Basketville on Route 66

Route 66 was fully paved across Missouri by 1931. Its completion provided Missourians with new opportunities for travel and commerce, and the growing volume of traffic along the highway created a demand for businesses such as gas and service stations, cafés, groceries, and lodging, which quickly began to thrive along the road. To stand out among the competition, some businesses began to specialize in souvenirs, foods, recreational activities, or other attractions that made them unique among the many up-and-coming roadside establishments. 

In Missouri, basket wares became one of the more memorable souvenir stops along early Route 66. Basket weaving was a sought-after skill in the Ozarks. Baskets and other wood items were easily produced locally, most commonly from Missouri white oak trees, which were plentiful and readily available. They were also easy to sell in local family-owned businesses. Baskets blended practicality, beauty, and rustic charm into a sought-after “Ozark Hillbilly” souvenir, particularly on the eight-mile stretch of highway between Clementine and Hooker, Missouri.

The basket weavers at Clementine, on the western edge of Phelps County, and Hooker, on the eastern edge of Pulaski County, situated their businesses just off the original path of Route 66. They displayed their wares inside and outside their shops, in roadside pop-up stalls, along the road near their homes, and at other local businesses. Their products gave the area a distinctive identity, and the roadside through the two towns came to be known as “Basketville.” The nickname caught the attention of the highway’s promoters. Within a few years, Basketville was being touted in travel literature such as the New Deal Works Progress Administration’s Route 66 tourist guide as a must-see attraction when traveling along the route. Baskets were so popular and profitable that they helped boost the local economy, even during the Great Depression. 

Many artisans ran successful cottage industries in Basketville, supplying well-made baskets to tourists, local vendors, and regional wholesalers. One of the most notable operations was run by William and Henry Childers, a father-son duo of craftsmen living at Clementine. The demand for their baskets became so high that the Childers family created a basket “factory” to support their growing business. Factory work included at least one person pulling “withes,” the thin strips of wood used to weave baskets; one person turning chair legs; and at least two weaving baskets, footrest tops, and chair bottoms. The factory produced baskets of all sizes as well as items such as foot stools, chairs, and baby cradles. The Childers had a storefront called Artful Woodwork, which became the largest business of its kind in the area. 

Clarence and Raymond Wells, along with their wives, Ruth and Alice, similarly operated a basket-making “factory” in their front yard that supplied local businesses, regional wholesalers, and the family store, known first as Wells Station and later as Sterling’s Hillbilly Store. The Wells brothers offered more than thirty-eight different types of baskets, including waste baskets, clothes hampers, and laundry baskets, and also took special orders. They filled an order for three thousand small baskets for a nationally based towel company, which sold them with washcloths inside as souvenirs at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.  George Miller, another well-known craftsman who most likely learned the trade from William Childers, produced baskets on a smaller scale, made to order, though he supplied to local businesses if he had a surplus. New York native Carl Becker, who moved to Missouri in 1938, went into the basket wholesale business, supplying area merchants with baskets for their souvenir shops.

In the 1950s, road improvements transformed sections of Route 66 that had been a winding two-lane road into a straighter four-lane thoroughfare. The new road bypassed Clementine altogether and divided the east- and west-bound traffic through the Hooker portions of Basketville. Many businesses cut off by the reconfigured route moved to be closer to the flow of highway travelers, but the increased traffic speeds on the improved road meant that drivers were less likely to stop. Though some of the roadside tourist and souvenir industry lasted well into the 1970s in Hooker, there was a marked decline after I-44, which essentially replaced Route 66, was completed in 1966. A creation of the American highway, Basketville was ultimately a victim of it as well.