Carthage’s Boots Motel hasn’t seen as much traffic in years, maybe ever, as it did during its first open house, hosted by new owners Deborah Harvey and Pricilla Bledsaw.
And residents and Route 66 travelers alike were unanimous in their cheer over the two sisters’ plans to renovate the motel and put it back in service.
“If they can make a go of it, it could be huge,” said life-long Carthaginian David Crocker, who attended the Sept. 9 and 10 open house with his wife, Debbie. “It’s going to be a boutique place. I hear about all the traffic and that could be big. We have high, high hopes. We hope it goes great and we think it will be very cool.”
“I don’t know what the potential will be but I’m glad someone is doing it,” added Debbie Crocker. “I would have liked to have done it, but I don’t know where to start. I think it’s terrific.”
A week after the open house, the sisters received the seal of approval from a man who, as a boy, watched the building be built, and knew intimately the man who built it, Arthur Boots.
“I told them that I want to be their very first customer whenever you get through and I’m only going to pay you $2.50,” said Bob Boots, 82-year-old son of Arthur Boots, who now lives in Tulsa, Okla.
Bob Boots said customers paid $2.50 a night to stay at what was, in the 1940s, a high-end motel that bragged of having a “radio in every room.”
Harvey said she already intended to reserve the first night in the first room for Boots.
“When we had the open house, we had a lot of people who said they wanted to be the first customer and I said if Bob Boots is still available, he gets to be the very first customer,” Harvey said. “You can be the one after him. Two-fifty? We probably won’t even spend it, we’ll frame it.”
Chuck and Nancy Venis, from Indianapolis, were traveling Route 66 on Sept. 9 and had heard earlier on their trip that the famous Boots might be open for visitors.
“The doors were open and it was exciting to see the place open,” Nancy Venis said. “We were excited just to go in and see it before anything was done to it, and we’ll come back in a few years and probably stay here. It’s neat to see the rooms before they start restoring them and I think it will be exciting to see them when they are done.”
