Cafe on the Route

The Crowell Bank building was constructed in 1876 — the height of Baxter Springs' brief but intense cowtown era — by local banker C. C. Crowell as a substantial commercial structure on Military Avenue. The building is a two-story red-brick commercial block in the Italianate style that was popular for small-town commercial buildings in the 1870s, with arched window openings, decorative brickwork along the cornice, and a substantial street-level storefront. The original Crowell Bank operated on the ground floor, with offices and meeting rooms on the second story.

Baxter Springs in 1876 was a town in transition. The peak cattle-drive years (1867 through 1872) had ended with the Kansas Texas-fever quarantine laws that pushed the drives west, and the town was beginning to shift toward the agricultural-and-railroad economy that would dominate the late 19th century. The Crowell Bank was one of several banks operating in Baxter Springs during this period, serving cattle drovers, area farmers, mining interests, and the various commercial businesses along Military Avenue. The Italianate commercial architecture of the Crowell building reflects the optimistic small-town commercial confidence of the post-Civil War period.

The building has had multiple commercial uses across the decades since 1876 — bank, mercantile store, professional offices, and various retail and service businesses. The restoration that produced today's Cafe on the Route was undertaken in stages and emphasized preservation of the original Italianate exterior and the most significant interior period features, including the original tin ceilings, the substantial bank vault that remains in the dining room as a conversation piece, and original wood flooring in the principal spaces.

The strongest reason most Route 66 travelers know about the Crowell Bank building is the persistent local tradition that Jesse James robbed the bank in the late 1870s — variously dated to 1876 (during the building's first year of operation) and to 1878. The story is part of Baxter Springs' standard town folklore, is included in most tourism material, and is commemorated in the cafe's interior with photographs, newspaper reproductions, and interpretive material about Jesse James and his gang.

What is documented historically: the James-Younger gang was active in Missouri and the surrounding states throughout the 1860s and 1870s and committed multiple bank robberies and train robberies during the period. The gang's most famous failed robbery — the Northfield, Minnesota raid — took place in September 1876, and the James brothers retreated to Missouri after that disaster. Baxter Springs is in southeast Kansas, close to the Missouri state line, and was within the geographic range of the James-Younger gang's known activities. So a Jesse James robbery at the Crowell Bank is geographically and temporally plausible.

What is less clear: contemporary newspaper accounts and bank records that would definitively confirm a Jesse James robbery at the Crowell building are not robustly documented in modern historical sources. Hedge: serious historians of the James gang generally treat the Baxter Springs robbery story as tradition rather than verified fact, while acknowledging that the geographic and temporal context make it plausible. Travelers should take the Jesse James connection as a strong local tradition with some historical plausibility rather than as definitively documented history.

Cafe on the Route's menu is classic American small-town cafe with no pretensions and reliable execution. Breakfast is served all day and is the cafe's strongest meal — eggs cooked to order, hash browns or home fries, breakfast meats (bacon, sausage, ham), pancakes, French toast, biscuits and gravy, and breakfast burritos. Breakfast pricing runs $7 to $12 for a standard plate. The biscuits and gravy is a regional favorite and is the standard recommendation for first-time visitors.

Lunch is built around burgers, sandwiches, and daily specials. The cafe's burger is hand-formed and griddled to order, served on a bakery bun with standard toppings, with optional add-ons like cheese, bacon, mushrooms, and onions. Pricing runs $9 to $14 for a burger-and-fries plate. Sandwich options include classic Reuben, club, BLT, grilled cheese, and a rotating daily-special sandwich. Soup-and-sandwich combos are a popular lunch option and run $11 to $15.

Daily specials rotate through Midwest comfort-food standards: chicken and dumplings, meatloaf, pot roast, fried chicken, baked ham, and various seasonal options. Specials run $12 to $18 and typically include a meat-and-two or meat-and-three plate with sides like mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, coleslaw, and a roll. Desserts — particularly the in-house pies — are the cafe's pride; fresh-baked pies rotate through pecan, apple, cherry, coconut cream, chocolate cream, and lemon meringue, and pie alone is worth a stop even for travelers who aren't otherwise hungry.

The dining room is the original ground-floor banking space of the 1876 Crowell Bank, restored to emphasize period features and outfitted with comfortable casual cafe seating. The original tin ceiling has been preserved across most of the dining area, the original wood flooring is largely intact, and the period brick walls have been carefully cleaned and pointed. Seating is a mix of small tables and a counter with stools along the kitchen pass; total capacity is roughly 50 to 60 seats.

The original bank vault remains in the dining room as a centerpiece conversation feature. The vault is a substantial cast-iron-and-steel structure with the original heavy round door, period dial mechanism, and interior cubby compartments that once held bank records and customer safe-deposit boxes. The vault is open for customer inspection and is one of the cafe's most-photographed features. Several photographs of Jesse James and reproductions of period newspaper accounts are displayed in and around the vault as part of the cafe's interpretive theme.

Walls throughout the dining room are decorated with period photographs of 1870s through 1920s Baxter Springs — downtown commercial scenes, cattle-drive era images, early Route 66 photographs, and family portraits donated by long-time Baxter Springs families. The overall aesthetic is unpretentious but genuinely period-appropriate, and the cafe rewards visitors who take time to look closely at the photographs and interpretive material rather than rushing through a meal.

Cafe on the Route is open Monday through Saturday from 7am to 3pm and is closed Sundays. The breakfast peak (7:30am to 9:30am) and the lunch peak (11:30am to 1:30pm) are the busiest periods; the late-morning slot between 9:30am and 11:30am is the quietest and is the best time for travelers who want to take time with the building's architecture and the interpretive material. Walk-ins are accepted; reservations are not generally required or accepted given the cafe format.

The cafe pairs naturally with the rest of the Baxter Springs Route 66 walking circuit. The standard plan: start at the Heritage Center on East Avenue for historical context (45-60 minutes), walk or drive west to the Restored Phillips 66 Gas Station (15-30 minutes), and arrive at Cafe on the Route around 11:30am or noon for an early lunch (45-60 minutes). After lunch, the city cemetery's Soldier's Lot is a 15-20 minute stop. The full Baxter Springs experience fits comfortably into a half-day visit.

For Route 66 travelers continuing south to Oklahoma (Quapaw is 5 miles south across the state line), Cafe on the Route is the natural last meal before crossing into Oklahoma. For travelers continuing north toward Riverton (Nelson's Old Riverton Store, 7 miles north) and Galena (Cars on the Route, 12 miles north), the cafe is a natural lunch anchor that breaks the Kansas stretch into morning and afternoon halves. For travelers based in Joplin, Missouri (12 miles east), the cafe is a reasonable destination-restaurant trip for an early lunch followed by an afternoon along Kansas Route 66.