Cars on the Route (Kan-O-Tex Station)

The building that houses Cars on the Route was constructed in 1934 as a Kan-O-Tex filling station — a regional Kansas-based petroleum brand that operated dozens of stations across the central United States from the 1920s through the 1960s. The station's design is classic mid-1930s American filling-station architecture: a small white-painted clay-tile building with a flat canopy projecting over the pump island, a service bay door on one side, a small office and counter area, and a steeply pitched gable roof line that produced the distinctive silhouette commonly seen in period photographs of Route 66 fuel stops. The building's compact footprint — under 1,000 square feet of interior space — is typical of the era's roadside commercial architecture.

Galena in 1934 was at the tail end of its lead-and-zinc mining boom and still a substantial commercial town along the original 1926 Route 66 alignment. Main Street through Galena was the highway itself — Route 66 ran directly past the Kan-O-Tex station front door — and the station was one of perhaps a dozen filling stations operating in downtown Galena through the highway's commercial peak years. Other businesses along the same Main Street strip included motor courts, diners, dry-goods stores, hardware suppliers, and the various service businesses that supported both the Route 66 traffic and the surrounding mining and farming economy.

Like most small-town Route 66 filling stations, the Kan-O-Tex property cycled through multiple owners and uses across the mid-20th century. The Kan-O-Tex brand itself faded from the market by the 1960s, and the building operated under various other fuel-brand affiliations and independent operators through the 1970s and 1980s before eventually being abandoned as Route 66 was decommissioned and the broader Galena downtown economy contracted. By the 1990s the building was vacant and deteriorating — a typical fate for small-town Route 66 commercial buildings of the era.

The restoration of the Kan-O-Tex station began in 2007 and was driven by four Galena women — Renee Charles, Betty Courtney, Melba Rigg, and Judy Courtney — who pooled resources, sweat equity, and community fundraising to rescue the deteriorating building and reopen it as a Route 66 destination. The four women had no formal restoration training but were lifelong Galena residents who understood both the building's historical significance and the economic potential of a well-presented Route 66 stop in a town that was actively trying to rebuild its tourism economy as the broader Route 66 revival movement gained national momentum in the 2000s.

The restoration was substantial. Generally the structure was stabilized, the original clay-tile walls were cleaned and repainted in correct period colors, the pump island canopy was rebuilt to its 1934 configuration, period-appropriate gas pumps were sourced and installed for display, and the interior was refitted as a combined gift shop, small museum, and visitor-greeting space. The building was not made operational as a working gas station — the underground tanks had long since been removed for environmental reasons — but the visual presentation was returned to its 1930s and 1940s appearance with substantial historical accuracy.

The property opened to the public in 2007 as "4 Women on the Route" — a name that paid tribute to the four founders and quickly became part of the property's identity in international Route 66 travel coverage. The four women operated the property as a working partnership through the 2010s, with each contributing time in the gift shop, maintaining the building, hosting visitors, and managing the small business. The name was subsequently updated to "Cars on the Route" as ownership and operating structures evolved, but the original four-women restoration story remains the defining narrative of how the property exists today.

The most famous resident of Cars on the Route is a rusty 1951 International Harvester L-170 boom truck — a tow-truck variant with an extended boom arm at the rear and a hood-and-grille design that, viewed from the front, has an unmistakably anthropomorphic facial appearance. The truck has sat at the Kan-O-Tex property for decades; it predates the 2007 restoration and was inherited along with the building. The four women who restored the station gave the truck the affectionate nickname "Tow Tater" — a Kansas-flavored pun on "tow truck" — and parked him in a permanent position outside the station where every visitor would encounter him.

The Pixar connection generally dates to a 2001 or 2002 Route 66 research trip undertaken by director John Lasseter and members of the Pixar creative team during pre-production work on what would eventually become the 2006 feature Cars. The Pixar team drove substantial portions of historic Route 66 documenting roadside attractions, photographing iconic mid-century commercial architecture, and meeting with small-town Route 66 business operators — research that informed nearly every visual element of the eventual film. The team's stop in Galena and their encounter with the rusty International Harvester boom truck at the Kan-O-Tex property is widely reported as a direct inspiration for the design and personality of the Tow Mater character voiced by Larry the Cable Guy in the 2006 film.

Pixar has generally acknowledged the Galena visit and the truck's role in Tow Mater's design through interviews, press coverage, and Route 66 documentaries produced around the film's release. The exact degree to which any single real-world truck was "the" inspiration is — typically with creative attribution — somewhat fluid; the Tow Mater character's final design draws on multiple rusty tow trucks the Pixar team encountered. But the consensus among Route 66 historians, Pixar fans, and Galena locals is that the Tow Tater at the Kan-O-Tex station is the truck that crystalized the character concept, and Galena is correctly recognized as the spiritual hometown of Tow Mater.

The interior of Cars on the Route is small but densely packed — a single main room of perhaps 600 square feet plus a smaller back area, divided between gift shop retail, Route 66 memorabilia displays, and small museum-style interpretive panels covering the building's history and the Tow Mater connection. The gift shop merchandise spans the usual Route 66 categories — t-shirts, postcards, magnets, shot glasses, keychains, vintage-style road maps, and reproduction signage — plus a substantial selection of Cars (the Pixar film) merchandise and Galena-specific items not available elsewhere. Prices are reasonable; most small items run $5 to $20 and t-shirts are typically $20 to $30.

Memorabilia displays include period photographs of the Kan-O-Tex station from the 1930s through 1970s, vintage Route 66 highway signage, original Galena-area mining-era photographs, framed news coverage of the 2007 restoration and the 4 Women on the Route founding story, and various artifacts donated by Galena families across the years. The combined effect is informal small-town museum — not curated to the standard of a professional institution, but warm, personal, and densely informative for visitors willing to spend time reading the displays.

The staff are typically Galena locals who genuinely enjoy meeting Route 66 travelers and are knowledgeable about both the property's specific history and the broader Kansas Route 66 corridor. Most visitors find that the conversation with the staff is the most memorable part of the visit — anecdotes about the four founding women, stories about the Pixar team's research trip, recommendations for other Cherokee County stops, and the kind of small-town Kansas hospitality that has become rare elsewhere along Route 66.

The Tow Tater photo is the single mandatory Cars on the Route experience. The truck is parked permanently outside the station in a position that allows visitors to walk up to him, climb onto the running boards, pose alongside the front grille, lean against the rusted bed, and otherwise interact freely — there is no rope line, no formal photo area, and no fee. The most-shot composition places the visitor in the foreground with Tow Tater behind, the restored Kan-O-Tex station and its red gas pumps visible in the frame's middle distance.

For families with kids who know the Cars films, the encounter with the real Tow Mater inspiration is genuinely emotional — most parents report that their children's reactions when they realize the rusty truck is the real Tow Mater are among the most photographed moments of the entire Route 66 trip. Multiple generations have now grown up with the Cars films, and adult Pixar fans have similar reactions; the truck is a meaningful cultural artifact and the experience of seeing him in person carries genuine weight.

Best photography times are typically morning (the eastern sun lights the truck's face and the station front cleanly) and late afternoon (the western sun produces warm golden light on the rusted bodywork that flatters the truck's character). Midday produces harsh shadows but is still acceptable. The station's distinctive red Kan-O-Tex pumps and white tile walls produce strong color contrast in nearly any lighting condition. Cloudy days produce flatter but more evenly-lit photographs that are good for documentary detail work.

Cars on the Route is the natural first stop on any Kansas Route 66 itinerary. Most Kansas Route 66 travelers enter the state from the east via Joplin, Missouri (just 15 miles east) and reach Galena within minutes of crossing the Missouri state line. The classic plan: arrive at Cars on the Route mid-morning, spend 30-45 minutes with the gift shop, the staff conversation, and the Tow Tater photos, then walk a few blocks west to the Galena Mining & Historical Museum (open Saturday afternoons or weekday by appointment) for deeper context on the town's lead-and-zinc mining heritage.

After Galena, the natural continuation is west on the historic Route 66 alignment to Riverton (8 miles south) for a lunch stop at Nelson's Old Riverton Store — the oldest continuously operating store on Route 66, open since 1925 — and a photo stop at the Rainbow Bridge over Brush Creek. From Riverton continue south to Baxter Springs (another 7 miles) for the Heritage Center and the Cafe on the Route in the restored Crowell Bank building. The full Kansas Route 66 corridor can be experienced as a half-day tour from a Joplin or Miami, Oklahoma base.

For Pixar Cars fans specifically, Cars on the Route is also a meaningful complement to other animation-pilgrimage destinations along Route 66. Pixar visited multiple Mother Road towns during the Cars research trip, including Tucumcari, New Mexico (Blue Swallow Motel) and Holbrook, Arizona (Wigwam Motel) — each of which contributed visual elements to the fictional town of Radiator Springs in the film. The Galena stop, however, is the only one with a directly identifiable character inspiration, which is what gives Cars on the Route its unique status in the broader Cars film geography.