Rt 66 at Pacific Promotion Can Be A Tricky Business / But It’s Our Story to Tell

The recent board of alderman discussion about promoting the upcoming 2026 anniversary of the construction of Route 66 to aid the local economy stirred up a hornet’s nest of opinions.

But, as our current president would say, “Here’s the thing.” It is complicated matter but we can figure this out.

In one small snippet of our Route 66 story, we once had a marker on Route 66 that pinpointed the spot where the Confederate Army was stopped on Oct. 1, 1864. We  actually had the marker more than once. The original marker was bronze and it was stolen and replaced several times.

The event it was marking was a four or five hour skirmish at Pacific between the Confederate and Union Armies. General Sterling Price and a rag tag force of Confederate cavalry, artillery and foot soldiers attacked downtown Pacific in the early morning hours. They burned all the railroad property, ransacked stores, stomped one little girl’s doll to pieces and took prisoners.

They were routed when Union troops got off the train at Dozier Crossing and marched along the Old Franklin Road – later Route 66 – where they met the Confederate troops. They drove the Confederates into downtown Pacific. In front of the old mansion known as The Blue Goose on St. Louis Street, the two armies exchanged cannon fire, and the Confederates were routed. They headed west and eventually south.

Historians have not placed great significance on the events of October 1, 1864 in Pacific, preferring to focus on General Price’s foray into the larger towns Union and Washington before the Confederates were turned back south. History writers prefer to call what happened in Pacific as a skirmish. But to this reporter everybody is missing the main point.

This was the final push into northern territory that the Confederate Army made in the Civil War and Pacific was as far north as they got. They were stopped here. 

In 1932, the Shaw Gardenway Association put up the bronze plaque marking the spot where the Union and Confederate forces met on the Old Franklin Road east of Dozier Crossing (current day Route 66). The marker was stolen and replaced several time for its cash value. The last time it was stolen, there was speculation that it was stored somewhere for safekeeping. As a history buff I spent several years searching for it.

 In 2014, the Meramec Valley Genealogy Society and the Pacific Tourism Commission replaced the bronze marker with a painted metal one that was installed at the base of Jensen’s Point. We used the exact language that the Gardenway Association folks had used. And we moved the sign across Route 66 so that it faced the motorists entering Pacific. We had a nice dedication ceremony and all the folks who contributed to the project were there. This was a good spot because motorists could pull off the road into the parking lot to view it.

But one motorists took exception to the wording the Shaw Gardenway Association had used. She complained to city hall that referring to Sterling Price reaching this point seemed to make him a hero. If we were going to have a Civil War marker, she said, it should have name the Union officer who won the day.

Rather than see Pacific residents in one of those very public ‘for or against’ demonstrations that were converging on Civil War monuments across the country the City took the metal marker down. I think they stored it somewhere for later evaluation.

I have to tell you . . . I was consulted about taking the sign down and at the time I said, maybe it’s better to take it down than to have citizens picketing it or fighting over it. But I’m thinking – maybe its time to rethink the marker.

The wording doesn’t seem to be the most important thing here. It doesn’t matter whether a general is named or which general is named on the sign. The importance is the location on current U.S. Route 66 where the Confederate Army of the West was stopped and eventually pushed back south.

There were no Confederate attacks in the north after that day. And the significant spot where the rebel forces were stopped was on Pacific’s section of what was later Route 66. 

It is just one of the many things that are unique to Pacific. And, it’s our story to tell.