route 66 Photography

Galena Kansas Route 66 Photography

Galena was founded with the discovery of lead there in the spring of 1877. The first post office was established in 1877. Galena is named after the lead ore galena found in the area. The city was part of the tri state mining area and had over 30,000 inhabitants. After the mines closed in the 1970s, population decreased.

Galina is the first town  on Kansas Route 66 which is only 13 miles long, but contains a lot of Route 66 nostalgia.  Galina is home to a restored 1934 Kan-O-Tex Service Station previously known as “4 Women on the Route” and recently renamed to “Cars on the Route” and is home to the 1951 International Harvester boom truck that was the inspiration for the character “Mater” in Pixar’s animated movie Cars.

Although many of Galena’s fine old buildings are boarded up, walking the silent streets of this once-booming mining town offers a glimpse into a grand past.  East Galena’s historic business district was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

The Litch Historical and Mining Museum, named for the town’s local historian and beloved citizen Howard “Pappy” Litch, is housed in the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas Lines train depot (MKT), acquired in 1983 and donated to the museum and historical society. The museum contains items of local history and numerous artifacts from the days of lead and zinc mining operations in southeast Kansas. Another point of interest named after Mr. Litch is the Howard “Pappy” Litch Memorial Park on Main Street, which was at one time a Federal weigh station on Route 66.

Galena Kansas Route 66 Photo Gallery

 


 

 

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Kansas Route 66  Photo Galleries

My name is Greg Disch and I am a freelance photographer with a passion for taking photos of Route 66. I have been photographing Route 66 for the past several years and have accumulated one of the largest collections of contemporary Route 66 photography.  My images are all available online for immediate sale and download or may be ordered as photographic prints. If you need photos from Route 66, or just want to take a virtual tour of the “Mother Road” you can travel from town to town using the interactive map or search by subject.

Interactive Google Map

Use the map + – controls to zoom in and out, use the Map drop-down to change to “Map”, “Satellite”, “Hybrid”, or “Terrain” views. Drag the little man icon from the upper left corner to a map location for street level view. Click on a pushpin for more information about the Photographic Destination, then click on the title to go to the location page.