Historic Riverton Route 66 Corridor

Start at the south end of the village at the Eisler Bros. Old Riverton Store, the natural anchor of any walking tour. From the porch, head north along the east side of the highway, where the original concrete sidewalk from the 1930s is still in place beneath later asphalt patches. The first two buildings you pass are residential bungalows built in the 1920s for railroad workers, both still privately owned and inhabited. Beyond them, a small white frame structure with a wooden flagpole is the Riverton Post Office, which has occupied this exact building since 1922 and is one of the oldest continuously operating post offices on Route 66 in Kansas. The post office is open weekday mornings and travelers are welcome to step inside for stamps or a postcard cancellation.

Continuing north, you will pass the Riverton Cafe on your left, the foundations of an old Phillips 66 station now used as a gravel parking area, and a cluster of small homes set back from the road behind picket fences. The volunteer fire station is on the right, a modest steel-frame building that replaced an older wooden firehouse in the 1970s. Beyond the fire station, the corridor begins to thin out and the highway curves west toward the Spring River bridge. The total walking distance from Eisler Bros. to the bridge is about three quarters of a mile, easily managed by anyone of reasonable fitness, and the sidewalks are continuous on at least one side of the road the entire way.

Cross-street side trips are worthwhile if you have extra time. Russell Avenue runs east from the highway past a 1920s schoolhouse that now serves as a community center, and a short loop will bring you back to Route 66 at the Riverton Cafe. Several small residential streets retain Depression-era housing stock that has not been modernized, and the overall feeling is of a town that paused in 1955 and never quite restarted. Bring water and sunscreen in summer, because shade is limited along the highway itself.

Pay attention to the road surface itself as you walk. The current asphalt along Highway 66 through Riverton was laid in the 1980s, but in several places you can still see traces of the original 1930s concrete underneath, particularly at the south end of town near the Eisler Bros. store. The concrete was poured in nine-foot panels with expansion joints sealed with tar, and the rectangular pattern is still visible where later asphalt has worn thin. Route 66 historians consider these stretches of exposed original pavement to be among the most significant surviving sections in the four-state region, and the Kansas Route 66 Association has lobbied for their preservation.

The utility poles along the corridor are also worth a glance. Several of the cedar poles on the east side of the highway date to the 1940s, identifiable by their square cross-arms and the ceramic insulators that once carried telephone and telegraph lines. They are some of the last working utility poles of that era on the route, though local power authorities have plans to replace them over the next decade. Photograph them while you can, because each replacement removes a small piece of the corridor's working historical fabric.

Look for ghost signs on the side walls of older buildings, where painted advertisements for products like Coca-Cola, Mail Pouch Tobacco, and Dr. Pepper have faded into the brick but remain visible in raking light. The best ghost sign in town is on the south wall of a small commercial building two blocks north of Eisler Bros., advertising a long-defunct local grocery from the 1930s. Bring a polarizing filter for your camera if you want to capture the ghost signs clearly, as they tend to wash out in direct overhead sun.

Riverton remains a working community rather than a tourist town, which is part of its charm. The population today is roughly 590, most of whom commute to jobs in Pittsburg, Joplin, or the regional hospitals. The school-age children attend Riverton Schools, a district known regionally for strong academics and a competitive football program. There is one church, one post office, one cafe, one general store, one volunteer fire department, and a community park with a baseball diamond used for Little League games on summer evenings.

Tourism is a meaningful but secondary part of the local economy. Eisler Bros. estimates that 60 percent of its annual revenue comes from Route 66 travelers, but most of the rest of the town's economic activity is local, which keeps the corridor from feeling staged or commercialized. Travelers report that the friendliness of residents is one of the highlights of their Kansas Route 66 experience, with stories of impromptu conversations on porches, free directions from passing pickup trucks, and the occasional invitation to community events like the annual Route 66 car show held each June.

The town does not have a hotel, motel, or formal campground, which means most travelers stop in Riverton for an hour or two during the day and then continue to Baxter Springs, Joplin, or Pittsburg for overnight accommodation. A few private vacation rentals have opened in recent years, listed on Airbnb and VRBO, and these provide a quieter alternative for travelers who want to wake up on the corridor itself. Cell service is reliable for AT&T and Verizon, less so for smaller carriers, and free Wi-Fi is available inside Eisler Bros. and the Riverton Cafe for anyone needing to check in.