiral was stripped and scrapped more than a decade ago. Now a St. Louis-area museum is asking the public to help bring them back — at least in memory — as Route 66 turns 100.

A centennial exhibition — and a call for stories

The National Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood has announced a new exhibition, “Roads, River, Rooms, and Reels,” opening March 14 to mark the centennial of historic U.S. Route 66. Alongside the show, the museum has launched an “I Remember…” initiative inviting people to submit short written memories of the S.S. Admiral, the 66 Park-In Theatre or other drive-ins, with selected stories to become part of the exhibit.

The exhibition will “explore the stories, memories, and modes of travel that shaped America’s most iconic highway and the communities connected to it,” the museum said in a recent announcement.

Residents who want to contribute have until Jan. 25 to email essays of up to 600 words to museum@tnmot.org with the subject line “I Remember.” The museum says some submissions may be quoted or displayed in the galleries when the exhibition opens.

Route 66 and the St. Louis corridor

“Roads, River, Rooms, and Reels” is the National Museum of Transportation’s centerpiece contribution to the Route 66 centennial year. Route 66, the so-called “Mother Road,” was designated on Nov. 11, 1926, as part of the original U.S. Numbered Highway System. The 2,448-mile route once tied Chicago to Santa Monica, California, crossing eight states, including a 317-mile stretch through Missouri.

In the St. Louis region, Route 66 eventually followed Chippewa Street and Watson Road, the corridor where the 66 Park-In once stood, its neon letters visible to motorists driving west out of the city.

The new show’s title hints at its scope:

• Roads: the highway itself and the automobiles, buses and trucks that used it.
• Rooms: motels, tourist courts and roadside cabins that sprang up along the concrete.
• Reels: drive-in movie theaters and other auto-era entertainments.
• River: the Mississippi and the S.S. Admiral, connecting Route 66 travel to the region’s older transportation lifeline.

Two large models at the center of the exhibit

Two large models will anchor the exhibition. One is a 26-foot replica of the S.S. Admiral, the streamlined excursion boat that hosted generations of school trips, proms and evening cruises in St. Louis. The other is a detailed model of the 66 Park-In Theatre, the Crestwood drive-in that became a landmark along Route 66 on Watson Road.

The Admiral model was restored by Sheet Metal Workers’ Local 36, a St. Louis-based union. The museum has described the piece as one of the exhibit’s “iconic features,” highlighting both the riverboat’s role in local memory and the skilled labor that went into preserving the model.

The S.S. Admiral: from river excursions to casino, then scrap

Built in St. Louis between 1938 and 1940 using the hull of an earlier railroad transfer boat, the real S.S. Admiral was about 374 feet long and 92 feet wide, with a capacity of roughly 4,400 passengers. It was promoted as the first fully air-conditioned excursion steamer on the Mississippi River and became known as a floating ballroom, with multiple decks dedicated to dancing, dining and sightseeing.

The boat’s fortunes shifted over the decades. After serving as an excursion vessel for nearly 40 years, it was declared unseaworthy in 1979 over hull concerns. In the 1990s, following Missouri’s legalization of riverboat gambling, the Admiral found a second life as the President Casino on the Admiral, operating as a moored casino near the St. Louis riverfront. It closed in the 2000s and was dismantled around 2011, leaving only photographs, artifacts and memories.

The 66 Park-In: a postwar landmark that vanished

The 66 Park-In Theatre followed a similar arc of popularity and eventual disappearance. Opened in 1947 on Watson Road, then part of Route 66, the drive-in could hold between 800 and 1,200 cars, according to historical accounts. It quickly became part of St. Louis’ postwar car culture, with a playground for children, a large concession stand and a towering neon-lit screen structure advertising itself to passing traffic.

The Park-In was operated for most of its life by Wehrenberg Theatres, a major St. Louis theater chain. Its final season was in 1993. The screens and ramps were cleared the next year; the site today is occupied by retail.

Why the museum wants the public involved

By building the two models and asking for written recollections, the National Museum of Transportation is attempting to capture not just the physical appearance of these places but the ways people used them.

“As part of the exhibition, the Museum invites the public to participate in a special storytelling initiative titled ‘I Remember…,’” the institution said. Community members are encouraged to share personal memories of the S.S. Admiral, the 66 Park-In or “any drive-in theater ‘back in the day,’” with the understanding that selected stories may appear in the exhibit.

The museum, which sits on 42 acres in Kirkwood and holds more than 190 major exhibits, is a private nonprofit that does not receive government operating funding. Its collection includes locomotives, streetcars, automobiles and boats spanning roughly 150 years, as well as President Harry S. Truman’s private railcar and a custom-built car owned by singer Bobby Darin.

Route 66 centennial plans beyond St. Louis

The Route 66 exhibition comes as states and cultural institutions along the former highway prepare for a year of centennial observances. Congress created a Route 66 Centennial Commission in 2020 under Public Law 116-256 to “study and recommend” activities to honor the road’s 100th anniversary, including educational programs and commemorations. The commission itself does not fund projects but has recognized certain events as official centennial activities.

Other museums and venues are planning Route 66 programming in 2026, from a special exhibition at the Detroit Auto Show to shows in Oklahoma City and Santa Fe. In Missouri, Springfield — which has branded itself the “Birthplace of Route 66” — has been named host city for a national centennial kickoff event on April 30.

In that broader landscape, “Roads, River, Rooms, and Reels” is positioned as the St. Louis region’s flagship museum contribution. It also ties the national story of the “Mother Road” to specific local sites that shaped daily life: the highway-side theaters, motels and riverboats that gave motorists destinations once they left the pavement.

Because both the S.S. Admiral and the 66 Park-In exist now only in archives and personal recollection, museum staff are effectively racing time to record stories before they are lost. The “I Remember…” deadline is less than three weeks away.

For older St. Louisans, that might mean writing about a first date at the drive-in, a senior cruise on the Admiral or a childhood outing under the neon glow of Watson Road. For younger residents, it could be a secondhand account from parents or grandparents who lived those experiences.

When the exhibit opens in March, those stories may hang alongside the 26-foot riverboat and the miniature drive-in, turning a national centennial into something rooted in individual voices and local streets. As Route 66 enters its second century, the museum is betting that the most enduring artifacts of the Mother Road are not only the cars and concrete, but the people who remember where those roads once led.